David Heinemeier Hansson: Every Employee Should Work From Home

None of those are valid criticisms of the idea being discussed. We say 'work from home' as shorthand. It doesn't literally mean YOU MUST WORK AT YOUR DOMICILE AND NOWHERE ELSE.

It means you can work anywhere you can make arrangements to work.

That is a huge difference.

I have worked from home for years and slowly the urge to do some work crept into every situation in my private life. I started to constantly felt guilty when not at my desk working and "home" wasnt a place to relax anymore.

I feel much better now with a desk in a Coworking space, where i am not all alone and can talk to other engineers if i want to and when i leave in the evening its much easier to relax at home. I do occasionally work from home when i feel like it or on the weekends, but as its opt-in it feels totally different.

YMMV of course, but imo there are also serious downsides.

It chimes with a flow of history I think we are seeing - that source code literacy is roughly equivalent to read and writing literacy, and we have already seen Gutenberg invent the printing press (Www).

Now we are seeing what Europe saw from 1451-1590 - what happens when you go from 2% literacy rates to 20%+. Just imagine the advantages a company in 1500 enjoyed if its top staff were literate, and engaged with all the other literate employees in the industry. How many competitive advantages could it take to make up for that single one?

We are lucky members of that 2 % and should not see it as a permanent elite - but we should also recognise the changes coming. I think DHH hits it right

I need to do the 9-5 thing for a few years. Once I've done that, I want a flat/house where I can designate one room as my 'work' office, in which I will only do work, and all work will be done in it. Anything that is not work related I'll have to do outside that room. I think if I have this separation I'll be able to focus on work, and on personal things much better.

There is no one-size-fits-all work practice. The fact that nearly every writer about this fails to acknowledge context is severely troubling.

and then

> It’s primary role these days...

Are there no copy editors at Forbes?

I used to believe that email was the king of communication. Then I was exposed to this idea that "email is not communication". I rallied against this idea, and with my engineer hat on, I still do. I have written some great technical emails that have gained praise from co-workers for their clarity, accuracy, and logic. These mails have saved long, uninformed discussions, and the time put into crafting them easily saved in the moment, and often again in the future.

But then I started to think, and observe the wider climate... all those times that a well crafted email was written and well received, but a key (senior) team player ignored the resulting email thread, or when you needed to persude and not just inform, or when you're about to meet a client, and you need that answer you emailed about a week ago, and never got.

This pattern occurs again and again with overloaded resources: they see a long, detailed email thread between senior team members, but they don't have time (can't be bothered?) to read it. They assume that those involved are being "lazy" and not picking up the phone (oh, poor misguided people - crafting clear written communication takes much longer). This, usually senior person, needs to get a handle on the issue, so they drop a meeting into the calendar with the key players (and usually everyone else who doesn't really care). When the meeting gets underway you're ultimately asked to summarise 2000 words of concise emails in 5 minutes, (which turns into 15 because of interruptions from the meeting organiser, who is often your boss). The result is that the meeting organizer has most of the picture, and assumes that their calling the meeting means they fixed the problem - but there was no lack of working to a solution before. Even if you start to include exec. summaries of discussions, threads, etc. this still happens.

It's how the senior person can affirm their status. Some of you will say that that's broken, or that's toxic, but it's the norm in every environment I've worked in: both remote and not. At least, when it's not remote, these discussions can happen around a whiteboard, and naturally attract or call over the right people to resolve it more quickly... which will still then get documented in an email/wiki/Basecamp. In both cases, email alone is insufficient. (My best practice now: organise a f call every time there is a complex issue arising, and then write the email. This wastes my engineer time because no one really understands what the issue is, but hey: the issue cannot be "missed" or "forgotten"; no one has been "left out"; I have not been "lazy". The email thread still ensues, but this time the senior peoples feel included. Then if it drags on, pick up the phone again).

The second case - I'm not a copy writer. I doubt I ever will be. My writing has always been logical and technical in nature. I'm trying to explain a defect/complex trouble shooting procedure/entity design/user interaction flow/describe an algorithm/the logical meaning of the constructs in an API. But as I rise in seniority I'm expected to get people on board with initiatives, with new tools, new ways of working. I'd love to think that the facts will win that argument, and they can be laid out in a nice email. Well, I've been there, and tried that. In response I get numerous requests for screencasts or meetings to explain these things. Why? It's not a lack of understanding. These people see some value in what I propose, but they want convincing. They need to hear the passion, enthusiasm, have the opportunity to ask questions - they don't want it to be a directive, but a collaborative decision. Email is never going to work in that situation. And infact writing the email in the first place seems to be a waste of time.

(I work remotely ~3 days a week, have lead teams of fully remote staff. My remaining ~2 days a week are spent visiting customers or in the office. In the office, I rarely meet my team or my project teams. But I do get to interact with people from marketing, HR, other product consultants, go to lunch with them, build a social relationship that is not so easy to do over the phone. I'd never want to give up the freedom of remote working, but I have to have those ~2 days of face to face connection - that's how you build a company culture.)