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