Why I only work remotely | Hacker News Reader

Why I only work remotely

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95 pointscharlieirish44 comments

Previous discussion (from 6 days ago): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13230508

The most damning condemnation of the open office is its exclusively for trendy paid corporate work. Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a singles bar. No open source guidelines book ever claimed open source software can't be written unless the author sits at a table in the middle of a wild day care center. No one teaching themselves anything ever heard they'll never learn in a quiet room, they need to try and learn at a Katy Perry concert.

Another topic often missed is megacorporations work remotely all the time. In fact I've never met most of the people I work with because they live all over the country, and I work with hardware all over the country, in fact I'm working on a (private) cloud image later today and I'm not even sure what state its physically located in. If the corporation says you're going to work remotely because that outside contractor is 1000 miles away or that director lives 1000 miles the other way, its obviously inherently correct because the corporation said it. But if a mere human being says something similar about his work environment, its obviously wrong because only corporations can be correct. If my boss says she's going to be 100 miles away thats great, if I say my boss is going to be 100 miles away thats inherently evil and must be suppressed.

You could say that a library on a college campus is sort of like an open office. At least my university's library did have several large, open rooms with lots of desks. But, lo and behold, there's a huge emphasis on being quiet, and you can even be asked to leave if you don't cooperate.

Also, my school's library wasn't just an open layout. There were tons of desks in little alcoves and hidden corners all throughout the multi-story building. There were also lots of completely enclosed, private rooms that you could rent for hours on end if you needed lots of verbal collaboration.

Very rarely (basically never) have I seen an open office that was as well-designed as that library was with the same emphasis on quietness in the open portion of the office.

And all the propaganda about open offices claims transparent collaboration, so you can either run the OO like a silent library and gain no advantage from it because you've virtualized the remote experience and centralized it, or run it like a frat house party in which case no one will accomplish anything other than great piles of transparent collaboration, which won't pay the bills.

At the time I attended, my college's library had been recently remodeled to provide a bunch of "open" study-/work-space. They were very proud of this, and it was part of a campus mindset of "collaboration is the future."

In retrospect, this ended up being quite damaging for me. I spent a lot of effort trying to "adapt" myself to those workspaces and that working style. Often when a setting/assignment left me no other choice.

This made me very worried about myself and my future, because -- try as I might -- I just couldn't do it.

On the other hand, and at the same time, give me a quiet, undisturbed workspace, and I'd blow the curve. Literally -- I had professors tell me that I was getting 105%, 112%, whatever, in what were considered to be very demanding classes.

This "open" mindset was prevalent everywhere, and -- like "Java is the future" -- permeated not just workplace but also educational institutions and even popular culture.

In short, in academia just as much as in the work world, I found lots of authority figures and institutions dictating to me how I was "supposed to be." And a lot of that came out of current trends -- as bad as this year's "mind the gap" corporate best seller self-help book.

The counter-culture "revolution" of the '60's and '70's did get one thing right, with their moniker of "The Man."

You can't just escape The Man. But it is healthy to take his advice with skepticism and to find your own way. Something that e.g. a liberal education purports to teach you. (But too often doesn't -- especially not in terms of your actual day-to-day life, by example, while under its tutelage.)

The Man is always going to tell you "how it is, how it's going to be". It's up to you to say no, and to stand by that. If someone teaches you this, early on, thank them -- once you realize it.

Work the way that works for you. While you're still young and "footloose" and have the ability, walk away from situations that oppose this.

I remember, during one aspect of my corporate career, during a 5 minute conversation and description of a tool, making a consultant's life quite considerably easier and more productive. A tool they, by virtue of their... frankly, social position and respect granted by the institution -- a tool they had budget for, while I did not.

Management was very happy with them, while I continued to get by on the whatever % increases were handed down from on high.

I should have been on the other side of that equation. Effectively, I introduced the tool. I should have reaped the consultant's reward and respect.

But I'd been too well taught to struggle within the ill-fitting system that is "how it is." To the point where I was trapped by my own thinking and emotion.

Work remotely, if it's what works for you. Before you can't.

> Nobody ever told a student to work on a term paper at a singles bar.

Counterexample: In college I did most of my work in our library, which was of course an open layout.

Libraries have slightly different rules to the average open plan office: in particular, there's a fairly strong expectation of silence and if you can hear people talking in the distance, it's relatively unlikely that the conversation directly affects your project -- so less of an urge to tune in.

There are often (although, I know, not always) some kind of alcoves to hide if you don't like open-back visibility, too.

(Some of the "positive" reports I've heard about open offices at, e.g., Facebook make it sound like they come with expectations of quiet that are as strong as a typical library. ...)

