Back in October, I wrote a post about 10 things I've learned from working remotely, and it was a big hit. It actually made the top 7 posts that...
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This is so well written Lindsey! I also love the fact that you added the audio version.
Thank you!! I actually use Kyle's tool, parler.io. You should totally follow him as he's a great maker and blogger
Kyle Galbraith
He even made it really simple to embed them into dev.to (which is how I did it!)
Embed parler.io Audio Directly into Your Own Blog Posts
Kyle Galbraith
Cool! Now following :) I'll definitely start using this tool for my posts.
Great story, and glad you are finding things to like about the office life. I recently shifted to the office too, and find it much less stressful and I'm able to turn work off when I leave which is so nice. Is that some of what you experienced too?
yeah definitely! There's things I still miss like not being interrupted for small questions (unless it's important) and taking a quick personal call without feeling awkward. But the built in boundaries are SO freakin' nice!
I think I would like to be remote again, but right now as I am learning something new (d3) I find the ability to more easily pair very helpful! I think it would be a bit harder. When I was remote before I felt pretty solid on the material I was learning. This is why I don't necessarily recommend remote to junior devs.
I read both this one and your previous article about remote working, something I'd really want to try soon. You mentioned your commute is 20 minutes so not bad at all (mine is about 55, still not terrible but almost 2 hours wasted every day).
But what about working in an office? To me, the main reason to go remote would be having my private office. Not that I don't like working with people, I'm always available for pair programming if a colleague needs help, I don't like spending days in meetings but do find useful to share ideas with the team regularly.. But boy, do I hate working in an open office with people answering their phones, talking loud, even if it is strict work related conversation. And what about me taking a phone call? I'm always afraid to bother my coworkers, so I try to keep my voice as quite as possibile, sometimes I just walk away and find a quite spot to talk, but I don't have my computer with me. To me open office is a productivity killer, as I said I haven't been fully remote yet, but when I get to work from home I'm way more productive.
Getting back to your article, sorry for the diversion, I can see why you left your remote job and money is quite important, so I may have made the same decision if I were you.
You're 100% right when you say staying remote isn't more important than loving your job and enjoy your life.
To be fair, these are all things I still struggle with and I'm adjusting to. I currently am in an open office, but the company is so small that our office has only 3 people in it and we are usually coding heavily and not talking much unless it's pairing. Because our lead (the one who talks to the clients) is also a developer, he understands and usually takes calls or meetings outside the office.
I do have one or two days a week where I still work from home. For example, today I had a few errands during the day, so I am working from home to help with that.
In terms of people talking, I set a boundary with my boss last Friday. Someone came in and had a "quick chat" that turned into 20 minutes. I was quite irate because I have ADHD. I simply just put on my noise cancelling head phones, listened to my music and continued coding. I told him afterwards that I hope it didn't come across as rude, but it really impacts my ability to work when people have unplanned meetings in our office. He was really cool about it and also knew that if my headphones were on I was in the zone.
There are 10 people at the moment in my open space, a few minutes ago I was helping a colleague setting at his desk and I had an hard time hearing him... Now I'm back at my iMac with 3 people talking (work related stuff) just in front of me. Doesn't happen all the time, but still I find it really annoying.
I don't like listening to music while I work, if I love the song I find it distracting, as I'm enjoying it and paying less attention to what I'm trying to achieve. I don't feel like wearing noise cancelling headphones without sound, just to block noises. I tried, but felt weird.
Thanks Lindsey! I def. can relate to the part of being passionate about your work. It's tough when you want to help the company succeed and are really passionate because you care! But sometimes a point comes, like you had, where there just may not be the reciprocity for your investment and attempts to add value the company.
Curious how many others have faced that (I have!)? Is it something that tends to happen after doing the same thing for a certain period of time? Or just a cultural thing company-wise?
I think this is why good management is so crucial. When management makes themselves unavailable and disconnects from their team (hiding out in meetings all day, not aware of daily operational events, too many fires to put out to get out of their office and recognize contributions by the team, straight-up narcissism). There's a lot of very different reasons it can happen, but it seems fairly common for management to take someone's work for granted and only recognize how much that person cared/how much they accomplished/how they boosted morale once that person leaves for greener pastures.
Oh yes, I'd love to hear others' experiences as well with this. I am pretty certain that many people have struggle with it.
Thanks for sharing! I (currently) can't think of going all office again - but I also can't imagine only working remote. It's always interesting to peak into other peoples work-lives like that.
I loved working remote when I found the work fulfilling! I do miss it sometimes still.