In contrast, I am energized by going into the office and working side by side with my peers to solve hard problems.
I dislike programming by myself, it is dull, boring, and much more error prone than when I have someone to bounce ideas off of. (Rubber Ducking only goes so far!)
Really every time this topic is brought up the overall consensus seems to be "it varies for different people." Some people seem to really benefit from working at home, some benefit from working in an office.
The real thing that gets to me is those who, for whatever reason, do not seem to understand that different people have different needs!
There are times I want to be in the office. There are times I want to be at a coffee shop. There are times I want to be at home.
As an executive, I feel like it's my job to provide as much flexibility to my team as I possibly can. Inspiration can strike anywhere, in any environment. I want to capture that for my business. I find that people really appreciate it as well.
Really it comes down to meeting management. Limit the requirement for face-time and structure the company in a way that you can minimize how often people have to collaborate. I find this makes the voluntary (and spontaneous) interactions even more valuable.
The Yahoo decision really bothers me in a really visceral way. My team is made up of highly skilled professionals who deserve to be treated like adults. Forcing them into the office is the opposite of that (at least to me).
I'm new into the industry, but I thought working from home would be a blast. But surprisingly, I'm finding I hate just having nowhere to go during the day, no reason to go outside, see the world, aside from exercise. It saps me of my energy.
Sadly, the company I work for is based in a place I couldn't stand to live, but it's telling that even despite that, I'm genuinely thinking about moving there.
What mostly bothers me is the commute, if I can get to the office at any given workplace within half an hour or less door-to-door (preferably 15 minutes & not via car) the barriers to coming to the office are significantly reduced.
At any rate I think the optimal situation for me is a mix of both.
I think the bigger problem is most working environments are not conducive to productivity or pleasant places to be.
You see awesome offices in places like Google, Facebook et al where workers have plenty of space around their desk, and other areas in the building where they can work/socialise/relax.
Unfortunately most businesses are not like that, they cram as many people as they can into vast open plan offices where desk space is at a premium and you can forget having a quiet space to work.
I'm much the same, plus I don't have the discipline to work from home. What's on the tv? What's online? Hey, I nearly finished that level in that game! What can I find in the fridge?
Plus if you have decent colleagues, it makes the job more enjoyable.
I find it disgusting that people are forced to commute at great expense to our planet's dwinding natural resources, their finances, time and stress so that they can physically congregate for an 'inspiring water-cooler moment' that may catalytically lurch their company towards an original, otherwise undiscoverable, profitable path or endless corporate meetings to please unnecessarily multi-layered paranoid management when we have telecommuting, telepresence and the good old fashioned telephone in technology-centric industries.
I could understand 'going to work' if 'work' was a Foundry, or a Mine, but if we are sitting in traffic jams and on crowded trains for hours every day, unpaid, just so we can sit in front of a computer and program software when it is clearly more likely that we will be interrupted to 'sign a card for Jane from accounts who is leaving to have her baby' and lose our flow as a result then the corporations of the future will be leaner and more agile by being virtual.
Its a false premise quite honestly. Look at some place like Google, absolutely brilliant people work there and brainstorm there, yet their greatest "ideas" are acquisitions.
The very term "work from home" suggests separation. That's the wrong model. This is not about introverts and extroverts.
Working with a remote team is not a choice about whether to collaborate or not. When a team is set up properly, remote work is no less collaborative than any other kind of work. The tools are there, widely available, and free. Everyone on a team needs to be using them, yes, but duh.
As near as I can tell, there is a shortage of talent. Smart companies will exploit the newly available infrastructure and realize that they can have "face time" remotely. Then, they'll have access to a much wider pool of talent. Win!
Is it me or are silicon valley companies -- startups, in particular -- really not into hiring remote people? Seems like, with the cost of living in the valley and the dramatic shortage of talent, and the volume and enormity of ideas, they'd have the most to gain. If I'm right about not liking remote hires, anyone have any ideas why? Provincialism? If you were worth hiring, you'd live here already? Hahahahaha.
I'm all in favor of letting people work from home and facilitating remote work for certain kinds of projects, but if you seriously think remote work is no less collaborative or technology can replace "face time", I assume you're missing a lot of human communication skills.
