Why aren't more companies remote-first? - <AUTHOR> https://upside.fm/the-future-of-work-is-here-so-why-arent-more-companies-remote-first/ <comment><USER2> Am I the exception? I think Remote work sucks.

I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways.

Sometimes you don't want to formally disperse some information but are happy to let people overhear what you think.

An environment where people can find meeting rooms when they need them, can find peace and quiet when they need them but also generally have co-location means good team cohesion.

If developers are remote, you will find that your code-base becomes the same. That critical FooBarAdapter becomes something that only Naimh can work on because without co-location if another developer is stuck on it, rather than grabbing her for a "Can you look at this?" over the shoulder, it gets slung over the fence in an issue or pull request.

Yes, when working face to face too many (formal) meetings can be a problem, but don't abolish co-location just abolish the meetings.

And don't be a cubicle farm. Yes, if you think the alternative to remote work is an anonymous grey cubicle on the 5th floor of an anonymous office block (or just as bad, the 'trendy' exposed ducts open plan office), then remote work will look like nirvana.

Of course I'd also recommend being somewhere with good public transport and have flexible working hours so people aren't forced into long commutes in poluting personal transport. Also offer and allow occassional remote work to further ease that demand without losing the benefits of co-location.

But whole-team remote work? No thanks!

<comment><USER3> I got to say, I disagree with nearly every point here. Taps on the shoulder are the worst, anonymous cubical farms would be way better than the current situation (all open offices), skype/zoom/etc. are all immediately available for impromptu meetings, I'm not sure why working on code independently would lead to more silos? Does everyone always pair program in offices? Do you theorize less design meetings or something?

Plus remote you can not play the butts-in-seats game, get non-work related life things done at your leisure, wear whatever clothes you like, shit in your own bathroom, don't have to worry about anyone tapping you on the shoulder, eat what you want when you want, the list goes on. Theses are just the immediate things that come to mind.

<comment><USER4> I've done multi-year stints of both, and it's highly contextual. For ICs I get the quiet and focus is a net win (assuming proper self-motivation and no social isolation issues). However for high-level or cross-functional collaboration there is no online tool that approaches the bandwidth of two people in a room with a whiteboard. The energy in person, serendipity and the ideas that come from prolonged close collaboration (especially in a startup) is hard to quantify but it's real. It's not optimal for everyone all the time, but then neither is full remote.

<comment><USER5> It seems like there isn't a great digital replacement for a whiteboard yet. Maybe a tablet and stylus, but I haven't used a digital whiteboard enough to justify buying or setting one up. Incorporating the stylus/tablet into laptops isn't a new idea, but I've never owned a work laptop with that feature.

<comment><USER6> There are, but they're expensive. There's Google's Jamboard and Microsoft's Studio Hub as a couple of examples. You could also go the iPad and Apple Pencil route and just use similar apps, or the apps for those products (i.e. Microsoft Whiteboard app), but that's still fairly expensive if that's all they're used for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a small business owner who's had remote employees across the US, there are two big problems. (These are specifically about remote _employees_ , not remote contractors.)

First, to pay payroll taxes to employees who live in different states, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops with each state's government. For example, when we had an employee living in Colorado, we had to set up a business relationship with the state of Colorado - using a fax machine. They literally wouldn't accept paperwork any other way - it had to be via fax. Later, when that employee moved to another state, we had to tear down our relationship with Colorado (or else keep paying business fees to Colorado), plus set up tax paperwork with the employee's new state. All of this cost us time & money.

Second, health insurance was a lot more complex. We wanted to offer the best possible health insurance to all of our employees, but health insurance companies make that massively complicated, with various rules about where the majority of staff lived, where each person lived, which plans were available in which states, etc. If I could do it all over again, I probably would have just given each employee an allowance to use on their local state's open health insurance market, but that's a hot mess too.

<comment><USER8> Compensate your employees well, have them be independent contractors. That's what my employer does.

<comment><USER9> That is likely not legal in the US. An independent contractor needs to be "independent" for the most part. If they work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for the same company they are considered an employee and can't be given a 1099. They should be a W-2 type employee. Now if the company wants to hire another company to be the legal employer of the employee they can do that. But still need to be a W-2 employee.

Not to say that people/companies don't do it, but the companies that do are leaving themselves open to legal issues.

<comment><USER10> > If they work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for the same company they are > considered an employee and can't be given a 1099

IANAL but this is not the legal framework for determining whether someone is a 1099 resource. There are plenty of people who work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year for the same company and are still legally considered IC's.

See here for clarification: [https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses- self-employe...](https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self- employed/independent-contractor-self-employed-or-employee)

Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job?

Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker's job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.)

Type of Relationship: Are there written contracts or employee type benefits (i.e. pension plan, insurance, vacation pay, etc.)? Will the relationship continue and is the work performed a key aspect of the business?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll try to answer the question from my perspective as the CEO of GitLab with 650 people in 50 countries and shared offices.

First of all as an industry we haven't agreed on a term. Remote first or remote friendly are used by companies that do have a headquarter but are open to remote work like Stripe. Since remote can have a negative connotation some companies like Wordpress like distributed but that is also used by companies that have offices in multiple locations. At GitLab we prefer to use all remote [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/)

The three biggest companies as far as I know are Wordpress, InVision, and GitLab. Wordpress and InVision both have around 1000 people while we're 45% smaller. I've heard that InVision has people work east coast hours but that doesn't show in their job listings.

I think remote will become much more popular. It saves people commuting time and gives them more flexibility to care for family, go to the gym at a convenient time, travel more, and deal with sick children. For the company you are able to hire outside of competitive metro areas and you save money by that [https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local- rates/](https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/) and on office costs.

It is early days for remote and it is still viewed as a risk by potential investors. But with tools like Zoom and better tools for asynchronous collaboration like InVision and GitLab I think it will become popular rapidly. Because you have to adjust you communication [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/) I think new startups will be all remote while existing companies will find it much harder to change.

<comment><USER12> > For the company you are able to hire outside of competitive metro areas and > you save money by that [https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay- > local-rates/](https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/) > and on office costs.

So, someone can change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay? What about when moving, are employees' pays docked too?

For example, I come from a low-income area and most of my family is poor. By working in tech., I'm able to provide a safety net for parents and close friends. My home address is in my hometown but I would spend time at my significant other's apartment during the week to be close to work.

Why should my pay be less than that of a coworker that does the same exact same job as me simply because this is a remote company? What about someone that does a worst job or is less experienced? Unless that means that the only employees hired in high-pays area are senior and other employees are all junior or mid level and seen as cheaper labor, I don't see the reason... except as sour way to save company's operating cost.

Does that also mean that you believe someone in this situation should never have the resources to move to a high income area? Someone from a high-income area could live in a shared rental, save a big cushion of money and then move to a lower income area for less stress while knowing they will be able to retire. Someone from a low paying area wouldn't be able to do that.

Compensation should be based on output performance and the difficulties and complexity of the work being done.

<comment><USER11> 1\. "change their mailing address to that of a friend living in a high income area and have a better pay" => that would be fraudulent

2\. "What about when moving, are employees' pays docked too?" => Please see [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people- operations/global-c...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people- operations/global-compensation/#relocating)

3\. "Compensation should be based on output performance and the difficulties and complexity of the work being done." => Opinions differ about this across companies and some of them like Basecamp use your method. For our take Please see the section "Standard pay eats away at production and personnel" in [https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local- rates/](https://about.gitlab.com/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-rates/)

<comment><USER13> Re: relocation

The justification in the link essentially sounds to me like, "If you worked in the office at another company and moved to a lower cost of living city you'd also get your pay docked. We do the same because we're following the precedent and because you don't have other options."

This fails to mention the flip side - we developers _do_ have other options. There are certainly SF companies I'm aware of that will be happy to outbid Gitlab's desire to pay a software engineer $75k because they moved to rural Nebraska.

<comment><USER11> I agree that more and more companies will start hiring remotely and the market will get more competitive. As I said in the blog post: "I hope the distance between those stances becomes smaller as more companies offer remote work opportunities."

<comment><USER12> I understand the reason and how it is a necessary evil. But it's still an evil. Simply put, it is discrimination.

Paying the poor less and the wealthy more.

It makes no sense that two employees with the same workload and same credentials would get a different pay based on their primary address' geolocation.

Just off the top of my head :

\- Employee resides at their rich parent's home and get a higher pay vs. employee move near their mother's elderly care center in a ghetto and dock their pay.

\- Employee lives alone with no dependents in a high pay area vs. employee being a single-parent in a low pay area.

\- Employee lives on a native reservation and get less pay.

\- Employee lives in a co-location in a high pay area vs. employee lives alone in a low pay area.

\- Employee has impressive credentials in a low pay area vs. employee with no credential living in a high pay area.

\- etc.

This is nothing more than a loophole that allows you to give a bonus to employees living in high pay areas while keeping a clear conscience.

If anything, kudos for being open about the whole situation.

