Originally published at blog.soshace.com on Aug 09, 2019 ・8 min read
The beginning of everything
My name is Damir, Croatian born and ...
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I am also one of those "lucky" few who can work from home, even work from anywhere as long you have internet and make a living out of it and i can TOTALLY relate to what you say:
The best setup for a software developer or anyone spending most of their time in front of the screen is to balance the office and WFH, and strive for the 50/50 ratio
I literallly came out of a long discussion with an old friend and telling him the ideal way to handle WFH is to work in an office and be able to talk with people physically half of the time.
Hehe great, you obviously understand me then. Point your old friend to my article, he will realise that your experience is a shared one 😉.
Thanks for reading
Hello Damir. A lot of information in here. Thanks for being honest and putting your perspective across. There is too much to cover but will mention a few observations.
I have been working on getting a new version of a platform out for property since November. It is an insane amount of work and it is lonely. It takes huge amounts of commitment and being in a job/contract is way easier. I have deliberately taken gaps to work on this in the past too.
The one thing I did last November was to completely evaluate all the code/prototypes I wrote for the platform before. Much of this was written in evenings and on weekends. Being honest about what was written before completely refocused the attention on what was needed. I am sure you know what you are doing, but this can help a lot.
I think wfh comes down to be completely comfortable with yourself. I am not an introvert, so being able to keep yourself going and liking your own company is important. Too many people's social life comes from their work, and most work has a degree of falsity to it. So, it is more enjoyable to meet friends and family to enjoy more wholesome interactions than the people at work who can maybe only share 10% of the real them with you.
The challenge you and I have is that developing software by yourself is REALLY slow. I am way faster working from home, but the platform takes time to evolve. This means, that the few people you do talk to can't understand why it is taking so long. So you get zero positive feedback. This takes a lot of strength. I explain that the clients I work for, may have a team of 4-10 developers, and have a budget for 2 years on a project. This means, even if you can be four times more efficient, you are talking three years of solitary coding. This is enough to drive most people mad. (I do not plan to spend three years at home writing code :)).
Goal setting is vital. It is highly unlikely a software project/platform can work with just one developer and so part of the SDLC is that it will evolve to being office/team based.
For certain, I empathise a lot with what you said.
First, I would like to thank You for soldiering through to the end of the article. Secondly, I completely understand your point, and the advice conveyed by the article is that everybody should take some time to think before ignorantly accepting the terms of employment.
Sometimes you just have to accept anything to stay afloat, financially speaking. I worked on a single project for 2 years completely alone, followed by another one that took another 2 to complete. Needless to say, it completely destroyed my psyche. People have different personalities and react differently in various scenarios. Some are even unaware of their own character traits and are forcing themselves slowly but surely into a full-on burnout.
After having been through a lot during the last 3 years, I had to completely reinvent myself, and this is one of the reasons I started being a part of this community. My viewpoint on life had to change and strive towards proactivity, rather then submission.
Hopefully this article will reach its intended audience and encourage people to take a step back before making critical decisions. I am also starting a new job tomorrow, and have stated in advance that I'm leaving at the first sign of potential burnout.
There are numerous articles on this or similar topics, some are more personal then others, but they all speak of the same inherent problems of this day and age.
Yours truly,
DF
Hi Damir. No problem, thanks for writing it. Obviously this was your approach and my approach is still a learning curve.
The one thing I learned, this time round, was to try and come out with a number of tangible products which could get taken forward as individual products to market. Before, I thought I had a great insight into the property market and if I built it how I would like it, people would come. Then I listened to people and changed my approach and got wrapped up in knots. Some of this advice was legal, some from people who were well meaning or people who weren't really friends at all. It takes time to figure this all out.
I looked back on previous versions and realised that the concepts were muddled, certain screens were poorly implemented and users probably wouldn't understand it. There was little or no automation and everything was small MVP demos.
I figured out - in my case, the most important thing is to have a platform capable of delivering different business angles. This will allow me to pivot the product to the audience IF I CHOOSE. In other words, build a core platform and then the specific reports and data. This may mean I can offer the platform as a product independent of my original idea.
This is the opposite of most advice given to startups, build an MVP and keep getting investment. I just can't subscribe to that.
Another thing I have done is to speculate/invest in cryptocurrencies, stocks and other assets. This is not enough money to not work, but I should be in a position where I don't lose any money whilst I am not working. It is important to make sure you don't feel like you are losing.
You are right to put your article out. Certainly, many people will go down this path and find they end up not achieving what they intended and impoverish themselves in the process. Take a read of my article which explains examples of bad projects.
Good luck tomorrow.
Thanks, I have just bookmarked it and will read it later.
Yes, tomorrow, the day the Earh will once again stand still 😉
I hope you find a better job, preferably the WFH type, since that's what you think would be your best option. I shared your persuasion years ago, but had an unfortunate experience that this article tries to convey.
Thanks for reading 😉
Well, this feels a bit like a bait and switch. Working remotely is not the same as WfH. Sure, if you WfH then you most likely work remote but if you work remotely, it doesn't mean you're doing WfH.
I've worked remotely (on and off) for several years and only a small amount of time has been spent on WfH. For the most part I had a very small office rented, but also spent time in some co-working spaces (I loved those, though probably I wouldn't do that now).
My main gripe with WfH is related to work/personal time separation rather than anything else. Every now and then I would also think I would need direct contact with colleagues but that went away almost immediately (I work better when I'm allowed to focus on my own and I'm bad at setting hard boundaries - generally if I can tap someone on the should they can do it right back at me).
I appreciate your comment and would like to thank you for reading the article. It's always useful to gather the variety of other experiences and opinions, since everyone has their own story to tell. Thank you for sharing yours.
DF
Do you have access to any co-working spaces around? I wonder if that would help balance out some of the stress and social isolation that can happen with WFH... Thanks for sharing your experiences!
Not yet. Starting with a new job next week and will see how tings will progress. I will have the freedom to organise my office/wfh ratio, so let's see how it goes 😁. Thank you very much for reading.
Great article and a much needed one!
Thank You very much for reading my story 😉
Great article although I am a beginner and hopefully by finishing my training to find WFH would be better since already not so social person
The only important thing in life is to find balance; an ordinary word everyone is familiar with, though us humans are usually drawn towards the state of imbalance. I wrote the article as a warning for people like myself, the imbalanced ones.
If you're just starting, I wouldn't worry about it too much. As long as you're aware of potential issues, you're also able to act upon them should they aware become problematic.