Not only does physical interaction have a much higher bandwidth, it goes well beyond just the work. The more you interact, at lunch or in the hallways, the better you will be able to communicate with each other on all levels, and the better you'll be able to collaborate. And this is not a one time thing, this is a continuous process.
I would never hire people who lack the ability to recognize that vast difference to work remotely. For one thing, you don't have the ability to compensate if you don't even understand there is something to compensate for.
Hell, I wouldn't even hire a person like that to work on site.
And the fact that there appears to be a strong overlap between people who favor remote work and short-sighted people who seem unable to recognize its disadvantages is not exactly encouraging companies to hire remote workers.
Yes, hiring managers read HN, and these kinds of comments aren't helping to promote remote work. Quite the opposite. The pro remote working crowd comes across as a bunch of immature self-entitled whiners.
At Mandalorian we have to work 9-530 days, our customers expect to be able to contact us in this period. What we do though is allow everyone to work from home unless they absolutely need an office environment. Once a quarter we meet up face to face, have a day set aside for meetings, discussions, presentations and that's about it. We have IRC for techies and Google chat for non-techies, along with Google Hangout for when we need some face to face discussion.
So far it's working pretty well. People who need to pick kids up from school pick kids up from school. People who need to receive deliveries or have plumbers round don't have to worry about taking time out to do so. Additionally everyone's travel costs are miniscule when not on customer site, which I think is a massive positive for all of us. On the whole I believe that a happy workforce is a productive workforce, and that creating stress for employees is counterproductive. If we need meetings we can have them. If we need physical space together we can arrange it. Aside from that, I'd rather focus on the results than the time put in.
I think the mix of introverts vs. extroverts is relevant, too. Generally, extroverts are energized by being around people, while introverts need some mental downtime to recharge their batteries. And at least for me, downtime is hard to come by while in the office.
I always wondered about offices with "loneliness rooms". Not to sleep, or meditate, but to work. Some place where anyone can go if he/she don't want to be around other people.
A mix of open spaces and discreet rooms, where you can go and people won't even notice you are going there.
I wouldn't even put doors in there, not to be mistaken to a place where you hide. Just a very small room, with no space for hanging around, just one chair and desk.
Thinking more about it, maybe open, gardened spaces, but with lonely chair-desks, which disposal and landacape shows it is suposed to be distant of eveything (so it isn't so claustrophobic as the first scenario I imagined)
I treat college like a 9-5 job, going to the library to study at 9 am and attending classes throughout the day. I don't need to do this, but there are very specific reasons why I do:
- If I study at home, I have no sense of urgency. Home is the place I associate with relaxation, so it's kind of cruel to expect myself to get work done there. The general public in the library holds me accountable to make it look like I have a purpose to be there.
- There are places I'd rather be than the library, like home. This motivates me to get my work done as quickly as possible and move on to other things that are important to me.
- We are social creatures, and interacting with others is important to our well-being. Given two days where I get the same amount of work done, I'll feel more accomplished on the day where I adequately socialize. This is true even if my interactions are largely superficial.
College was more like a 10AM to 11PM job for me. The library was a place to sleep, the best place to work was the eating areas.
Now, I prefer coffee shops for out of office working. Home is too comfortable, while I can hit Starbucks early and grab a taxi when the roads aren't so crowded after rush hour.
I would have even looser guidelines, but still suggest some facetime in the office if possible. Mostly the team themselves should be able to mandate their own locations and hours to fit their needs. If they are productive...
Some teams may prefer heavy pair programming and thus may need to be most of time in the same location. Others(most) would use some sort of hybrid where the 5 hours 3 days a week probably works well. And then some will be very much independent tasks where then locations are mostly irrelevant apart from whenever syncing is needed and general communications with other teams and stakeholders.
But teams and even when pairing you do not always need to be permanently physically in the same location if they know each other well and can communicate freely across chat and screen sharing etc. However mostly in person will trump all communications.
Way too many times management will try and dictate based on what they think is right without taking in the desires and the makeup of the team. This usually is shown in the form of all hands meetings on a very regular basis -- more than one startup I've been at have fallen into this trap.
Not relevant to the subject, but I was just wondering if anyone can enlighten me on the use of is/are. Why is the headline Why five days in the office >is< too many and not >are< too many?
Personally I like the routine of getting up every morning having my coffee and going to the office. But you need a good working environment. I'm not a programmer though, and I often realize some people can get a lot more down without the pull of meetings and unintended interruptions throughout the day. Perhaps I'm just lucky my job is devoid of meetings, for the most part.