Counter counter example: my college had a library and it was hardly open layout. It was a giant maze of rooms.

With the exception of the entrance the only libraries I can think of that are sort of open are ironically old famous ones and even those have pockets of rooms.

The stacked shelves basically create rooms. It would be like calling cubicles open layout.

Personally I always just used my apartment (dual monitors, good chair) and found the attraction to the library strange, but... presumably people treated it like... a library? There were no dogs running around. No one played music. No one held conversations or borderline meetings over your head? No one played the drums on their desk or hummed along with their music? If these rules were violated, I assume you'd get kicked out, although no one did, because that's how you behave in a library.My library did have study rooms that you could go into for your study groups, etc.

These are not things that you can expect in an open office. If people treated them like libraries, and the offenders were kicked out (fired, I guess?), they'd be a lot more tolerable.

Also, stacks kill sound. I can hear people running a coffee grinder in the kitchen (dude, just sleep more!).

Great you've proven the problem is not the physical arrangement but the noise level. You think you are providing a counter argument, but you are not, you are helping support the main idea that open layout does NOT help productivity BECAUSE of the noise level, as the primary reason. Of course it's a bit uncomfortable for most to be bumping elbows with others, and having the constant 'motion' of things going on in your peripheral vision, and zero privacy, but the biggest hindrance of open layout is noise, which is precisely why in libraries you are not allowed to make noise, and even talking at a normal level is (and should be) considered too much noise. Using the library example is the perfect analogy to help teach dumb employers how their open layout sucks big time. And as another post on here already said the REAL reason employers do it is to save on their burn rate by packing as many humans into as small a sardine can as possible, just like the airlines make millions by shrinking your legroom by a millimeter.

Regarding corporations working remotely, you are correct, but only considering one definition of "remotely".

In the context of this article, working "remotely" means that an individual is working remotely from all other individuals in an organization. This is different from one team working remotely from other teams.

I am a huge proponent of individual remote work. Having done it for many years and experiencing it from both sides, I can confidently say that the challenges involved are different from a corporate office that is physically separate from other offices.

At "megacorp" every other team I work with is remote to me. You do correctly make the point that I personally spend more time working with numerous other teams than with my own team, and that ratio likely varies a lot. There are likely jobs where members never talk to anyone outside their local team. That must be pretty boring, but it almost certainly exists. No one seems concerned that virtually all my working interactions are with "far away teams". Probably because it works very well and comes from top down directives not bottom up.

I suspect that often, the real purpose of open office is just reduced square footage costs.

I've also seen the far end of open office (no assigned spaces, first-come / first served) used to mask the effect of constant layoffs. If people are spread around randomly, missing clusters aren't as easily noticed.

An article with sources!!! Love it.

I have been remote for about 7 years now. Was in the office for 2 weeks when I moved for new hire training, that is it. Entertained a few positions at other companies that paid about the same but wanted me to drive 10-15 miles one way (about 30-45 minutes due to rush hour). No thanks! Surprised author did not say anything about that lost productivity, not to mention I have always viewed driving to/from work as a business expense yet Big Corp doesn't agree.

Glad author talked about how some people like the office, some people are good at it, while others are best at home. Just like everything else, everyone is different.

I will view the rest of my career as successful if:

1) I don't have to go to an office everyday

2) I never have to be on-call

I agree with much of what the author says, but think it's worth mentioning:

1. There are people who work better in an office than at home, I am one of them, my home is a place to relax and not think about work, and my workplace is a place to concentrate and not relax, the boundary helps me keep the right work life balance.

2. Open offices can be good. We have an open office for space reasons (not enough space to have cubicles or separate rooms), but design it for software engineers so it's very quiet for the majority of the time.

Keeping an open office quiet is certainly helpful, but for some people it's visibility rather than noise that's the biggest impediment to concentration. If you have to do it then maximizing the number of "back to a wall" desks and ensuring that there are reasonable partitions if you've got back-to-back workstations helps somewhat, but it's never going to be a friendly environment for those who don't like to be overlooked while concentrating.

I agree with your first point, however I'd still argue that (for my job) it's a waste of money to even have an office. I much prefer going to an office, however the overhead cost simply doesn't make sense, even if it's what I prefer.

Why is it good to make them sit in a quiet library as long as its a silent quiet library not of their choice?

Cost of space is penny wise and pound foolish. If you're paying $200K all up with bennies vs the dev is generating maybe $1M of revenue, if a better working environment makes them 1% more productive or 1% less unproductive, that means it makes sense financially as long as it costs less than $1K/month for the extra space. Treating employees better than prisoners or factory farmed meat is more expensive, but not $1K/month/employee expensive.