<comment><USER14> Compensation is never about "fairness". It's about what you can negotiate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Our team has slowly, by accident shifted to remote first during summers, when our deadlines are the furthest out. First one person moved, and we let them stay on and work remotely. Then another. Then two of three of the remaining individual contributors switched to core hours, but are otherwise gone. Now my boss has been remote for two weeks.

It's interesting in that it happened without discussion and without proactively addressing the new cultural issues that arose.

Communication has dropped unless you're on a call, and you never know who is on what call so it's difficult to gauge the tempo of work any given day. Communication has become a "procedure" that must be intentionally addressed, which leads to awkward conversations about the weather in our daily standup that has morphed into a call to keep in touch for the people that are off site and don't want to be politically left out. It wastes my time. A lot is lost in translation. Productive spontaneous conversation between more than two people is basically gone. A lot of work has disappeared into Slack DMs instof channels, visibility lost there.

I understand a lot of this could be fixed with cultural and procedural changes. But I find it weird that you have to implement procedures and controls to replace something you get for free when you are all physically in the same place. And from my experience at least, getting it wrong has absolutely been bad for our team's work product. Based on this experience I'll never be working on a remote team again

<comment><USER16> > A lot of work has disappeared into Slack DMs instof channels, visibility > lost there.

We announce DM stats in our monthly company meeting. Our goal is everything in a public channel unless it absolutely is a private matter.

> something you get for free when you are all physically in the same place.

But did you really? Were all those conversations documented? What I realized is that many conversations end up being around what was talked about and what was the decision made X months ago. Many other conversations were around communicating said decision to someone else or someone new. All these telephone game style conversations go away if you can forward someone an email chain.

<comment><USER17> I've never run into a colleague from another department on an email chain. It happens frequently in our office kitchen. I don't that that, or the ability to simply walk over to someone's desk should be discounted.

<comment><USER18> Working in a bigger place you may not have the same physical access. The smaller the place the more opportunity for cross department chatter remote or in person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Because it's much harder to keep people motivated and it's harder to create an environment with efficient communication.

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EDIT: I actually love the idea of remote work and I would love it to succeed. I believe that if a company is 100% remote and adopts it processes accordingly, it might work.

I still think that for a traditional onsite business, it's very, very hard to include remote people into the process in a way that keeps them happy and included.

PS: You also have to distinguish between "remote" and "async", which do not necessarily need to go hand in hand.

<comment><USER20> Having clocked several years with remote-only companies and several years with traditional onsite jobs, I would say that, ironically, remote companies have better communication. On any given 8-hour workday, I would probably clock several hours' worth of communication in various shapes and forms at remote companies. For onsite, many of my days might be spent sitting next to a bunch of people in an open plan office not ever exchanging a word.

<comment><USER19> Various hours spent per day on communication sounds rather inefficient though.

<comment><USER20> Not at all: In my experience communication is 50% of the job as a software engineer. It's 100% of the job as a software engineering manager of sorts.

And remote communication is way more efficient. Things like text chat, comments in ticket systems or project management systems like asana etc are "soft interrupts" that I find surprisingly frictionless. I can stay in concentration until I've reached a natural interrupt of sorts, then answer chat messages or read up on tickets, ask clarifying questions or loop in more people (sending out a soft interrupt, but not waiting for replies), get back into concentration, and restart the loop at the next interrupt.

The alternative: It is now 9:35am. You know you have to leave at 9:55 to get to your 10:00 meeting in the meeting room that's 5 minutes away. But 20 minutes is not enough to get into concentration, so you spend that time procrastinating. At 10:00 you're there. At 10:10, the asshole who is always late shows up. The meeting takes 50 minutes, because the only reason to EVER end a meeting is getting kicked out of the meeting room. In this case it was booked for the 10:00-11:00 slot. You spend 5 more minutes walking back to your desk. Within the 50mins of meeting time, you were talking for 5 minutes. 10 minutes of the other speakers' time contained information you actually needed. You arrive at your desk at 11:05. That's 90 minutes flushed down the tube that could have been 15 minutes' worth of text chat, and the timing basically prevents deep work for maybe that first half of that workday.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a VP of an established remote-first company, 50+ developers, all US-based. For the most part, remote-first has been a great benefit for us, but there are no silver bullets.

Other than the issues mentioned elsewhere re: HR/Payroll complications, our biggest issue is finding junior talent and facilitating individual growth. For the most part we skew towards people who have some amount of remote work experience, which means skewing towards more experienced team members. That can have some knock-on effects that need to be managed: more experienced typically means greater salary, fewer juniors means less visible organizational structure around things like "I manage and mentor a team of 5" which can be disorienting for new hires, and can limit mentorship growth for senior team members.

For many senior developers, those knock-on effects could be viewed as positives, but we need to be sensitive to the overall composition of the team.

I haven't seen any greater motivational issues at remote-first vs a traditional management position. Like most any job, your motivation is largely a factor of your engagement. It's just as easy to drift on-site, with smoke breaks, lunch breaks, ping pong matches, chatting with your officemates about last night's NBA finals, etc etc.

<comment><USER22> This is something I rarely see talked about. How do you hire a grad or junior dev who is remote? How do you mentor them and (over years) help them grow into a senior dev?

From where I sit, "remote first" is all too often a code word for "only senior devs need apply".

<comment><USER23> >This is something I rarely see talked about. How do you hire a grad or junior dev who is remote?

You give them an offer.

>How do you mentor them and (over years) help them grow into a senior dev?

Same way you do in an office but over video chat.

<comment><USER24> Yep, I've mentored junior developers over video chat and Slack. If they have good communication skills (which is much needed for remote!) then they can write questions or ask to be shown something remotely just as well as in person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Remote worker off and on for 30 years from both sides: alone at home and in the office supervising others working remotely.

There are obviously many pros and cons, but in my experience, there is one huge overriding factor most likely to determine remote success: workers' ability and willingness to _read_ and _write_.

In my most successful remote relationships, almost everything was written down, written well, and read well. I'm talking about all the usual suspects: business requirements, functional specifications, technical specifications, project plans, stories, post-mortems, meeting agendas, code reviews, and of course, test plans.

But then again, this has little to do with working remote. You MUST write all of these things down anyway: I have witnessed over and over again a high correlation between writing and reading well and project success, remote or not.

If has never really mattered what methodologies or tools were used (yes, email is fine, so are waterfall and agile). You HAVE to write things down in the software building world.

Using this line of thinking, remote can actually make your team _more_ effective. You have to get good and reading and writing to succeed. You have much less option of meeting, or huddling, or whatever they call those crutches these days. Write it down and all that fluffy overhead goes away.

Wanna go "remote-first"? Learn how to "read-and-write-first". The rest is gravy.

<comment><USER26> I've had exactly this issue. I was working remotely a couple of years ago and the project manager couldn't effectively communicate (we were all remote in different parts of the US).

The result was a disaster and the project manager playing the blame game. I eventually left.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think that being flexible is much more important than having specifically remote employees. I personally would love if I could work even 2 days a week from home, giving me a lot more flexibility to clear up life admin (when's the last time anyone had time to go to the bank when it's open? not taking PTO for that...).

<comment><USER28> Can't you just go on your lunch? Or even just put an 'out-of-office' hour on your calendar?

<comment><USER27> I work in a rural area, not in a city. No banks within lunch commute at all. All we really have is a Subway.

<comment><USER28> That's a reasonable reason. I would love more flexibility at my butts-in-seats company too, btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> All of these can be viewed as fallacies to another who has experienced long stretches of remote-only work. It is simply one person's take.

Why aren't more companies remote-first? It isn't as popular as it sounds like it is in tech circles, it isn't a silver bullet to the "problem" of work, and it comes with its own set of unique challenges and problems.

</comment><comment><USER30> In my experience it can work well for tech-centric companies where everyone, or almost everyone is working behind a computer all day. But in most companies where you might have factory workers, call centres, retail outlets, etc, it begins to make less sense. If you have the office space you may as well use it, and often developers will be required to work closely with other departments in the business - this can get difficult when they're all working remotely.

I've worked fully remote and part-remote for almost 10 years and really all I want is flexibility. Can I start a little later when I need to so long as I make back the time? Can I work remotely for a week or two if I need to visit family? These things alone are probably worth $5,000 - $10,000 per year to me.

We should also consider working remote full0time can be extremely isolating, and prolonged periods with little to no human contact in my experience was bad for my mental health. I worked in one place for over 5 years and felt like I never really got to know anyone. I made no real friends. And at times I felt like I was little more than a code monkey writing the next piece of code with no sense of a shared goal or purpose - which you often get when working closely with a team.

It can also be difficult to separate work and home life for some people, especially if you have a family and kids. I don't, but at times my partner might invite her friends or family around - some of whom do have children. Whenever this happened it was extremely difficult for me to get anything done. A few times I even had family come into my office while I was in a meeting with my boss which is far from ideal.

These things are all manageable of course, and I'm sure working fully remote works for some people, but for me I'm much happier working remotely a couple of times a week with some flexibility in my work times.