Prerna is a good CEO and did some great things at Khush which helped her acquisition. Even still this intro is maddening:
>The freedom to work outside a traditional office was one of the main reasons I left the corporate world eight years ago, at age 23, to start a software company.
Maddening because she spent about a year in that "corporate world." Hardly a good sampling period.
I don't disagree with her conclusions, however to cast that wide of a net seems a little cheap considering not all business structures and markets are conducive to the same flexibility "knowledge workers" have.
I spent less than 3 months total in the corporate world at her age and quickly knew I wanted out. I haven't been back in over 10 years and don't believe it makes my thoughts on the matter irrelevant.
It really doesn't take that long to figure out if you are the corporate type or not. I spent 10 months at a large tech consulting firm and knew that wasn't the work life I wanted.
I love working at the office but not the whole 8 hours. I love it in the morning but when it's afternoon, I find myself more productive elsewhere, maybe a cafe.
This is an interesting approach that allows experiments. Would love to see how this will turn out. :)
I agree with this. I find the convention most stifling-- my instinct in the afternoon is to go work somewhere else, but quickly guilt* starts to pop up and tell me I'm doing something wrong, even if it's just to do work more ably.
(* - this guilt is a weird thing I can't really describe. It also lessens as I advance further in my career and am more sure of myself.)
[+] [-] com2kid|13 years ago|reply
I dislike programming by myself, it is dull, boring, and much more error prone than when I have someone to bounce ideas off of. (Rubber Ducking only goes so far!)
Really every time this topic is brought up the overall consensus seems to be "it varies for different people." Some people seem to really benefit from working at home, some benefit from working in an office.
The real thing that gets to me is those who, for whatever reason, do not seem to understand that different people have different needs!
[+] [-] enjo|13 years ago|reply
There are times I want to be in the office. There are times I want to be at a coffee shop. There are times I want to be at home.
As an executive, I feel like it's my job to provide as much flexibility to my team as I possibly can. Inspiration can strike anywhere, in any environment. I want to capture that for my business. I find that people really appreciate it as well.
Really it comes down to meeting management. Limit the requirement for face-time and structure the company in a way that you can minimize how often people have to collaborate. I find this makes the voluntary (and spontaneous) interactions even more valuable.
The Yahoo decision really bothers me in a really visceral way. My team is made up of highly skilled professionals who deserve to be treated like adults. Forcing them into the office is the opposite of that (at least to me).
[+] [-] quaunaut|13 years ago|reply
Sadly, the company I work for is based in a place I couldn't stand to live, but it's telling that even despite that, I'm genuinely thinking about moving there.
[+] [-] gnosis|13 years ago|reply
Let me know if you still feel that way in 20 years.
[+] [-] ido|13 years ago|reply
At any rate I think the optimal situation for me is a mix of both.
[+] [-] djhworld|13 years ago|reply
You see awesome offices in places like Google, Facebook et al where workers have plenty of space around their desk, and other areas in the building where they can work/socialise/relax.
Unfortunately most businesses are not like that, they cram as many people as they can into vast open plan offices where desk space is at a premium and you can forget having a quiet space to work.
[+] [-] joonix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] vacri|13 years ago|reply
Plus if you have decent colleagues, it makes the job more enjoyable.
[+] [-] jakerocheleau|13 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging
[+] [-] smrtinsert|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Uncompetative|13 years ago|reply
I could understand 'going to work' if 'work' was a Foundry, or a Mine, but if we are sitting in traffic jams and on crowded trains for hours every day, unpaid, just so we can sit in front of a computer and program software when it is clearly more likely that we will be interrupted to 'sign a card for Jane from accounts who is leaving to have her baby' and lose our flow as a result then the corporations of the future will be leaner and more agile by being virtual.
[+] [-] smrtinsert|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] methehack|13 years ago|reply
Working with a remote team is not a choice about whether to collaborate or not. When a team is set up properly, remote work is no less collaborative than any other kind of work. The tools are there, widely available, and free. Everyone on a team needs to be using them, yes, but duh.
As near as I can tell, there is a shortage of talent. Smart companies will exploit the newly available infrastructure and realize that they can have "face time" remotely. Then, they'll have access to a much wider pool of talent. Win!
