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posted by martyb on Tuesday March 10 2020, @04:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the all-the-better-to-identify-what-can-be-outsourced? dept.

Dustin Kirkland has written a blog post about telecommuting for over two decades. He goes into a lot of detail about his particular setup. He closes asking what other people's remote offices look like and what, if anything, he missed.

In this post, I'm going to share a few of the benefits and best practices that I've discovered over the years, and I'll share with you a shopping list of hardware and products that I have come to love or depend on, over the years.

I worked in a variety of different roles -- software engineer, engineering manager, product manager, and executive (CTO, VP Product, Chief Product Officer) -- and with a couple of differet companies, big and small (IBM, Google, Canonical, Gazzang, and Apex). In fact, I was one of IBM's early work-from-home interns, as a college student in 2000, when my summer internship manager allowed me to continue working when I went back to campus, and I used the ATT Global Network dial-up VPN client to "upload" my code to IBM's servers.

If there's anything positive to be gained out of the COVID-19 virus life changes, I hope that working from home will become much more widely accepted and broadly practiced around the world, in jobs and industries where it's possible. Moreover, I hope that other jobs and industries will get even more creative and flexible with remote work arrangements, while maintaining work-life-balance, corporate security, and employee productivity.

See similar article at the BBC.

How much, if any, can you work from home? What tools are on your "gotta have it" list? What cautions, suggestions, and resources do you suggest for your fellow Soylentils?


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by legont on Tuesday March 10 2020, @04:47PM (25 children)

    by legont (4179) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @04:47PM (#969159)

    I've worked from home for 7 years. I was going to the office part time over the last two, but as of last Friday I am required to stay home. Going to the office is prohibited.
    On technical side it is easy. Backup everything - two internet providers, two modems, two firewalls, two independent phones. Ideally if something goes down you want to be able to switch to something working and deal with the issue later. It is easy for me because all the real data and resources at at the company servers anyway so I just need a dumb environment.
    It is harder psychological. You have to be disciplined and work scheduled hours, which may be difficult because of wives, girlfriends and children. Many females just can't grasp having a man around not doing as she orders. I have a basement and simply go there and don't come up during office hours.
    At some more difficult point I went as far as taking a hike in the morning and the afternoon simulating the commute. Yes, don't forget physical while at home.
    Having said that, I do enjoy it a lot. As many of us, I am an introvert and don't like people too much.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:03PM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:03PM (#969169)

    My wife is ok with it, it's the girlfriend that gets in the way.

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by hendrikboom on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:54PM (4 children)

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:54PM (#969187) Homepage Journal

      It is so convenient when your wife and your girlfriend are the same person.

      • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:59PM (3 children)

        by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:59PM (#969217)

        Even moreso when they are both imaginary.

        --
        "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @09:56PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @09:56PM (#969311)

          are pixels imaginary?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:06AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:06AM (#969535)

            2D wife
            See also; waifu

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:10PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:10PM (#969654)

            Try voxels. Holo-waifu.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:10PM

      by driverless (4770) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:10PM (#969257)

      My wife is ok with it, it's the girlfriend that gets in the way.

      But it's convenient that way, wife at home thinks you're with your girlfriend, girlfriend at work thinks you're with your wife, and you can be offsite engineering a GaN charger to put on Kickstarter when it's done.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:55AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @04:55AM (#969490)

      That's because you haven't achieved his level yet. He has multiple wives and multiple girlfriends. What concerns me are the children.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:30PM (5 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:30PM (#969180)

    As much as I bitch about Comcast, I've only had to switch to use my 4G cell service once since 2013... they're "good enough" and, comically, over 10x faster than the service I get at my desk in the office.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:39PM (3 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:39PM (#969202)

      That's bizarre. What's the office bottleneck?

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:51PM (2 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:51PM (#969211)

        What's the office bottleneck?

        Just your basic massive multi-national paranoid holding company mentality. The "mothership" doesn't trust the newly acquired business units so all packets go through a filter in the main office over leased lines, and our site initially leased our lines 20 years ago - I started bitching, LOUDLY, about the outdated bandwidth about 2 years ago and maybe, maybe next year they'll get around to re-evaluating the "campus needs" in that year's budget, if we're not bumped by higher priority things.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @11:45PM (1 child)

          by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @11:45PM (#969345)

          Wow, bizarre. I'm too much of an optimist- what are they afraid could happen?

          Could they put the filter boxes in local offices and access them remotely?

          Maybe you could suggest this and get a bonus for saving the $ wasted on the leased lines.

          Otherwise connect locations through VPN?

          I'm sure I'm missing something.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:13AM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:13AM (#969420)

            What happens, in practice, is people stay home and work from there... which is ultimately much less secure.

