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Comment by jypepin | Hacker News Reader

I think the main issue is that if the company is not 100% committed to remote work, the extra effort it takes to have everything documented and written will probably not happen, and the remote part will not be successful. So it seems like it's just easier to make remote successful if everyone is remote. Kind of like quitting smoking cold turkey vs saying "I'll start by smoking less".

I've been remote on a non-remote team, and I definitely felt all the cons of remote much more than on a full remote team, because well, that's when you actually end up isolated. Everybody is having face to face communication, building stronger relationship, meanwhile you kind of get forgotten because you are not present.

If everyone is remote, then everyone is in the same situation and there is a better balance.

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+1 to this.

I've been working as a remote contractor while whole team was on site (to make things more difficult, on different continent and different timezone - Europe vs US). I think I'll never do it again (working remotely while the rest of the team is onsite).

Now I work with a fully remote team, and it's great ;)

Glad to hear this! I've been in the same boat and will never again join a local team as a remote member. I love to work from home and be alone, but that was too much, really.

Now, I do really like remote work because of the freedom it offers and always thought if I ever get another job, it should be remote. Glad to hear you say that fully remote works well while you had the same troubles as me on a non-fully remote team!

Exactly, from what I have seen gitlab seems to have this figured out very well. From what I remember they have slack groups and video calls where employees can have casual talk about non work things so they can get to know each other better. I can't see this happening at my company if one person went remote. The most I can see happening is someone doing remote once a week so they catch up on the rest of the days and spend one day focused alone.

That's right. GitLab has Group Conversations [1] every day at the time when West Coast and Europe overlap. The most-wanted hours in the company to organize meetings are dedicated to talking about different areas of the company and learning how they're performing. We also do a Company Call [2] every day, which comprises about five minutes of announcements and 25 minutes of people chatting.

Our Coffee Break Calls encourage team members to spend several hours a week socializing and building a relationship that's separate from work. Since working remotely can also lead to team members never meeting in person, we have a visiting grant [3] to cover transportation costs, and every nine months, the entire team gets together for the GitLab Contribute (ex Summit) [4]. The next Contribute happens in less than a 10 days and I can't wait for it!

[1] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/group-co...

[2] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#company-cal...

[3] - https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/incentives/#visiting-grant

[4] - https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/contribute/

I am sorry for the long list of links, just wanted to share as much as possible so people are aware of what the regular week at GitLab looks like :)

(I am working for GitLab btw)

At my previous job, I worked 3 days in, 2 days out, as the only remote person on the floor. I didn't have any project-related problems because of that, and while we already used in-room group chat for some percentage of conversations (both work and non-work), this was never 100%, so I felt incredibly out-of-the-loop on office banter. Not the worst thing in life, but it made me feel a bit like an outsider. Now I'm contracting and collaborating with other remote people, so things are much better.

The company I work for just updated their policy to allow each team to pick their own schedules. I'm currently working 3 days in the office and 2 at home. It's been great so far and allows for the best of both worlds. I get the distracted office banter and face-to-face relationships as well as focused productivity at home. I'm really into it.

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