Is it me or are silicon valley companies -- startups, in particular -- really not into hiring remote people? Seems like, with the cost of living in the valley and the dramatic shortage of talent, and the volume and enormity of ideas, they'd have the most to gain. If I'm right about not liking remote hires, anyone have any ideas why? Provincialism? If you were worth hiring, you'd live here already? Hahahahaha.
[+] [-] onemorepassword|13 years ago|reply
Not only does physical interaction have a much higher bandwidth, it goes well beyond just the work. The more you interact, at lunch or in the hallways, the better you will be able to communicate with each other on all levels, and the better you'll be able to collaborate. And this is not a one time thing, this is a continuous process.
I would never hire people who lack the ability to recognize that vast difference to work remotely. For one thing, you don't have the ability to compensate if you don't even understand there is something to compensate for.
Hell, I wouldn't even hire a person like that to work on site.
And the fact that there appears to be a strong overlap between people who favor remote work and short-sighted people who seem unable to recognize its disadvantages is not exactly encouraging companies to hire remote workers.
Yes, hiring managers read HN, and these kinds of comments aren't helping to promote remote work. Quite the opposite. The pro remote working crowd comes across as a bunch of immature self-entitled whiners.
[+] [-] _b8r0|13 years ago|reply
So far it's working pretty well. People who need to pick kids up from school pick kids up from school. People who need to receive deliveries or have plumbers round don't have to worry about taking time out to do so. Additionally everyone's travel costs are miniscule when not on customer site, which I think is a massive positive for all of us. On the whole I believe that a happy workforce is a productive workforce, and that creating stress for employees is counterproductive. If we need meetings we can have them. If we need physical space together we can arrange it. Aside from that, I'd rather focus on the results than the time put in.
[+] [-] RougeFemme|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soneca|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ifben|13 years ago|reply
- If I study at home, I have no sense of urgency. Home is the place I associate with relaxation, so it's kind of cruel to expect myself to get work done there. The general public in the library holds me accountable to make it look like I have a purpose to be there.
- There are places I'd rather be than the library, like home. This motivates me to get my work done as quickly as possible and move on to other things that are important to me.
- We are social creatures, and interacting with others is important to our well-being. Given two days where I get the same amount of work done, I'll feel more accomplished on the day where I adequately socialize. This is true even if my interactions are largely superficial.
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|13 years ago|reply
Now, I prefer coffee shops for out of office working. Home is too comfortable, while I can hit Starbucks early and grab a taxi when the roads aren't so crowded after rush hour.
[+] [-] flurdy|13 years ago|reply
Some teams may prefer heavy pair programming and thus may need to be most of time in the same location. Others(most) would use some sort of hybrid where the 5 hours 3 days a week probably works well. And then some will be very much independent tasks where then locations are mostly irrelevant apart from whenever syncing is needed and general communications with other teams and stakeholders.
But teams and even when pairing you do not always need to be permanently physically in the same location if they know each other well and can communicate freely across chat and screen sharing etc. However mostly in person will trump all communications.
[+] [-] jmspring|13 years ago|reply
Way too many times management will try and dictate based on what they think is right without taking in the desires and the makeup of the team. This usually is shown in the form of all hands meetings on a very regular basis -- more than one startup I've been at have fallen into this trap.
[+] [-] stfu|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronblohowiak|13 years ago|reply
400 computers are on the desk.
200 students are better than you. (everyone one of those students are individually better than you.)
200 students is better than none. (the total number is being compared as a singular item to the quantity 0)
[+] [-] dbaupp|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jonathanjaeger|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AndrewKemendo|13 years ago|reply
>The freedom to work outside a traditional office was one of the main reasons I left the corporate world eight years ago, at age 23, to start a software company.
Maddening because she spent about a year in that "corporate world." Hardly a good sampling period.
I don't disagree with her conclusions, however to cast that wide of a net seems a little cheap considering not all business structures and markets are conducive to the same flexibility "knowledge workers" have.
[+] [-] marquis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peachananr|13 years ago|reply
This is an interesting approach that allows experiments. Would love to see how this will turn out. :)
[+] [-] textminer|13 years ago|reply
(* - this guilt is a weird thing I can't really describe. It also lessens as I advance further in my career and am more sure of myself.)
[+] [-] Illotus|13 years ago|reply