Is telecommuting good?

[Zafir Anjum]

I worked from home twice a week for over a year. It was great. I would get twice

the work done in these two days than in the remaining three days. I also saved

nearly two hours each day that I worked from home (by not commuting).


Have you done offsite work, telecommuted a few days a week/month or have an

opinion about it? Is telecommuting an option at your job? Do you manage or work

with someone who works offsite?


Let us know.

[Chris Maunder]

Just started telecommuting - Sleep in time!! :)


Actually it was a little harder to be disciplined about spending the

hours, but now I find I'm actually working longer due to there not

being a set work/non-work situation.


Saves on petrol though!

[Rob Manderson]

My experience was the opposite. I found it hard to discipline myself to stick to normal working hours instead of just keeping at it. I do agree on the sleep in stuff though - problem was that i'd sleep in and then work till 4 am - easy to fall into a pattern that way.


That said - i've telecommuted on and off for about 15 years and you can't beat it for those jobs (like kernel mode drivers) where you can't afford the office distraction. And on top of that, when you do have to go to the office you can do it outside rush hour :-)


Rob

[Mark E. Pennell]

I have been telecommuting for the past 3 years, and it has worked wonderfully for me. I am a senior Windows developer with Visioneer, Inc. of Fremont, CA. I currently telecommute from my home in Austin, TX. Visioneer produces PaperPort consumer sheet-fed and flatbed scanners, as well as PaperPort Deluxe scanner and document mangagement software. I am on the main product team doing C++/MFC development.


I find that I am much more productive than when I worked on-site. I also enjoy being able to adjust my schedule daily in order to balance work with family (I have a 3yo girl and 1yo boy).


Before moving to Austin, TX, I lived for 4 years in Silicon Valley. There I had several friends who telecommuted with varied success and failure. Although there is not "1" formula for success, I feel that the following areas are crucial:


1. YOU

=======

You must be a self-motivator, and senior/comfortable in your skillset. When you telecommute, you are not normally afforded the opportunity for much direction in your duties. It is important that you work as a "lean, mean coding machine", to pawn a cliche. You must have other interest/activites in your life to make up for the lack of socialization with your peers. That doesn't just mean family, but also venues to soclialize with other professionals in your field, such as conferences, groups, clubs, etc.


2. Progressive Management

==========================

Managing a telecommuter requires a great deal of trust and respect for the developers talents and integrity. Personally, I don't believe I would be that successful at it. Thankfully, my manager and upper management have been excellent in this area. As a manager, you want a developer who is highly skilled in their area and "resourceful" in finding solutions without adding "drain" to your time. Also, mutual integrity is crucial.


3. Support Staff

=================

Telecommuting goes way beyond you, your manager and your team. You need added support from all other departments in the company. You need a human resources manager who will give you "mind-share" and keep you in the loop. You need to get your mail forwarded. You need minutes / summaries of company meetings. You need network OPS support. Etc.


4. Communication

=================

Without question, the distance/remoteness factor strains communication with your manager and peers. When my associates find out that I telecommute AND am a senior contributor on the core team, they are normally surprised. Most telecommuting situations I have seen involve developers with mostly independent projects. Your participation in a team environment can be successful if you have good lines of cummunication. I have a telephone, fax, email and pager. "So," you say, "nothing new hear!" Well, kind of. What I found in the early stages was that no matter how profressionally setup my office was at home, my peers still were leary of "calling Mark at home." Routinely my peers would ask the manager, "Hey, is this important enough for me to call Mark at home?" Once we overcame this, we found that the amount of cummunication you can have need not suffer unduly by distance. Once you get past this and the lack of face-to-face communication, you will find that all parties adjust well. When I was onsite, I often picked up the phone to call 5 cubes down the hall anyway!


5. Work Environment

====================

You can't work successfully in your living room or a large, mostly unused closet :) You need to have a dedicated office with lots of cords and electrical equipment strewn about. My setup has worked well, so let me detail it. I have a dedicated room with the following:

- Fluorescent overhead lighting

- Large, "L" shaped work desk

- Good office chair with carpet cover

- ISDN line for voice, fax and fast data

- Microsoft Network with two development machines and a printer


6. Connectivity

================

You must have some facility for having direct tie-in with your company's network. Emailing files back-n-forth doesn't cut it. I have a dedicated machine located in a cube back in Fremont. I run PC-Anywhere on that machine, as well as on one in my office, connected via TCP/IP. When I turn my chair 45 degrees here in Austin, I am looking a my "Fremont" machine, virtually. Therefore, I am connected directly to the network, source control, internal apps and websites, etc.


If telecommuting is in your plans, then I wish you the best of success. I hope you can find an employer so forward thinking as mine.


Feel free to email me if you would like to ask me any questions: mark@funtown.com


Cheers,

-Mark E. Pennell

[Brett Robichaud]

I've been telecommuting for about two years now and have very mixed feelings about it. My situation is probably uncommon. I am now living 2 hours away from the office so I telecommute 3 or 4 days a week. While it is great because I get LOTs of undisturbed time it is also very isolating. I think a good compromise would be to telecommute 2 days a week and have the flexibility to choose those 2 days at the last minute. We have a number of other developers that have this flexibility and love it. For me the isolation is a real killer, I would not recommend telecommuting more than 2 or 3 days a week to anyone. Some would like it (many consultants are used to it) but I think most wouldn't.