Its like "saving money" by giving employees flipped over 5 gallon buckets to sit on instead of chairs, or forcing them to use 00s decade laptops instead of new ones. Or an even better analogy is its like saving on labor costs by hiring the absolute bottom of the barrel instead of the top rockstars. If you thought you were saving money by providing an inadequate work environment, wait until you're saving money by hiring people who can't fizzbuzz or even helloworld. You'll really be rolling in the savings then.

> my home is a place to relax and not think about work, and my workplace is a place to concentrate and not relax, the boundary helps me keep the right work life balance

You know I had this same opinion in 2009 when I was offered a position to work from home. It was such a strange thing to think about, working at home. I wasn't fond of my then current job. Was engaged to be married. We talked it over and I decided to take it. Seven years later, I don't want to ever go back to working in an office.

I learned to keep my set hours, and stay away from my work after hours. I now have kids which helps keeping away from my desk. At the end of my day I quit every single work related application, so if I go back to the computer to do my own thing it's a blank slate.

Not going to lie, it took a while to shake that "I'm always at work" feeling for the first few months. It still comes around, but very rare. Going in the backyard to play with the dogs, swing the kid, or grabbing some lunch once a week all helped with "escaping" and gaining a sense of normalcy.

After reading the article, one word comes in mind: flexibility. It's really about you and your employer/fellow employees coming together to find out what works and what doesn't. Everyone is different and everyone has different needs.

The author talks a lot of "I". "I am this...", "I cannot this..." etc. While these articles are interesting, I would love to hear the counter-side.

Is the overall efficiency of the team lacking because some people are full-time remotely? How do the people who go to the office feel about working with the remote engineers?

author here: totally agree with flexibility, that's really what I'm advocating. That being said, I'm speaking (publicly) about a change I've decided to make in my career (only working remotely) and the reasons I came to that conclusion.

I am definitely not advocating everyone be forced to work remotely. I just think people should have the freedom to work the way they see best for themselves and organizations should be open minded about that.

Reminds me of this Kunth quote about why he stopped checking email... "Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration."

    http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/email.html

Open offices (loud, busy, chaotic) should be used for people who need to be on-top of things. They are not for developers or IT/Network technologists who need time to think, solve problems and collaborate quietly.

My home office has a $3000 computer, $600 chair, high end keyboard and mouse, a huge 4k screen. My office temperature is at the optimal for my body and my setup is positioned according to the sun coming in the window.

At work it usually* is a $600 computer, a $60 chair, low end dirty keyboard and mouse, small low quality screen. The office is cold, I have glare in my screens... and I share a room with 60 persons.

It's hilarious how my personal setup outclass my professional one.

* I am lucky enough to have found an employer which value his employees and that's not the case right now for me.

By the way, when exactly did this hate for open offices started? I remember everyone hating on cubicles and preaching open offices, now it flipped back?

I don't think it flipped 'back', as much as it's flipping towards the middle? I say this working in an office with 4 desks, which to me is just as fine as working from home.

About a thousand people work this way in this building.

I feel like it's the natural thing that happens, open offices are being pushed so a lot of people will push back. I think the thing that people don't realize is that there is not a single fit solution for how an office should be, unless that solution is flexibility. Some type of middle ground where you have your own work space but also spaces for collaboration. Also forcing all people to telework or not telework isn't the answer, but like myself I want that option. If I have to drag myself to work five days a week my productivity can take a hit. However I'm excited when I get to work from home because I just have to toss on some clothes and go into my office. Not all people like to work from home, but I would rather ditch the distractions that are inevitable in any work place.

Maybe it's because I came to the party late (started professionally in 2007) but I've never heard anyone preaching or praising open offices. It's either been a neutral "I dunno this is just how we do it" or an annoyed "man I really wish I could have some peace and quiet to concentrate."

When people started working in them. Cubicles are arguably worse and people aren't promoting cubicles when they criticize open offices.

To be fair, cubicles were also dehumanizing, the whole rat maze thing. After several decades of cubicle life I think workplace engineers were desperate to try anything.

So we tried open spaces, and they were possibly more terrible (I like them but I'm weird). But proper offices are expensive, so.

Joel Spolsky took offices pretty seriously, I recall this bit: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2003/09/24/bionic-office/

Cubes versus open amounts to the same thing. Neither promotes deep work.

http://calnewport.com/blog/

We need to aknowledge that jobs come in at least two flavors: deep work and interrupt driven. Software engineering is deep work. Operations is interrupt driven. Don't expect the same environment to be optimal for both.

