Working From Home (Mostly) Kicks Ass

On screen: 5 varieties of remote working in companies

I went up to my office cubicle yesterday to retrieve a personal monitor I had there, and decided to bring a bunch of my other stuff home with me. I'll get the rest over the coming week or two. It's time to move out. I don't work there anymore. My trips to the actual office have gotten so infrequent that they've become non-existent. There's no sense in pretending I have a workplace there. I've been a de facto remote worker for a long time. Might as well make it official. 

My real office

Note - working from home is not like this: 

 

Or this:  

 

It's more like this:

I started working from home about four years ago, after a medical incident. It didn't take long to realize that I should have been doing it long before. If there's one thing good about what happened to me, it's that it blunted all management resistance to me doing it for an extended period, and after a year of success at it, there simply wasn't any management resistance at all.

I had proposed it to my managers as a part-time thing a couple of years before, but they rejected it. They said that they wanted us to be visible to the customer. My mistake was asking permission: there were plenty of people who never came in, working remotely discreetly. Ironically, my principle customer contact had her office about 100 feet from my desk, and we never saw each other. She was always busy with her door closed, and instant messenger and phone worked out fine for our interactions. So every day I would drive to the office, spend all day facing my my computer screen, talking to my client and team over conference calls and instant messenger. Why not do that from somewhere more convenient?

It makes sense. I'm a software architect and Agile team coach. I'm in OKC. My team is remote, much of it in India. My closest US associates are in the New York area. My HR manager is in New Jersey, my operational manager is in North Carolina, and my client is in Florida (with a small group left here in OKC). In the linked article, our team is closest to "4 - a world wide remote team spread across numerous time zones". And, as it turns out, the customer's own changes to their office locations means that all of my US team works from home offices now.

My arrangement obviously won't work for every job, particularly those in retail, trades or manufacturing. Still, in an internet world, there are many jobs that do fit this model really well, and more employers need to investigate it. Here's an example of why:

To get a good job, knowledge workers still have to live in even larger cities where pollution, over-population, traffic, and cost of living are all increasingly (de)pressing issues. The rising cost of living — particularly for housing — in urban centers like New York, Beijing, London, and San Francisco mean that many people can’t afford a good quality of life. To add insult to injury, it’s not uncommon to spend over 2 hours a day just traveling to and from work. In an article called A 2:15 Alarm, 2 Trains and a Bus Get Her to Work by 7 AM, the New York Times chronicled the brutal commute of one San Francisco office worker who could no longer afford to live anywhere near her workplace.

And an added benefit:

As remote-first work becomes more and more common, people like Enric can choose to stay in their hometowns without giving up access to fulfilling, stable jobs. In that way, remote work has the potential to keep dollars and young people in communities and countries that have been left behind in the information age. A more equal geographic distribution of wealth would have widespread political, economic, and social impacts that we can only begin to imagine.

I can live anywhere I want, as long as a decent airport is within driving distance. And that means big savings from living in a lower cost-of-living location, as well as the little stuff: Working from home can save you thousands of dollars every year

A lot of businesses and managers are uncomfortable with remote work, but I believe this is the direction that the knowledge workforce is heading, and they need to adapt. I suspect we'll see a lot of corporate downsizing in office space, as they realize how expensive it is to maintain a matrix-like environment to house teams that really don't need to be there. I know that I don't want to go back.

I'll close with some personal observations on remote work:

1. I've never put in so many hours as I have in the last four years.
2. Some people may like to work in pajamas or gym clothes, but I hate it. I try to get cleaned up and dressed as early as possible, before the workday gets really going.
3. Establishing boundaries on your work hours can be tough, and I haven't mastered it yet (nor have my managers). Being connected and having your workspace RIGHT THERE is a terrible temptation for all parties. 
4. Even worse is when you stay connected on your iOS devices as well. I have to force myself to leave e-mails unanswered at bedtime, and remind myself that just because someone on my team has decided to work after 10 PM, it doesn't mean that I have to also. 
5. But it's nice to be able to pick when you want to work. I do some things in the evening because I know I'll be less interrupted then. 
6. Early morning conference calls are a fact of life with offshore teams. It's nice to eliminate the commute before or after them. 
7. By the way - that time you save by not commuting? You're probably working during that time.
8. You also can use time during the day for personal obligations when needed, because you can stay connected, or make the time up later.
9. It's nice to be able to pick up your laptop or tablet and head elsewhere, and know you can stay available if you need to. Staying on the job does not mean staying in one place. 
10. I have no guilt in taking a DOOM or web-surfing break in the middle of the afternoon, because I frequently get pulled into something that keeps me at my desk until 7 or 8 in the evening. They'll get their hours. 
11. Your time is your own, but you have to manage it - or it'll manage you. 
12. Having a home office makes you more willing to invest in nice gear, like an ultrawide monitor or high-end desktop speakers. I wouldn't buy anything like that and leave it at the office.
13. Remote connection, screen sharing and conference tools are actually better than gathering everyone around a screen in person. 
14. Conference calls can be unproductive, though, because you can't tell if people are engaged or not. 
15. Webcams are overrated. But it's sometimes nice to be able to see people's faces. Teams have to work this sort of thing out. 
16. Face-to-face interaction is still critical, which is why I like to be at my client's site every month or two. But that's usually enough: once the relationship is established and nourished in person occasionally, things work out just fine over the phone and teleconference. You don't need to see your team or customer every day.
17. Agile is a challenge in this environment, because a lot of the team communication protocols are intended for small groups working face to face. 
18. Introverted people are probably more suited to this arrangement. It would drive some people crazy, so it isn't for everyone. 
19. Those times when you are giving a web presentation to a bunch of important people on the client side? That's when the dog is absolutely, positively, going to wet his pants if you don't get up and deal with him right that freaking second.