<comment><USER31> went through a lot of the same stuff. Its tough to be isolated and mental health is a large driver of why I didn't want to continue working alone on a (small) SaaS app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> We just need to lose the idea of an 8 hour work day. It's an anachronism from the industrial revolution. Make me come in at 10AM, have standup, maybe a meeting or two, have lunch with colleagues, then everyone leaves by 2PM to work on their respective tasks. The problem with full work from home is that some people take advantage of it more than others, and you lose out on a lot of the "firm effect" that comes with face to face communication. The problem with 9-5 is rush hour, burn out, and inefficiency. Force everyone to show up 5 days a week for 4 hours and you get all the benefits of both.

<comment><USER33> Well, not all. No broadened talent pool, and you still have commutes. IIRC that's something like 25min each way on average, so ( _math math math_ ) you're saving people on the order of 200 hours a year by eliminating them, plus gas, car maintenance, maybe making dropping a car possible for two-car households, and we're talking probably 400+ person-hours a year saved, in actual commute time and in hours worked just to pay for commuting.

<comment><USER34> I wish this was addressed more as a massive cost that only the employee must take on in order to even have a job.

People have to risk their lives using a machine that they have to source themselves to come into an office everyday while not being compensated for that time, danger, and financial investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Elastic is like this, except 1500 folks instead of 80.

We are in over 50 countries, we are 1,500 folks, and we are all distributed, people don't really use offices (esp. not those of us in R&D roles) and almost everyone works from their homes.

You get a generous stipend if you want to rent an office like WeWork, etc.

We generally gather twice a year in person, but we're not bound by offices so we can gather anywhere there's a large enough hotel or two.

I've been with Elastic for 3+ years and after doing remote consulting for ~7 years I can say this company is one of the best, if not the best, at getting distributed work right

</comment><comment><USER36> BrentOzar gives a great answer about financial/legal issues, and sytse gives another great answer about investor risk. I'll add some thoughts from a more "down in the trenches" (and ten-year remote developer) perspective.

First, remote work just isn't for everyone or for every situation. Some people thrive on frequent interaction with others, and just don't have the same energy when they have less. Some get outright depressed. Teaching/mentoring also requires frequent interaction, which is an issue for a team with a lot of new people. Sometimes online interaction is an adequate substitute. Sometimes it's not. Also, some people simply don't focus as well and let themselves get distracted too much when they can't literally see and hear others working around them.

Second, dealing with remote workers requires a change of habits that many find unwelcome. You have to write more and speak less. When you do speak via phone or VC, you have to learn new conversational protocols. Our subconscious protocols for when it's OK to start speaking and when to listen tend to break down a bit especially with high delay or poor connection quality, so people have to _work_ a bit to make sure everyone gets their say.

Anyone who works remotely also has to be hyper-aware of time zones. If folks on the US west coast never want to meet before lunch, it's going to cause friction with people on the east coast who would rather not have meetings after 5pm almost every day. Similarly, if those west-coasters like to do solo work at the beginning of the day and collaborative work at the end (a common pattern for reasons I don't fully understand) they're going to hit that full- day round trip latency for questions and code reviews more often. And that's all with only a three-hour difference. In general, it gets even worse when larger differences are involved.

I've been working remotely for a decade. It works _for me_ largely because of how I am and because I very actively try to teach my colleagues about how to make it work. Sometimes it barely works, and I wouldn't count on it working for a different person or a different team/project.

</comment><comment><USER37> As long as startups insist on noisy, open environments I'll work remote. Just like some people can have a conversation while the TV is on some people can work in that environment. And everybody seems to have to adapt to those people nowadays.

Currently I'm one of the most productive developers in the company and some people really think I make a ton of hours to get to that level, but the only thing I have are the mornings that are wife and child free and then the afternoons with meetings and other distractions.

It really takes four hours of clean concentrated remote work to get there. You can only imagine what would happen if I had four hours more of that in a day.

</comment><comment><USER38> The people at the top like to be seen and heard, feel their own impact, and they don't trust their employees to work if they can't see them.

Obviously that's a broad generalization and untrue of places that do allow remote work. And often middle management is happy with remote work, but execs limit it.

I see responses like "I'd rather have proximity to co-workers so we can easily share ideas in informal ways." I think that's the exception amongst developers. Informal ideas are just as easily shared on slack, or by email, or on Jira. In fact, I find that getting someone to write something down means you have get better ideas coming your way (and less noise).

> "but don't abolish co-location just abolish the meetings."

The issue isn't always formal meetings. It's Bob, John, and Shirley coming by your desk. It's Joe and Jane having a conversation 5 feet away from you. It's the weird guy growing strange creatures in the refrigerator with 20 pairs of shoes piled under his desk that comes to bother you every time he's stuck on something instead of working through it himself.

And the time savings! An extra hour of life per day if I don't have to commute - and I take a train a very short distance or bike it (ok, I like the biking). For some of my coworkers, they may gain two hours per day. How much happier and more productive would they be? So much more.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why aren't more companies remote-first? Because a lot of the people starting companies or in management positions tend to be older and are more accustomed to "The old ways".

Humans are creatures of habit. We like the status quo to stay the same if at all possible. If you've spent 30 years in an office with no remote work, you probably want to keep doing that (you're used to it afterall). You also probably want your subordinates to do the same. After all you've been used to having your boss "right there", your coworkers "right there", your subordinates "right there"... for years

Beyond that, which I honestly think is a large portion of "why". There is also logistical complexity on numerous levels, for numerous types of companies. Such as:

* Laws & Regulations - Especially in heavily regulated spaces like finance & health

* Enterprise Customers - They often are old school and want to see your offices and hordes of people working to justify their multi-million dollar purchases.

* All the pay/insurance/tax/reimbursement stuff mentioned a dozen times in this thread.

* Employees - As noted here in this comment thread, some people LIKE working in an office

* VC/Funding - It's more common now, but supposedly it's still harder to get VC money or funding from banks if the workforce is remote/distributed/virtual (take your pick of terms)

</comment><comment><USER40> I've been full time remote since 2010 in senior management positions. Meaning that I have direct reports, that have direct reports, who have direct reports, and all are remote. Prior to 2010 I spent 20 years working in traditional office settings.

So I've dealt with just about every possible issue that can be encountered in both "normal" and remote environments and I can say that in every case remote is better. One of my employers had mandatory management training quarterly and I worked there for 9 years, so maybe I'm better prepared to manage employees and remote staff than most managers. I find remote staff much easier to manage, because none of the interpersonal issues need to be dealt with, he's parking in my space, someone is stealing my lunch, they don't bathe, they wear too much cologne/perfume, they are always bugging me, it's too loud, it's too quite, so and so is always late, and on and on and on.

I also find the productivity to be much higher mostly because people can get work done on their schedule and not be stuck in 9-5. If something is due Tuesday I don't care if it's done by at 11:30 Monday night, just so long as it's done and done correctly.

I have a separate dedicated office, I have a couch 4 monitors and a TV for monitoring the world, mostly on Bloomberg TV.

The only knock I have on working from home is that that I'm tired of my office and my house. I hate that my lunch room is my kitchen.

</comment><comment><USER41> After 60 years of advancements in networked computing we should see not just the performance benefits, but also the lifestyle benefits. I don't see the point of sitting in an open plan office especially when you have cliches of people that choose to speak in native languages about technical subject matter. I'm not benefitting from the distraction, nor is anyone else.

</comment><comment><USER42> It's nice that remote-only works well for SureSwift, but they're a early stage finance company. As such, they don't really need a ton of collaboration between internal employees. Many firms with similar internal dynamics (some types of consultants, call centers, etc) can, I suspect, be mostly remote. But not every company operates like they that. Many companies even have, _gasp_ , locations that must be staffed! Factories, warehouses, retail outlets, distribution nodes, etc.

I wish pieces like the posted article talked less about the "advantages" of remote work (which seem to be fairly obvious to everyone, no?), and more about the challenges they faced in successfully creating a remote-work culture. And how they overcame those challenges (and what didn't work too). I have found that the effectiveness remote teams is highly dependent on the little details of how they are managed, how communications works, etc. More color on those details might actually be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER43> I work for a company that has a global presence. Teams are often distributed across a couple locations. We also have some remote workers. We have people in one office who's entire team is in another office. We have people who are the sole person on their team in a given location. There really is no practical difference between working remote or working in a different office at that point.

Yes, face to face interaction has a lot of benefits that are noted throughout these comments but once you've incurred the overhead that comes from having more than a couple locations letting people work remote doesn't have any negative impact.

I can see why some 20-person trendy startup that hasn't had time to figure out how to effectively coordinate across multiple locations doesn't want to hire remote. They don't want to incur that overhead yet. For bigger established companies there's no good reason not to hire remote or at least allow the flexibility to work remote as needed.

</comment><comment><USER44> I've worked in full-time remote, full-time onsite, and hybrid roles. While there are tradeoffs to each and circumstances generally dictate how successful the setup is, there is one big tradeoff that I don't see discussed as much: Mentoring juniors.