            Bitching loudly and moving the needle on the bandwidth of the leased lines is about as good as I can hope for from my perspective, and I don't want to march in on IT and start suggesting how they do their jobs - I just tell them that a 2GB image download started at work at 10am doesn't finish until after 2pm, started at 6pm it might finish by ~6:40, but the same 2GB download at home is more like 5 minutes.

            Thing is, 95% of the headcount at the location never moves that much data, they just do e-mails, training apps, and various other things that the lame bandwidth serves "adequately" so the IT bean counters get their bonuses by not spending more than they have to, and not wasting effort on change.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:10PM

      by legont (4179) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:10PM (#969256)

      I do it more often mostly because falling trees or poles cut both - power and internet. My laptop over t-mobile G4 works well enough to get through this.

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:38PM (9 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @05:38PM (#969182)

    Many females just can't grasp having a man around not doing as she orders.

    After 20 years I have mine trained: she never orders me to do anything. Unfortunately, she still believes that she can have my attention any time she walks in the room which can be difficult when trying to work from home. When it gets too bad I intimate that I could get more done with the interruptions I get at work (in truth it's a little worse there...) and she tends to back off, but never seems to learn that lesson long-term.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:18PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:18PM (#969193)

      This one's easy for me -- she also works from home, telecommutes to her previous job which was in a different state. We both make the mistake of expecting the other's attention *right now*, but not very often anymore. Now I walk into her work space (or vice versa) and see what's on the screen before interrupting.

      Working from home works out great for both of us.

    • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:42PM (7 children)

      by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:42PM (#969206)

      Maybe she feels like she's missing out on something interesting? Maybe you could get her involved a little, kind of like taking a kid to work day? She'll either understand better and respect your concentration, or she'll get very bored and leave you alone? Or...

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:58PM (6 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @06:58PM (#969215)

        Maybe you could get her involved a little, kind of like taking a kid to work day? She'll either understand better and respect your concentration, or she'll get very bored and leave you alone? Or...

        Tried that, no joy. Best I've managed is to abandon her during work hours for her tech support needs, she can actually do these things without me and we've proven that time and again when I'm either out of town or at work, but she still would rather I do them for her...

        The interruptions are usually "little things, just want your input..." or, worse, venting about her family/friends relationship frustrations. Once she's managed a solid interruption I'll just drop what I'm doing and give her 100% full attention which usually gets the message across and her needs at least somewhat met within 5 minutes or so, if I don't do that I'm liable to get many more little interruptions over the coming hour or two. Still, on those rare days that I'm doing "something big" I try to tell her how 4 hours of solid uninterrupted time is worth more to me than 12 hours with interruptions every 45 minutes, she says she understands but doesn't always act like she does.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @07:08PM (4 children)

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @07:08PM (#969222)

          Maybe try wearing headphones when working? I don't work from home, but I find that having headphones on when at my desk tends to reduce the number of interruptions I get. Often I am not even playing music or anything.

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:35PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @08:35PM (#969273)

            I wear industrial grade, -34dB ear muffs while at the office that do a pretty good job of silencing all nearby conversations. I've done so for years.

            This doesn't stop 100% of my coworkers from starting to talk at me without even making eye contact first, despite the 100% outcome of them having to repeat the first part of their sentence.

            • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:05AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @01:05AM (#969382)

              Try putting blinkers on and obnoxious signs everywhere about being a bit more fuckin' polite, you assholes.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:18AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11 2020, @07:18AM (#969537)

              Care to share what you're using? I have a few pairs of the 3M Peltor X5A [3m.com], but it seems they're only rated -31dB.

          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:07AM

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:07AM (#969415)

            Headphones, or the office door closed, will shift the balance at work from worse than home to better than home - unfortunately they don't seem to move the needle at home.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by RS3 on Tuesday March 10 2020, @11:31PM

          by RS3 (6367) on Tuesday March 10 2020, @11:31PM (#969340)

          Wow, very romantic. I've never been married (technically) but I've had girlfriends who doted on me. I didn't know how much I would miss them. You're quite blessed.

  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:04PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Wednesday March 11 2020, @03:04PM (#969650) Journal

    > Many females just can't grasp having a man around not doing as she orders.

    This is my own experience with my wife. When we're both home, it's often a honey-do every few minutes. I almost never ask anything of her. I tested this one evening by trying to play a 3 minute time limited game over and over. In the space of an hour, I was able to finish only one. Every other game I had to abandon so I could attend to yet another honey-do.

    My parents, in contrast, did their own things. Dad would spend his time in the garage, and Mom would do housekeeping stuff. She wanted him to help her more, but somehow, there was always automobile maintenance that had to be done. As for me, Dad took a lot more of my time than Mom ever did, to help with the car repairs. A very few times, when I wasn't available, he got her to help him with car repairs. That was only for things that couldn't be done by one person.