"I remember everyone hating on cubicles"

I don't remember anyone complaining other than people who previously held even more luxurious offices. And I lived (and worked) thru the cubicle era. Still in one today, love it, not as nice as an office with a door, but it beats open offices.

God, I wish I had a cubicle.

IMO the best office are old houses even if it is not remote.

I'm from New England and I hate "open concept" design.

I like cozy pockets, wood floors, oriental rugs, steam heating, and in general old designs.

I like mazes of interconnecting rooms with low yellow light coming out of sconces.

None of this overhead white sunlight crap.

Despite that I prefer the new bamboo floor open offices any day to the office-space-ugly-color-wall-to-wall-carpet-florescent-overhead-cubicle-fest of yesteryear.

Lighting actually makes a very significant difference in my opinion. I absolutely hate overhead fluorescent lighting, and really most forms of direct lighting. Actual daylight from outside is okay, as is soft lighting reflected from walls/ceiling. At work we have never turned on the overhead lights, just used floor and desk lamps.

It seems like many of the people planning offices don't even consider lighting.. they just by default put in a drop ceiling with 4x2 flourescent light banks. It's not like it even costs much more to do, well, nearly anything else and it makes a significant improvement to the office environment.

Totally agree. Just to clarify when I was referring to sunlight I meant the crappy overhead lights that try to "imitate" sunlight and not the actual sunlight.

However while I generally like sunlight I find it a little too variable for my liking particularly if your region has seasons. On a cloudy winter day in New England sunlight can have a white dreary look that is sort of depressing.

Yes. I want a (standing) desk next to a window that actually opens, like I have at home. When it's ~70 degrees with a gentle breeze outside (as it is today), being forced to breathe the recycled air of the office building's HVAC system is torture.

I sit inside a large cube farm in an office building all day, breathing recycled air and having the life-force drained from my body via overhead fluorescent lighting. It's not unusual for me to feel mildly ill after a few hours at my desk -- and to feel instantly better as soon as I emerge from the building at the end of the day (and in this particular facility, stepping outside frequently is not practicable (at my previous job I could at least go for a walk during lunch)).

I spent about 2 years trying to get a work-from-home job (countless interviews, etc.) but no luck. I live a few blocks from the beach and I fantasize about small things, like being able to step outside for 5 minutes to clear my head and enjoy the sea breeze, or stepping into my kitchen to get a cup of coffee (because I refuse to join the office 'coffee club' which costs money -- hell, we also have a pay-to-play 'water club' if you want to enjoy filtered water from the water cooler -- eff you, I'll drink the room-temperature tap water before I submit to that crap). But alas, it is not to be.

I don't remember preaching for open offices - it is just the modern/hipster (and of course much cheaper, even cheaper than cubicles) way to easily "store" your employees.

The ideal was always to use private offices or small offices housing up to 4 persons closely working together.

IIRC there's a chapter on that on peopleware and the following article by joel describes the issues pretty good: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/07/30/private-offices-re...

TL;DR developers need private, quite offices to be productive in their primary work (write code).

two Joel links in 5 minutes so you know he's on to something

Between cubes and open office, I'd still rather open office, if it's a properly designed one with sufficient space. If it's packing the maximum amount of people possible into a given square footage, open office can probably be even worse than cubes. http://cf.jare.io/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yegor256.com%2Fimages%...

Neither is great.

Exactly this. I've been doing this for over a decade now for all the same reasons.

When I chose to work 'on the internet' back in about '94, I did it so I could work for "anyone, anywhere, anywhen".

I've also done my fair share of open plan offices and they're just far too distracting.

Gaining your employer's trust is the main thing. And you can do that simply by getting the job done on time - or sooner. Also, they can see your commits, if you use Gitlab or similar, so it's clear you're being productive, whatever the hour or location.

I work from home now and love it. I'm not saying I won't ever go back to an office, but I absolutely never will work in open office again.

I've found that the best argument for working remotely is simple: "because I can."

If you're stuck in an open-office situation, investing in a good pair of wireless noise-cancelling headphones like the Sennheiser Momentum 2 or equivalent might help cut out all the 'collaboration'-related noise so that you can actually get some work done.

You don't have to listen to music or whatever - just turn them on for the noise-cancelling functionality.

Disclaimer: Only splitting hairs here with my bare hand. But, as far as broken semantic concepts go, “the least optimal” is somewhat entertaining. Two opposite superlatives plugged together — is the sum total of that supposed to be “mediocre”? Otherwise, “the worst” would have been much clearer.

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