In my experience, it's really, really difficult to train up a junior (doesn't have to be engineering even) in a remote team. Because the feedback loops are more rigid—the passive communication styles of Slack/other remote tools ensure this—it can make teaching a junior, who is going to naturally have 1,000 questions and need high frequency feedback, extremely inefficient and uncomfortable.

</comment><comment><USER45> Doing partial remoting atm (50% of the time on site) and having spent a year looking for a full remote job I have a few things to testify from the employee side:

1\. Partial remote (sometimes) sucks. Ppl in office either feel they getting less or are bored to go the extra mile to accommodate you (remoting is based on better and more communication) or just ignore you cause it's easier to just ask the next desk. And anyhow you are out of any networking/office politics (not necessarily a bad thing though).

2\. Fully remote companies are generally of 3 kinds: a. companies you've heard of and they're serious but since they're looking to hire from a global pool they are extremely picky (Maybe it's easier to get into google than getting into Wordpress). b. companies that are OK(ish) but are in the remoting thing just to cut costs, i.e. they pay peanuts c. companies that are outright dodgy and are looking for suckers or vanish in a puff without a sign. Obviously you'd only care for type (a) but so do thousand others out there.

3\. If you happen to be tax-resident on a state where they tax-slaughter contractors (e.g. certain EU states with ~ 70% tax) remoting is devolving to a hobby rather than a job that may sustain you and your family. "Moving" to a tax haven comes with high risks and in the end you end up playing accountancy games rather than focusing on your job.

4\. You essentially are a contractor. Few if any or remote companies hire you as an employee (but you are paid as an employee). You can be terminated with a minimal notice and no severance. In case of a mixed mode company non-remoters will probably get precedence over you.

5\. Remoting is not for everyone. I personally am fine working like that but I totally understand that a lot of people need the motivation, vibrancy, socializing of the office.

6\. Remoting is a very good way to balance work/family (but you might end up doing a half-assed job in both all the time).

7\. Remoting it the _only_ way to fight off overheated to the point of surreal rental/housing markets like SF, London, Dublin, Munich.

8\. Ecologically speaking the gains are just immense. Dunno if there are any statistics but I wouldn't be surprised if commuting to work is one of the biggest polluting activities overall.

9\. Remoting is the only way to do _deep_ work. Focus, get in the zone, minimize disruptions and solve hard problems. Office is better for trivial, communication-heavy tasks.

Just my 2 cents from my experience so far.

<comment><USER46> > 2\. Fully remote companies are generally of 3 kinds: a. companies you've > heard of and they're serious but since they're looking to hire from a global > pool they are extremely picky

There are many serious remote companies that will only hire in their country (or worse).

> 4\. You essentially are a contractor. Few if any or remote companies hire > you as an employee (but you are paid as an employee).

This doesn't make sense. I am paid as an employee, I _am_ an employee.

I agree with most of the rest though.

<comment><USER45> On 4, I mean that your legal status is usually a contractor one (i.e. you're not protected by the laws covering workers/employees). Yet you are not paid by the hour or by deliverables as usual contractors are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> In order to try and provide answers to that question:

Because of work organisation and a cargo cult work culture that's still stuck in late 19th / early 20th century scientific management (a theory conceived for assembly line rather than knowledge work, no less).

Because - while it's a business' goal to make profit - the individual agents in an organisation often have different motives: They need to accumulate reputation within the company and that reputation frequently isn't directly related to attributes such as productivity but rather appearances such as how many people you "manage" or how long you're sitting in a chair each day.

</comment><comment><USER48> I believe you are one of the few that have made remote-first work for them.

I've done most of my work for clients remotely. It takes a very specific kind of person to work like that, and sadly it's not sustainable in the long run. Being alone for that many hours a day starts to get old.

Not to mention the communication barriers. You really have to pick the best people to have a workflow similar to an office full of people speaking the same language in the same time and place.

Good for you though. I see great potential for remote-first teams as well, it's just that the talent pool is tricky.

</comment><comment><USER49> I can imagine that working remotely is really nice if you have only senior developer with a lot of experience who are great communicators.

But how do remote companies deal with junior developers? Do remote companies offer internships, and how do remote companies mentor people fresh out of college?

I've had a couple of interns, and mentored junior developers, and sitting right next to them makes all the difference in the world -- in my experience. I just can't imagine how that should work over Email or Skype. Or is remote just something for people who are more independent?

</comment><comment><USER50> Effective remote (at least for tech) requires a different culture and often different tool use which make it difficult to be 'hybrid' (i.e some workers are remote and some not). This limits the ability to incrementally adopt remote work and so typically companies have to start with the gene.

Stuff like tapping a co-worker on the shoulder for an ad-hoc question is generally an anti-pattern. It likely knocks them out of flow and means your documentation and internal tools don't allow engineers to answer their own questions. But it's so baked into how companies work that you have to start a new company and train engineers to approach knowledge sharing differently.

Similarly ad-hoc 'fortuitous' discussions around the automated coffee maker to hatch potential new projects/designs/products or whatever company executives think are happening aren't really the best forum for that - they by chance, they aren't necessarily going to be inclusive, and the premise there is that you're essentially expecting work when the goal is to take a break. The expectation seems to be that I may see Bob from $other_team and query him on his current projects while the automated coffee maker takes a few minutes to cough out a latte-like substance but, again, there should be better ways to let me know about potentially useful team intersections rather than bugging bob while he is trying to get a break.

</comment><comment><USER51> A lot of it really is about what kind of personality you are. I think there are too many people who need external motivation to get in the zone to get things done.

I'm not that person. I would love to work 100% remote, where I can work in my own space without distractions. I'm actually way more productive when I get to work from home (at least with the more low-level tasks like actually coding) -- and from a more selfish perspective, I can slice up my day more efficiently and get my work done WHILE ALSO getting my own things done (exercising during lunch hour and using my own shower!)

But TBH I think the most effective option would be to provide an office and sort of let people come and go as they please, maybe with some incentive to get them into the office on average 2 days a week -- for all of the things others have mentioned here, like collaboration, small talk around the office, "hey can you look at this?", etc. etc. Those things are important, and even though I hate coming into the office, I've noticed lately that there have been a number of days when I was working from home and my team had a lot of pings going back and forth trying to figure things out, and I thought it would've been a lot easier to just pop into the office until the issues were resolved.

</comment><comment><USER52> Humans are fairly good at face to face communication and bonding.

I think there is a natural inclination to in person teamwork and bonding works better and faster in person.

That doesn't mean it can't be done remotely, it sure can, but I think there are real complications and it is highly dependent on the use case where remote work could be as simple as "yeah do that" and everything is good, or a situation where it takes a great deal more thought and coordination.

Personally I like a mix of both.

</comment><comment><USER53> I've been on both sides of the spectrum. At first, I couldn't ever imagine working remote. I was an office rat, spent a lot of time at my desk and then socializing with coworkers at happy hours and such. It was a super fun life. When I got the job offer at GitLab, I was super excited about the opportunity and took it _in spite_ of it being remote.

Fast forward to a year later, my perspective has changed. It took me about 3-4 months to adjust but slowly I hit my stride. Today, I can confidently say that I am a lot more productive working all-remote. I don't have to travel or change rooms for meetings, I am fully connected to folks via Slack and Zoom and GitLab issues, and I am working in the comfiest clothes :p. So 8 hours of work in all-remote is equivalent to probably 10 hours in an office.

Socially, I do co-working calls with people, hang out in the slack channels (#dad_jokes and #dog being two favorites), and Zoom as I need to. I never feel left out. I have to say though, I would probably not enjoy being remote when others are in an office because then there is a clear hierarchy of social interactions then.

</comment><comment><USER54> We're a remote first company at Out Of Office, though we're still small (less than 10 employees). It's the first remote job I've had as a software engineer and I find that I'm more productive than I've ever been. I have my days where I can't concentrate but for the most part I'm able to get more done.

We err on the side of too many meetings because we don't have the luxury of in person conversations, but we encourage people to speak up when the meetings aren't productive. We also encourage having meetings just to socialize to avoid feeling lonely or get to know each other better. We hold standups on Monday/Wednesday/Friday so Tuesday/Thursday we're just heads down getting stuff done unless there's a meeting.

We're building a product for people we want (or already have) location flexibility so we're practicing what we preach in a sense. We believe the future of work may not be 100% remote but companies will become location flexible, meaning they still encourage employees to work in office but give them one or two flex days to work from home, a coffee shop, or shared workspace.

The benefits to the employee are quite obvious—greater flexibility in the schedule and they're able to take care of life events like kids, doctor appointments, running errands, etc.

The benefits to the employer have been shown that it increases employee retention. 84% of workers want location flexibility[1] and companies that support remote workers have 25% lower turnover[2].

