Recently, I spent two weeks working remotely (i.e. far, far away from my office). The opportunity was there, and I happen to work on a product that makes working (and interacting) remotely straightforward. Since I know some of you who read this blog work remotely (and others would like to), I thought I\u2019d share some of my thoughts on the experience.<\/p>\n
First off, I can say that I was highly productive \u2013 I got a huge amount of work done. But \u2013 I have to admit, it wasn\u2019t the same<\/em> work I would have done if I was in the office. I worked on a lot of semi-deep technology problems (e.g. tools, implementations, strategies, processes, etc.) that I would have done in spurts over the next several months. It\u2019s nice to have the research and groundwork done now, and in the long run, it will be beneficial that I got a jump start on this work. I just would have done less of it and more interacting if I was in the office.<\/p>\n I realized this after just a few days of work, and have spent most of the time since then pondering why this is the case. A big part of this is my role on the team. I don\u2019t own a testing area (or even a testing technique). In some ways, I\u2019m a consultant for our test team \u2013 answering questions, giving advice, and providing guidance where it\u2019s requested or needed. But the questions and advice and guidance rarely come out of a well formed email. Most develop out of informal conversations \u2013 many of which I stumble upon in the hallway, by the coffee machine, or in the lunch room. When you\u2019re working remotely, you usually don\u2019t have good opportunities to take part in these conversations (note, that I have ideas now, and we\u2019re working on them internally).<\/p>\n I attended meetings remotely (video and desktop sharing worked great), and for the first time in my career, I actually wished for more<\/em> meetings, as I was able to participate just as if I was in the room (including my typical smart-ass comments). But by the time I finished the two weeks of remote work, I was starting to feel pretty isolated. I had proposed a few discussion topics to team members, but surprisingly, most preferred to wait for the discussion until I returned (I think that\u2019s a redmond culture issue that we need to think about). I did spend almost the entire first two days I was back meeting with people and talking about all of the sorts of things that don\u2019t end up in email, so it was nice to feel immediately connected.<\/p>\n My hunch is that working remotely would be a no-brainer for people with more \u201ctask-oriented\u201d work (e.g. a job solely focused on testing, development, or writing) \u2013 as long, of course, as they had the discipline to focus on work. I\u2019ll have to track down a few industry colleagues who work remotely some time and ask about their experiences and thoughts.<\/p>\n I also think that remote work can be an option for me \u2013 but it will take some culture change (and technology tweaks) to be completely successful. As it turns out, after those two days in Redmond, my parents needed me to visit and help out for a while, so I\u2019m working remotely again. Even two days in, it\u2019s been a better experience, and think I\u2019ll continue to learn a lot (it also helps that I\u2019m just two hours away, and can, and will, commute to Redmond frequently when needed). <\/p>\n If you have your own thoughts or experiences, I\u2019d love to hear about them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I spent two weeks working remotely (i.e. far, far away from my office). The opportunity was there, and I happen to work on a product that makes working (and interacting) remotely straightforward. 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