[Paul Wilkerson]

Depends on the person, I have been working from home now from over 2 years. There are many advantages to working from home. The best being no commuting. The disadvantage is a lack of socializing with others on a one to one basis. I agree with Chris in that you end up working more from home, since it is quite easy to lose track of time.


I personally would find it difficult at this point to go back to an office environment.

[Patty You]

It is a wonderful thing to do. I have been working for some clients offsite for the past two years, we communicate each other via email/phone, I get a lot more done by working at home than working on site. Currently I am looking for more clients so that I can do all the work at home, and forget about driving long distance and getting bothered with slow machines and gossip onsite...


-Patty

(409)446-2026

[John Hagen]

I have been working from home for about 2 1/2 years. I suppose it could be called Telecommuting but I seldom commute. Let me explain...


I reside in a small town in Oklahoma. It is an 18 hour non-stop (except for gas) drive to work (Torrance, CA). I used to travel to Torrance about once a month but that has dwindled to about 5 times a year due to budget cuts.


My job is to write firmware for black boxes used to recharge electric vehicles. The "charge controllers" use 68hc11 micros and all of the code is in assembly (my favorite). After I have a project ready for testing, and I have tested all I can at home, it's off to Torrance. I spend a week or so on-site and then back to the good life in Oklahoma.


My problem is not working at home, but adjusting to so many people once I leave home. I rarely get out during the week and this town is so small there isn't a lot of traffic to contend with. But when I cross into California, whew... I can see where the isolation of working at home takes it's toll.


I am thankful my management saw fit to allow this situation to occur. It was either that or I had to find another job. Fortunately I am well thought of and trusted so it was allowed.


My hours are too many, as I usually work around an 80 hour week. Would be less if I worked in the cubicle :) but it's been worth it.


John Hagen

[Robert Pearmain]

Hi,


I've been Telecommuting for about a year now as my office is over an hour away constant driving (63 miles, not that I'm counting). I do 2 days a week. My origional intention was to move near my office, but being a Visual C++ developer I found I was always being interrupted at work and I got far more work done isolated.


I usually work on a team project like this:


Monday - Travel to the office, plan development, test code with team

Tuesday - CODE AT HOME

Wednesday - travel to the office, plan development, test code with team

Thurday - CODE AT HOME

travel to the office, test code with team, respond to mail, expenses etc.


I live in Grimsby (UK) and travel to York (UK). The travelling costs (About £150, $250) a month is the difference in housing prices for mortgages between the two towns so financially I am no worse off, and get to spend time with my wife and baby daughter more.


However, my eventual intention is to run my own business freelance programming from home full time.


I would appreciate any pointers to getting work, advertising etc.


Rob

[David Patrick]

I'd have to agree with the point about "lack of socializing" .. I'm not terribly social in the first place, but to my surprise I do find myself missing the office gossip.


I've been working at home 7 days/week for the past 1.5 years and to a very large degree I love the flexibility. Three and Four day weekends are not uncommon .. actually I usually do most of my work doing the weekends and take most of my time off during the week.


The only real problem I can state is that personally I do not truely have enough personal discipline and hence I get easily distracted and side tracked into other things that are happening at home ... hence long weekends to make up for the work I should have gotten done during the week.


That being said, my bosses are happy with my work and that is all the really matters.


Oh, one last thought .. one thing that concerned me at first was the thought of spending all day everyday with my wife .. who I love, dont get me wrong .. because it is always possible for tension to build between two people who are always constantly in each others face. I'm happy to say that it hasn't been a problem at all (or atleast not for me).

[Joshua Muskovitz]

I think telecommuting is good, but like everyone else has said, there are some serious drawbacks. Most (80%+) of the staff in my company telecommute -- we are scattered all over the globe, actually.


I have found it really hard to actually sit in my home office for 8 hours straight and be productive. But after struggling with this for a few months, it dawned on me that I didn't do this when I worked in an office. Most people I know who do 8 hours in an office only get 3-6 hours of useful work done on the best of days. The rest of the time is socializing, screwing around, or just being unproductive. (Really -- is *anyone* able to program 9-5 five days a week?!? I can't turn it on and off like that!)


So instead, I work in 2-5 hour stints, and if I realize that I'm not being productive, I *STOP* what I'm doing, and go run errands, watch the tube, or just get out of the **** house. I find that I'm still getting the same amount of work done, I'm just not sitting in front of a keyboard for 8 hours a day.


One other thing I've noticed is that telecommuting seems to go with being a parent of young (under 5 years) kids. My son is 15 months old, and I love being able to spend a half an hour in the middle of the day with him. I can always code at night when he's sleeping, and he won't stay a toddler forever, so TAKE THE TIME! The flip side of this is that if you are sharing a house during the day with your spouse and/or your kid, you have to make it clear that work time is work time. You have to be able to work undisturbed.


I do seriously miss the socializing of an office -- this can be really hard sometimes. I try to get together for lunch with friends, and definitely get out of the house whenever possible. You also miss some of the "technical vitality" you get from hearing about your buddy's latest coding discovery, so I think it can hurt your skills over time. I would definitely only recommend telecommuting for senior people with a very solid skill base. Nothing is worse than having a coding problem and not having anyone to ask for a reality check.


One last thing -- you MUST have excellent communication skills to work at a distance. If you think it is hard having a design meeting standing around a whiteboard, try doing it with your eyes closed.