1\. [https://werk.co/research](https://werk.co/research)

2\. [https://www.owllabs.com/state-of-remote- work-2017](https://www.owllabs.com/state-of-remote-work-2017)

</comment><comment><USER55> I've had positive and negative experiences on both side of the fence. There was one company where I had to commute 2 hours to and from which was absolute hell for me. At that place I worked out of a cubicle which I preferred to an open office. But people also tended to just stop behind me and have a full conversation without so much giving any thought to how they may be disrupting my concentration.

Another job I worked remotely without a single problem. The whole time I only met one person from the team but I never felt isolated. It may have helped that it was a young company with young employees.

Another job I worked was a failing business that was eventually swallowed up by a larger corporation. That job was fully remote too and without issues until the merger. I was laid off in preference of a team member who I think was chosen simply due to face time in the corporate office. This was reinforced by other remote workers being laid off as well. It probably didn't help that this was a more traditional company where very few if any people worked remotely.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've only ever worked in an early stage startup I founded. We initially were in same office and transitioned to remote over a 3 year period. (only 5 of us).

Early in your career (I wrote all of our product and am 25) working in an office is probably helpful. I am actively job searching now and the top thing I care about is a mentor/peer group.

I want to have people to interact with during work. I spent 3 years mainly writing code secluded from the real world (yes, I was going to things like dinners but that isn't the same in my experience).

I worked in finance before and use to complain about being at the office. Looking back, I had a quiet cubicle where I was mostly left alone to do my work but would take a break every hour and play some put putt golf around the office with the other interns.

I made friends, had a break and did a lot of really great work that summer.

Remote work once you're older and have kids + family + roots might make more sense, and I look forward to that! Especially if it allows flexible time so I could drive kids to school.

But, while young, I prefer office first w flexibility if needed.

</comment><comment><USER56> Personally I think many in the pro-remote crowd have a limited view of what a software engineering job is.

If you have a job where your entire job is to crank out some website in Rails or to be the only person building some billing system then sure, remote can make sense. These jobs tend to be on smaller teams with limited scope.

But projects can easily get to a size where you need to:

\- Collaborate with other engineering teams

\- Work with people on the business side

\- Work with product managers, data scientists, comms people, etc

\- Gather requirements because what you have is fairly vague

\- Determine if what you're doing is having the intended impact and adjusting as necessary

While remote can still work in these cases it's much, much harder. It's even harder when you have two teams in different sites even if you're in the same time zone.l

Some pro-remote people also say "I don't need the social interaction", which I think misses the point. You might not but what about your teammates? Doing things like having lunch with your team, going on an offsite, etc actually matters. It helps build a better working relationship.

This is I think particularly the case for more junior engineers. If one is two desks over from you and swearing at their computer then you can see that and intervene. If all the senior people are remote, who is going to do that?

So if you really want to live in [small town X] here and work at home to drop your kids off at school or whatever, that's fine but there's no getting passed the fact that you'll always have less opportunities and only a subset (a small one IMHO) of jobs will be suitable for that. And you just have to accept that.

<comment><USER57> Fully disagree and your opening line is a little bit patronising. Let me try the same!

Presumably the pro-remote crowd are working for tiny little companies where their engineering teams, product managers, data scientists, comms people, etc all fit in the same diddy little office.

But projects can easily get to a size where you need to:

\- Collaborate with various government departments

\- Work with people in other suppliers

\- Work with people across an international supply chain

\- Gather requirements because what you have is fairly vague (isn't this every project ever?)

While local work can still work in these cases, it's much, much harder. It's even harder when you have to fly people across time zones.

\---

Look, this is all silly IMHO - it doesn't have to be this way.

The company I work with is setup for remote first, employees get a rundown of how we use tooling to solve all the communication issues that could arise. You can even sit in voice conference with other devs so you can actually hear each other swearing at code - _if you choose to_. But if people want to colocate the company will pay for them to have office space in a WeWork or similar.

FWIW, I make 4x working remote what I ever did for a local company. And the work is more interesting. Accept that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Remote isn't flawless. A/V systems are still plagued with issues, tons of people don't have the discipline required, even more people don't live in an environment that allows it (eg: having proper office space), lots of people have family a t home that will not respect their work time, etc.

It has plenty of benefits of course, and I can absolutely see how someone can make the argument that the above is a small price to pay for the benefits. They may not be wrong, either. But you have a way of working that has been the norm since the dawn of time, and you have a new way that is still debatable if it's worth it, and the obvious reaction for many is to keep the statue quo.

And then there's just preferences. My current company is making a big shift to allow more remote work. Many people, myself included, don't work well in that environment. We're adapting, but if a situation happened and I ended up leaving my current job, I'd actively seek another office-first company.

</comment><comment><USER59> To work remotely and collaborate well, it takes some extra effort and care. When you are present in the office, you can forego that care and still get the job done (albeit poorly). People generally don't have the skill or discipline for remote work/collaboration. With a little bit of coaching, it can be learnt easily but that itself requires effort from both parties. And of course, how teams function, how you get visibility and recognition for your work, and how you are rewarded - all these will be affected by switching to remote – without solid/convincing answers for these - people will be hesitant to go for it. These are the barriers, IMO. Personally, my commute is super long and I get most of my intense deep work done at home (or during commute itself). I wouldn't mind a world where I had to go meet my colleagues for a couple of weeks at a quarterly offsite and work from home rest of the time. That would be perfect balance for me.

</comment><comment><USER60> I think a big issue is that the costs and benefits are unevenly distributed: the benefits fall mainly on the employee, while the costs are disproportionately on their boss (since managing remote workers can be considerably harder). Since the boss is the one making the hiring decision, this asymmetry means remote hires are a tough sell.

</comment><comment> tr-gitlab I'm still new to the all remote lifestyle, but so far I have really been loving it. I work for GitLab, which is entirely all remote and has no central office space. I suspect that may be different from a hybrid approach.

Aside from the benefits of being able to be around more with my family and to better handle life events, I've found that I enjoying working this way much more.

Working asynchronously forces people to really think about how and what they communicate. I've found that people, including myself, are much more prepared and thoughtful in their work.

I also find that there are way less distractions and that meetings with my coworkers are much more enjoyable. I thought I would have a hard time with the random 'coffee chat' but have come to really value them. It's a great way to be social and meet people, without the pressure of having to do it every day.

</comment><comment><USER61> Discipline. For every one for whom (they believe) remote work unburdens them of social interaction and unwanted stimuli ergo unleashing a Jedi flow state of crazy creativity and productivity...there are others for whom this idea doesn't hold up...like at all. They are more distracted, aloof, and frankly they try to do just enough to somewhat register as a viable employee. They don't engage unless engaged, and they tell a lot of stories when pressed as to why assignment X is still incomplete. Were they working furiously but blocked by A,B,C? Maybe...who knows...all I can say is the lack of proximity _does_ embolden those who are inclined to be lazy and full of excuses. Some at least marginally productive employees do go full on dead weight under these circumstances, IMO.

Anecdotal...but that's par for the course in this thread.

</comment><comment><USER62> I think the article might be looking at this from the wrong direction. It's making a straw-man argument by taking a bunch of the advantages of remote work and saying that everyone should do it. It's ignoring the downsides of remote work (i.e. social isolation, communication hurdles).

It's possible there is a Darwinian effect going on. If remote-first companies are at such a competitive advantage, why aren't there more of them? I don't have a reason, but the lack of remote-first companies suggests that they are at a competitive disadvantage that is preventing them from proliferating or scaling. It's possible that due to underlying psychological factors, most humans are more productive when working face-to-face with other people in an office.

</comment><comment><USER63> At SerpApi ([https://serpapi.com](https://serpapi.com)), we are a remote first company.

I agree with the points the article touched. Convenience, environmental conscious, and the variety of location choices are awesome.

It's also awesome from a management perspective. Everything being async and online makes sense for a tech business. Plus creativity wise it allows us a lot more time for deep thinking.

There is regulations though we can improve. For example, for w2 you need to register your LLC in some of the states where you have employees working from. It makes w2 a big burden specially when you have people are moving around. Or smaller things. Like having to have a poster about labor laws in your office in Texas. It really doesn't make when everyone is remote.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'd love for the world to reframe the remote-vs-commute thing. It's really network-first or not. If you are network first (some kind of tool is your primary and best-organized repository of information) then people can make the trade offs that work best for them.

</comment><comment><USER65> Quite nice presentation about remote work from PyCon 2019: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTWgKyLk6mo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTWgKyLk6mo)

This is generally pro-remote but it includes research results.

</comment><comment><USER66> What about security?

The remote worker is going to need a development workstation that can't be accessed by a non-employee. It'll have to be in a room with a lock and an alarm. Houses shared with family members make this difficult.

The remote worker is going to need access to the internal network. This means they need a business-class router that can do an encrypted VPN. Trusting the workstation to do this is unsafe.

