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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

That's really interesting. My feelings are exactly the opposite. Chats with coworkers are a "/zoom meeting" command away. Everyone's name shows up on the screen so I don't awkwardly forget them. My desk setup is exactly how I like it. I can listen to whatever music I want to all day. I can do chores to get away from the screen for a few minutes. No lines at the bathroom.

I don't think I could ever work at a non-fully-remote company again. There are challenges, and you have to force yourself to socialize at all, but it's working for me. I always enjoyed working in the office (was never really bothered by noise, I can focus through it), but remote is much better. The time that you get back by not commuting and the ability to start work without being "fully ready" is great. (I have an incremental morning routine now, rather than rushing to shower, eat, caffeinate before sitting bored on a train for a half hour.)

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Yeah it’s a lot more convenient, but the parent was talking about their passion for the field. I think most people would agree on convenience.

It probably depends on what makes you passionate about a field. Some people value the conferences and getting to discuss fun topics.

Others like myself want to disappear into a dark room and code for hours on end.

I mean, that's cool, but somewhere, at some stage, people must get together to help you decide what to work on?

I understand your comment and see the sense in it, but it made me wonder about decomposing the clauses to see what it means if it gets broken apart (excusing myself for over analyzing what is a simple statement)

>somewhere, at some stage

Well - why not on a video conference? And what stage(s) really require this? Most folks know what they are supposed to do / need to do to make things work - those that don't are in need of supervision / mentoring.

>people must get together to help you decide what to work on?

I misread this initially as "decide what you should work on" but I still think that there's not enough emphasis on the "we" part - in that really I see these decisions as being about co-ordination and helping everyone else out as much as anything else.

Because:

Others like myself want to disappear into a dark room and code for hours on end.

Is the antithesis of working out business requirements / design etc so you have something to code?

I find the coding part of my job is about 5-10% of the actual job, mostly, it's working out what needs to be done, how I might go about it, and how to manage complexity.

It's rare that can be all done without input from others. I don't think I'd get very far if I just coded in a dark room for hours on end.

It's the old adage "you can go faster alone but you go further together"

We hear about how people are now working much faster due to remote. Which is not surprising. But it's not really clear if that will yield to things going much further.

A lot of it probably depends on how your team is structured. I have a product manager for working out what is to be done and managing complexity.

The technical side of what needs to be done is something I solve alone. The business side is just told to me.

Oh certainly, but that is not the part of the job I value. If that is relegated to a board instead of a sprint planning meeting, I am perfectly happy.

Others enjoy that part the most and treat the individual work as merely a necessary task.

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