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Comment by ygjb | Hacker News Reader

Here are some: communication, loneliness, isolation, timezones, discipline

It's really great that working remotely (anecdotally) works well for your team. It also doesn't work well for some folks. Like any other approach to business, YMMV, but discounting the disadvantages that have been enumerated for you is explicitly ignoring the fact that some people, including those who are top performing employees in their fields, prefer not to work remotely.

It's best to make the decision and your own recommendations acknowledging there are trade offs, no?

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> Here are some: communication, loneliness, isolation, timezones, discipline

Some these can be both! I have been working remote since 2008 and our entire team went remote in 2013

Communication: We are much more streamlined. No more "hallway talk" that doesnt get recorded or followed up on etc. No more "did you get my email?" kinda crap. Much less (I won't say no more!) impromptu meetings gathering way more people than needed in the office that could have been resolved in a simple email

Isolation: I'm going to assume this is different than "loneliness"? I like isolation to work on hard problems, or just be super productive. We still video conf, phone, and chat, but outside of that all the coders love their isolation time

Timezones: This is definitely a challenge at times, but the boss man loves knowing someone is awake somewhere in the world should servers catch on fire.

Discipline: Is the person who doesn't do work at home the same one that would be checking their fantasy sports or hn/reddit/facebook at work? I guess if you were in an open office and everyone could see what you are doing 100% of the time you'd be "forced to work" but do you want that on your team anyways? You know that BS line in most job postings about "self motivated" it could actually apply for remote :)

loneliness: I can definitely see this for some people I've worked with in the past, there is no advantage to being lonely. I would say use your added free time of no commute to go out in the world and do something fun. Sometimes its great to not be around work people and not talk about work

You have a point. If someone does not enjoy remote work, then they should not get a remote job.

I'm not a very good country music singer. When I sing country music, I feel shame, discomfort, and general depression. Therefore, I don't sing country music.

As a remote worker you can sing it loud and proud.

I didn't want to rub it in.

Ok, so your company only hires country singers? You are missing out on amazing, qualified candidates that don't sing country music.

Even if you are having a successful time hiring great people that are happy remote, how are you going to retain them? A remote software job is much closer to a commodity than a traditional software job. (I read the 37signals book and built a remote team over 5 years; in the end the difficulty finding people that are truly happy remote meant retention was difficult and, overall recruiting and cost of living considered, a remote team was, for me, a net wash).

Edit: after thinking more, it's even worse; you don't know if most applicants can really be happy singing country music for a year, 2 years, or longer... Even those that seem to really value and are excited about the prospect of singing country music may learn before too long that it's not for them.

> A remote software job is much closer to a commodity than a traditional software job

In the current climate all software [engineering] jobs are commodities from an employee viewpoint.

True. But until we start to see the proportion of remote jobs to all jobs decline, remote is just as easily available as traditional, but lacking the physical and social stickiness that distinguishes traditional jobs and facilitates retention; remote is "closer to a commodity".

I guess that's true. But my inner cynic thinks that (ab)using people's herd instincts like that to "facilitate retention" cheapens traditional jobs. I would rather work remotely and have a meaningful social life, than work in an office and have a social life that my employer engineers to make me less likely to leave for a better job.

As an introvert, there is only so much social interaction I can take in a day. The office burns through most of it.

I agree with you. I need to be more nuanced and less cold in my language. The reality is, I prefer going to an office and seeing my coworkers; fortunately this is well-aligned with the retention interests of my company.

As I said, I'm probably just too cynical, and seeing things through the fact that I don't like going to an office.

I agree that when it comes to team productivity rather than personal productivity, offices do work better. Especially when people of varying skill levels are involved.

I was with you even though I've not used most of the tools you mentioned which must have been first released in the past 6 months for the hipsters. Why describe country music using terms like "discomfort", "shame" and "depression"? I can't think of any music that should make anyone feel that way. It almost seems to suggest a narrative, if you don't know what the new group of hot new tools are that were released yesterday, "Speech", "Slacker" (is that Slacker radio or Slack Linux?) and you like country music; don't bother to work for us. I'm guessing it also means if you're older than 25 no need to apply.

Not sure what you're suggesting.

We're all over 30.

I agree with you in general, I like my working remote, but it's the other guys working remote that I don't like. ;-)

Managing a distributed workforce, definitely has challenges. From what I have seen, onboarding new employees can be particularly awkward. It may be different in hip, new startups, but in my experience with less fashionable, old school organizations, it makes accountability, knowledge-sharing and organizational-political navigation more challenging.

Of course there are trade offs, and it works for some people, but not others. This is why if you intend to build a remote team, you hire people who can thrive in a distributed organization. You also provide the tools to make it work.

I've been working for a 100% remote company for 3 years now. It was an adjustment. But everyone who was here before me gave me advice to do well in this environment. And everyone who was hired after me got the same support and guidance. We also all get together on occasion, and when we do, we brainstorm how to do things better.

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