Voice and video also needs to go through that encrypted VPN. Possibly the workstation can provide for this. Whatever the choice of solution, it might need to be always running to accept incoming calls.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm about to leave a big tech company to join a remote startup. I'm pretty excited about all of the work environment benefits. That said, I'm a little worried that I'll just get lonely. I'm pretty introverted and get a lot of the social interactions I need at work, and often enjoy coming home and simply _not_ working. My tentative plan is to push myself to get involved in something that requires regular attendance, right now I'm thinking Toastmasters (public speaking isn't something I fear, but I've got a lot of room to improve) or improv. I'd really appreciate any advice from remote veterans.

</comment><comment> jl-gitlab Here at GitLab we're an all-remote company, and it's been that way since the beginning as I understand it. I've been here about a year now and I've heard so many great stories from people who had remote working change their life for the better. A while back I made a space to collect these, if you're interested in this topic you might find some of these inspring: [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/stories/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/stories/)

</comment><comment><USER68> In my office there are 6 employees. We have group meetings twice a week but otherwise we almost never communicate face to face despite only being 15 feet away from one another. I do enjoy having the option of walking into one of their offices to get a face to face meeting if I need one but I don't see why a call over Skype wouldn't be just as useful.

Currently, I can't afford to live in this town which is insane because there are only 50k people living here. I would love to be able to move to some small town where a house of the same quality and size would only cost me 100k or less rather than 300k or more.

</comment><comment><USER69> I don't know why big corps don't do it more, because they are so big that most of the employees are de facto doing remote work already.

Most small companies are probably just too bad to do it. I mean they do it with contractors other companies, so it IS possible.

Why?

Most <30 people companies simply don't have any management skills yet. They have to get them when they get a critical mass of employees, but before that, they simply meander around with informal processes. Something doesn't work? Let's go to Joe in the next room and ask him!

</comment><comment><USER70> I've seen absolutely magical things happen with smart people sharing a proximal space.

I fully acknowledge the merits, tradeoffs, and viability of a remote workforce and have been remote, worked with others who were remote, seeing success and failure in both.

That being said, I've never seen truly magical things happen the way they happen when people are together. For the work, the team, and the way I want the experience for work to feel, nothing beats having folks together in the same space. Of course, YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER71> The reason why more companies are remote-first is that the manager's schedule is easier to do in the office. Put simply, the people running the teams/companies prefer many of the advantages that being in-person provides.

I wrote more about this here: [https://www.fridayfeedback.com/p/how-to-make- remote-work-mor...](https://www.fridayfeedback.com/p/how-to-make-remote-work- more-common)

</comment><comment><USER72> I'm building out a remote team now - nearly 15 developers - as a division in a regular 'on premise' tech company. And all is going well. However, there is one huge problem I haven't heard any good ideas around - how do I onboard young talent? I can't hire an intern or new college grad into an office by them selves and thinking they can work from their parents basement isn't so hot either.

</comment><comment><USER73> I work at a 100% remote company, but i think there should be a concept of "company hubs". If you don't live 3 hours from one of the few hubs (or maybe there is a single hub), you're out of the area. Require the employees to come in a couple of times per month/quarter for collaboration and a meal.

When its TOO distributed there are a lot of inefficiencies playing against you (timezones, national holidays).

</comment><comment><USER74> > ...so they could be in the same location as their co-workers (who they'll > wind up emailing anyways).

This was the sentence that most resonated with me.

I think about this almost every time I sit in bullshit traffic when I'm just trying to run to the grocery store.

I'm lucky in that the company I work for doesn't care if I'm in office or remote, but I really wish more companies respected that mentality.

</comment><comment><USER75> Why do office workers still have dress codes? Point being that norms take a long time to change. The hippy generation mostly traded in a neck tie for some khakis, with maybe the bonus of casual Friday. The tech industry's growing domination is just making a dent in allowing blue jeans daily. Still not super common nationwide

</comment><comment><USER76> I've been fully remote for the past two years at a company that is mostly distributed (we have to have physical operations in markets we operate in, but the tech team is fully remote).

Overall, I love it, and it would be a challenge to go back to the office/commuting lifestyle. However, I still recognize that it is a nascent thing and I'm incredibly fortunate to work where I do. If the business goes under, will I be able to find comparable remote work with good pay?

To hedge that bet, I still live in one of the larger tech hub cities (born and raised here, so I also don't want to leave it). The thought has crossed my mind many times to move to cheaper locales and take advantage of the potential wage arbitrage that would come with it, but in the end, I like my expensive coastal city, and think it's worth the price. And if push comes to shove, I can commute into an office and make a living.

We have periodic offsites where everyone travels to a single place for a week, and those are great to get to know the people behind the webcam. With Slack, Zoom, Google Docs, Github, etc., it really doesn't feel that much different than working in an office after awhile. The hardest part is learning that with remote work, you have to intentionally overcommunicate. When you're in an office you can get a sense of the vibe, which basically goes away when you're remote. It's really important for a company to focus on maintaining culture when you don't see each other in person every day.

If I were to found a company, odds are, I'd try to establish it as a remote- first culture (assuming the business could support it, which not all companies will ever be able to do). It just makes sense for a good number of tech startups.

The lifestyle isn't for everyone -- some people really thrive in the office environment, and that's great, but the flexibility of remote work is something I wouldn't trade for the world. I'm sure I'm leaving a little money on the table by not working for a local tech company and commuting, but the 10 hours a week I don't spend commuting are time I can spend with my kids, and I'm saving money in other areas like no gas or bus fare or eating out for lunch every day.

I think remote work is "a" future (not "the" future) and could be a great fit for many companies, especially businesses that do most of their work online. However, offices will never go away completely, and that's fine, too.

</comment><comment><USER77> They are.

The problem is the companies that are remote first aren't hanging their shingle here in the states. They're hanging them in India, China, South Pacific, and other areas that have developer expectations 1/10-1/5 the price they would pay here.

We aren't in competition for "remote first".

</comment><comment><USER78> In my limited experience, it is because nontechnical managers are incapable of evaluating our work.

Since they can also not ever admit to not knowing anything, they rely on a crude metric like physical presence or time served.

Then, they can pretend to be managing you by suggesting buzzwords they saw on linkedin.

</comment><comment><USER79> Remote-first is a relatively new idea, that's why. Sure, there are a lot of companies that offer remote days on the schedule, and some international companies that hire certain branches of the business as remote, but the concept of a remote-first company is new and will take time to adopt.

</comment><comment><USER80> With presence, a manager's minimum qualification is being capable of comparing "number of hours in attendance required" vs. "number of hours present". Remote work raises the required minimum competency of managers, which most companies will avoid at all costs.

</comment><comment><USER81> > That's a lot of money to leave on the table. Are those in-person > brainstorming sessions really worth $15,000 per year, per person?

Depends on your revenue/employee, but if you're at or targeting something over $300k/employee than $15k would only need a 5% over remote

</comment><comment><USER82> I'd say "Environment" is on of the biggest reasons.

Traffic, pollution, living costs could all be improved by government mandating and stimulating remote-first policies.

Without government taking a stance - corporate bureaucrats will insist on usual 9-5 "come to work" nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER83> In my experience, remote work takes quite a bit of organization which often defaults to hierarchy. Leaner organizations with less management struggle with this. It partially depends on where you want to put your money as an organization.

</comment><comment><USER84> Its the "nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM" issue.

In-person employment has "worked" forever, for some definition of "worked." Its difficult to trade something that we all know to something that is new and has a lot of unknowns.

</comment><comment><USER85> Hijacking the thread:

What would motivate you to go every day rather to an office instead of working remotely?

Give me your top 3 wishes, eg. the new Mac Pro with 2x Apple 6k displays as your personal workstation.

<comment><USER86> That would be a tough sell for me personally, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the workstation.

1) Flexible hours. I just can't stand the thought of knowing that between the hours of 9 and 6 I know I'm going to be sitting at a desk for the foreseeable future. I need to be able to mix things up.

2) Easy commute and parking.

3) Genuinely good co-workers and environment that I like being around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> The flexible environment is what we need to aim for.

</comment><comment><USER88> Remote is absolute trash for culture and cadence.

</comment><comment><USER89> Because it's hard. Managing remote work is it's own skill that not everyone has.

</comment><comment><USER90> Bad habits die hard

</comment><comment><USER91> I've never worked on a team that actually works well together, that worked from home more than 1 day a week. It's much, much more difficult to stay on the same page and in sync.

</comment><comment><USER92> I cant find anything about mental health, right?

</comment><comment><USER93> > And before I knew it, the clock said 10:30 and I hadn't accomplished a > single thing on my to-do list.

Add 6 hours to that and that pretty much sums up how productive most people would be with the freedom of working from home without being monitored.

<comment><USER94> If you have a to-do list that is public, and nothing gets done, that is your accountability right there.

<comment><USER93> To-do lists are too easy to game. Just add a bunch of nonsense and exaggerate the complexity of your tasks.

<comment><USER94> And that is different from how people game any other metric how? You realize that boss buttons and quick alt tabs are a thing with butts-in-seats, so that's not game-proof either.

For all the rhetoric about enhancing communication, I'm pretty sure open offices are mostly about getting people to police their coworkers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Fedex package stuck in the system for over two months - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rongarret.info/2019/07/fedex-when-it-absolutely-positively-has.html <comment><USER2> I used to sell textbooks online. Lots of them. And for a time, USPS had a monthly auction where they would auction off undeliverable items (they do it online now).

You would not believe how much stuff they are unable to deliver each month. An entire warehouse full. Of just textbooks, 2 to 3 semi truck loads. Another 5 to 10 semi truck loads of regular books.

These included items where the packaging was damaged, or label torn off or illegible address, etc.

We would go to the auctions and purchase tons of textbooks and started noticing that in some cases we were buying back books that we had shipped to customers and had been lost.

They always made claims that they made every effort to return the lost items but as a last resort, they would end up at the auction.

They would usually cost us several thousand dollars a month in lost shipments so I had a distinct rubber stamp with bright red ink made up that said "Attention USPS: if this book is lost in shipping, please return to the following address..."

We stamped the inside cover (which is usually a blank white page) of every single book we shipped for a year. We never once had a lost book returned to us. But every month, we would buy up tons of lost books and when opening them to grade and stamp, we would frequently find our big stamp and it was always blacked out with magic marker.

So instead of having their "investigators" trying to find where to return books, they were spending time destroying evidence to cover their butts so they could continue to profit off their own incompetence.

<comment><USER3> Once I bought something from SparkFun and when I entered the mailing address my zip code went missing the last digit (my fault.) Instead of being routed to Illinois it was sent to Connecticut. Even though the wrong zip code looked like a CT one, it didn't actually match any valid zip code.

For a few weeks I watched this package go from the warehouse (somewhere in the South, I think) and get stuck in an endless loop in the East Coast.

Anyhow, I told Sparkfun and they sent me a replacement order hoping they'd eventually get that package back and put it back in stock. I don't know if that actually happened.

<comment><USER2> Yes, we would see that occasionally. Once tracking got better with USPS, we would track packages that would loop back and forth between two hubs at least a dozen times before disappearing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ah FedEx and their weird accounts.

My wife, a US citizen living in Ireland, needed a US background check as she works with children. The police department in Texas did the work needed and said they could only ship the documents internationally via FedEx. So she asked how much? They said "Oh no, you need to arrange collection and pay FedEx directly"

So off to FedEx she goes thinking she could arrange this as a one off. Nope, you need an account and it has to be set up online. Their account opening forms are really complicated. To be fair, they are probably for people who know about shipping and not for someone who just wants a one-off collection. It took three attempts to get the correct account and to be fair the documents arrived in less than 24hrs which coming from Texas was very impressive.

What happened next is where it gets annoying. She needed to close the accounts as she wouldn't be using them. FedEx said that had to be done offline in writing and she needed to supply a company registration certificate, she had written "Personal account" in the company field on all the account set up forms as it could not be left blank. While she was trying to get this resolved, she got a letter from Revenue asking her to fill in a load of documents relating to customs matters.

Eventually she just went to FedEx's Irish HQ in person to get it all sorted.

I'm not sure who is more to blame, the Texas PD for refusing to arrange the delivery or FedEx for completely ignoring that individuals may be forced to use their service. Either way it was a pain.

<comment><USER5> It's funny, when we get a situation like that during an abroad visit, we find a turkish guy who puts in the right numbers and calls in the right people to get things done. Otherwise you get the average European apathetic office worker mentality who only cares about getting out of work at 1630 and going to a cafe.

<comment><USER6> Sounds like an average human office worker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> About three years ago my wife sent a package from the west coast to the Midwest that somehow got stuck in some kind of USPS package loop.

The online tracking showed it bouncing back and forth between Arizona and New Jersey for several months. No amount of phone calls, emails, or visiting the local post office could help. She was not able to file an insurance claim because the package was still in transit.

After a long time (three or four month) it finally disappeared from tracking, my guess is because the tracking number was recycled. So she filed an insurance claim. Every few weeks an e-mail arrived stating that the investigation was underway and she'd be contacted when it was done. Finally, several more months later, a message from USPS arrived stating the investigation was closed and no refund would be issued because it had been too long since the package was mailed to file a claim. There is no appeals process.

I don't remember what it was that she sent, but it couldn't have been anything important because all she wanted was the Priority Mail fees refunded.

</comment><comment><USER8> The biggest downside to large corporations is the feeling of powerlessness you have. Good thing this guy was only shipping some paper. I've been screwed by corporations before and there will literally be no possible recourse for someone like us to fix the scenario if the corporation decides not to help. The amount is always too little to sue, but enough to make us homeless or unable to pay our bills. It's fucking disgusting. It's sad we rely and enjoy so many services that would be difficult to do without these large unmoving and immoral beuracracies, but this is the world our overlords have chosen for us.

<comment><USER9> What is your proposal for an alternative to FedEx, UPS, USPS, Royal Post, etc? Thousands of small independently-owned shipping companies? How would that work when you need to ship a package from/to arbitrary locations in the entire US/world?

<comment><USER10> What is your proposal for an alternative to Facebook, Twitter, etc? Thousands of small independently-owned networks? How would that work when you need to send data from/to arbitrary locations in the entire US/world?

<comment><USER9> No idea what you mean other than that you just want to mock someone. acollins1331 is the person looking for alternatives, not me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is the devils bargain that the society has accepted.

Small number of customers getting horrible service or getting stuck into Kafkaesque situations is the negative externality from high productivity and low prices. Just because you talk to 10 people does not mean that humans make decisions. Those people just reading decisions from computer screen that computerized domain logic (aka business logic) has decided.

Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in individual cases.

<comment><USER12> >Fedex is in bulk shipping business where every cent of efficiency is squeezed out from by refining the process. There is no room for human decisions in individual cases.

I'm not even a big customer (just shipping for personal purposes), but still I constantly work with the same support rep. I've dealt with way smaller companies that wouldn't give me a personal rep, with Fedex I always deal with the same guy for support and customs handling. I only ship a few packages a year, and receive a few hundred.

<comment><USER11> That's nice but your customer rep is still just user interface to the same underlying system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My experience with shipping companies (no matter which one, and in 4 different countries) is that they generally don't manage to deliver a large fraction of packages. The failure rate must be above 20%, which would be unacceptable for most other kinds of systems.

Every now and then someone convinces me to try Amazon - my most recent experiment with it involved 3 orders, of which they managed to deliver 1. This is to an address in Central London.

I guess you might have a different experience with shipping services in the very grid-like, regular, easily adressable American suburbs - but IME in Europe the most reliable way to get some goods is still to buy them in a physical shop.

<comment><USER14> I feel like this might be getting awful close to victim blaming but I can't help wonder if there is something wrong with your address / delivery situation if you are losing that many parcels.

I'm in the outskirts of London (previously Greater London). If I purchase something from Amazon I expect it to drop through my door the next day. They do this almost without fail. More often I'm surprised when things arrive earlier than I expected.

<comment><USER15> Actually at that rate I think its probably more likely a simple error an the address database somewhere. Something simple like the postcode is in the address4 field rather than the postcode field. 20% of the time the employee rejects it as they are highly incentivised to process them quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> FWIW, I had a similar kakfaesque Fedex experience a few years ago. I eventually tweeted my frustration and @mentioned FedEx. The entire situation was resolved within 60 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER17> > It turns out that there is more than one kind of Fedex account, and we had > opened the wrong kind. So we opened another Fedex account.

oof. I've had this exact same problem with DHL. There's DHL, DHL International and DHL Express, each with country specific branches. I once had a package of business cards "destroyed" because DHL Express will not deliver to a DHL Packstation.

I can only assume it's a natural artifact of organisations getting so big and inefficient, which seems to be a common factor in the mail industry, and packages literally falling between the cracks of the organisation.

<comment><USER18> Maybe offtopic, but I had a similar issue with comcast years ago when I used to manage multiple accounts for a business with satellite offices. TV, Internet, and phone could be any collection of local account or "national" account; both with different access methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The original FedEx, now called FedEx Express is a fine service. This sounds like FedEx Ground/Home Delivery which was originally Roadway Package Systems and acquired by FedEx in the nineties. I've had more trouble (as a recipient) with that service than any other shipper. Last mile delivery is contractors. It really tarnishes the FedEx brand.

UPS and USPS have yet to lose or significantly delay one of my packages.

UPS can tell me what home delivery truck my package is on and where it is on the road. With FedEx Ground, I count myself lucky if they even know what zip code my package is in.

<comment><USER20> It appears this was FedEx Next Day Air which is usually FedEx delivery drivers. Not sure who they use in Ireland. FedEx ground is about as good as Amazon's various couriers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> So far USPS has been the least bad for me as a receiver and occasional sender of packages. That doesn't really mean they're good.

Something I've noticed is that when USPS packages get delivered to my complex, they show up as "Delivery attempted; nobody was available to accept package" at around 9 AM, then show up at my door at around 3 PM. I had my suspicions but when I finally asked the mail man confirmed that they simply aren't allowed enough time to actually make the deliveries. In the online shopping era doing a complex like mine can take four hours or more, when they only allot 2 hours.

This last Saturday I had a package bounce like that as well, only it never showed up at my door. Instead, I found the door tag in the mailroom and had to go pick it up today.

At my previous residence I rented a townhouse with its own address in a less populous area and did not really have this issue. However, I did have a different problem, which was that the address on my driver's license did not match my address (its complicated.) I frequently import stuff from Japan, and EMS always requires a signature. So I often found myself at the post office with my leasing documents trying to prove that yes, I live here. I had a USPS account with Informed Delivery that I confirmed with a physical mailpiece, which is good enough proof for the DMV, but not good enough for USPS.

It's really, really saying something that this is the experience I consider to be the best I've had. Though I'll give UPS credit for having somewhat accurate, if coarse grained, delivery windows to tell me when to expect something, instead of "Oh, it'll come by 8 PM" and then it comes literally at any time including after 8.

<comment><USER22> When I pay a seller for shipping, I am paying for delivery to my destination. I never go pick it up. It is the seller's responsibility to get the package to me, once I have paid shipping.

I do a fair number of chargebacks.

<comment><USER23> You sound like a terrible person.

There are many reasons outside the seller's control that you'd have to, god forbid, pickup the package at your local post office or branch. Doubly true when it comes to international shipments or shipments requiring a signature.

<comment><USER22> The seller chooses the method of shipment. It is absolutely not out of their control. They have been paid for a service, and if the package does not arrive at the destination (the post office near the destination is not the destination), they did not render that service.

It is no different than if you paid a GC to redo your bathroom, and his sink guy fucked up and didn't install the drain pipe. It's the GC's fault, because they were paid for the job, and they chose and supervised the subcontractor.

<comment><USER23> Again, you sound as if you have no concept of the "real world". Not everything will always work exactly the way you want it to.

There are a variety of reasons that a package may not be delivered to your door, among other things some of the more common are signature requirements, requiring customs payments, and the post office just not delivering to your house. The sender has no control over when you're going to be home, how your local postal system handles customs, or what the policies of your local post office are.

It's more like a contractor not fulfilling your ever wish because it would be against the building code and then you getting upset about it.

<comment><USER22> They don't have to use the post office. They can prepay customs. They can send it signature not required, or they can ship with a shipper that makes a delivery appointment.

It's still the seller's fault if the goods you paid for don't arrive at the agreed delivery location, regardless of shipping circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I had a similar experience once, years ago, except it was probably my fault. It was the first time I tried using a FedEx account, printing out the form, putting in the clear sleeve, attaching it to the box, etc. I suspect I didn't get the sleeve attached correctly, but it eventually (somehow) made its way back to me a month or so later. I sympathize with the poster's frustration with the bureaucracy and confusing account situations. While I know people who are FedEx experts and have no problem jumping through their hoops, since my issue I've stuck to paying the extra few bucks to have someone at a FedEx (or UPS) retail store handle the shipping, in the hopes that this improves my chances of success.

I'm guessing that the package ended up in Mississippi because FedEx's main hub is in Memphis, TN very close to the MS state line. There are several big warehouses just over the state line, and maybe FedEx uses such a facility for packages that are in limbo.

</comment><comment><USER25> Shippers have problems, and anecdotes abound. Doesn't mean they don't ship billions of packages successfully each year. So keep some perspective.

My anecdote: shipped a prototype computer box weighing 300 lbs 'overnight freight' from Iowa to San Jose. It disappeared for 12 days. Finally turned up on a truck in San Antonio. To their credit they called every day to update (which was 'no new info'), probably to measure my level of consternation. I was unconcerned at the time - the box was going back to be updated and we had new ones already.

Twice (!) I received computers that appeared to have been dropped from a great height onto a solid bar - they were nearly broken in half. Both continued to work! But dang.

</comment><comment><USER26> Par for the course with shipping companies in my experience.

They're pretty damn good when everything goes according to plan, but when something unexpected happens it turns into a nightmare.

</comment><comment><USER27> Do any of you remember this shennanigans?? [https://jalopnik.com/how-ups- screwed-a-popular-youtube-car-g...](https://jalopnik.com/how-ups-screwed-a- popular-youtube-car-guy-out-of-10-00-1738255686)

</comment><comment><USER28> FedEx is indeed frustrating and I'd like to share my experience.

My current home is an area that became incorporated about 4 years ago resulting in new addresses for all residents. When looking up my home, almost all map apps leave off the house number. FedEx can't process this, freaks out and ships my packages to my old address. The shipping notification email I receive from FedEx always says "your shipping address has been changed" with absolutely no prompting from me. This has resulted in me trying many things in order to correct with no resolution. Most times, I receive my package by jumping through one or more hoops with no resolution to the core issue.

The hoops:

      1.) drive to the old address to pick up packages (an hour drive)

      2.) Call FedEx and waste a minimum of 35 minutes each time

      3.) Re-route packages to a nearby FedEx store

      4.) Call the merchant, some have helped, some have directed me to the shipper

      5.) I've created a FedEx account, deleted all shipping addresses except for the current

      6.) Written a script I copy and paste to Twitter support with all information they will need. They typically respond with "the ticket has been submitted, we don't have any further information"it's sort of a spray and pray approach. Either I'll get an updated shipping notification or nada. If I receive nada day-of delivery, I'm calling or rerouting.

      7.) Update my address in Google Maps, but I don't think it took

My wife's solution has been to have all of her (mostly Target) packages be delivered to her parents' house which is equally frustrating. This address issues also affects my ability to order Jimmy John's online, their system just won't let me, I have to call it in. DoorDash requires I spell out how to find my house in the notes (I've noticed most delivery drivers don't read the notes until they can't find my house).

To one-up OP, I have a World Cup ball from Adidas stuck in some delivery delay hell. It's actually funny now, _I 'm coming up on my 1st anniversary of placing an order for an item that I haven't received yet._ Ordered the ball on 8/16/18, and just received the latest email update notifying me of a delay only 2 days ago. I called support last November and they said that the ball is stuck in the warehouse and they apologize for the delay. I could have opted for a refund then but decided to let it ride. I really want that ball. Photo for proof: [http://tinyurl.com/y2st8lt4](http://tinyurl.com/y2st8lt4)

</comment><comment><USER29> DHL FTW. Has been the most on point for personal, low bandwidth use.

Fun fact. DHL has a location in every country, including North Korea!

</comment><comment><USER30> I live in Ireland. I regularly get amazon packages delivered without any issues. I have ordered items from China via China post and they have arrived too. I don't think I've had a missing package in years.

This is just my situation, but I wonder if those who have had a single negative experience shout the loudest sometimes.

<comment><USER31> It hasn't happened to me yet. Must not be matter!</comment></comment>


Hospitalism: On 'The Butchering Art' - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n13/sarah-perry/hospitalism <comment><USER2> Honey is making a comeback for problematic wounds. The most researched kind is from New Zealand, Mānuka honey [0], but really any kind of honey will do. I've [also] read that [white] sugar works too - from a search now, [1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey)

[1] [https://advancedtissue.com/2016/06/role-sugar-proper- wound-c...](https://advancedtissue.com/2016/06/role-sugar-proper-wound-care- management/) \-- random search link with some links to papers

My favorite quote from the book review: "Unfortunately, nobody – least of all a scientist – likes to be publicly corrected. Infection was still considered by many to be inevitable, and best left to play out as Providence determined – a version, in fact, of the 'therapeutic nihilism' to which most Quakers, Lister's father included, adhered. To argue the contrary was tacitly to condemn surgical practices that had been in use for decades."

Even today, many doctors are still biased towards treatments that don't actually work very well. On HN this morning there was a link about Melatonin, with some tips on how to use this substance most effectively to aid in sleep... ("Uhm... it was on slatestarcodex..." Ah, [2]). I didn't comment there, but I thought about quipping about how Ambien (and all other FDA- approved sleep medications) do not actually work very well. In recent months, I think I've figured out my own sleep issues. This has taken me 20+ years, and the FDA-approved palliative drugs aren't part of the process. Millions of people are suffering from poor sleep, but not-very-effective drugs are a first-line treatment. Why is that?

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17505380](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17505380) (HN discussion of SSC article on Melatonin)

[Edit2: the quest for Manuka honey is causing some problems for New Zealanders [3]. if you have a wound that might benefit from honey, try buying local honey first. You'll save a lot of money, and probably get just as good a result.

[3] [https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay- news/news/article.cfm?c_id=15...](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bay- news/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503768&objectid=11522715) ]

<comment><USER3> I think the question is, how does one distinguish the claims above from the claims described in the article, such as "it was surmised that if he had eaten breakfast before picking up the scalpel, the food would have absorbed any poison attending the corpse"?

IMHO the article disagrees with the parent; the article refers to honey as a relic of medical practices of Ancient Greece; I'd bet ours are far more effective. The article supports the idea that scientific method, publicly reproducible empirical evidence, is the tool to separate bad ideas from good, superstition from fact.</comment></comment>