The positives and perils of working remotely
At the end of February I had to head back to the UK for a few weeks. Luckily for me, my work offered me the chance to work full-time remotely during this time.
This post aims to briefly cover my experience: what I think worked, and what didn’t. Note that this is a quite particular case: the remote working was short-term (in total it lasted 5 weeks), international (with an eight hour time difference), and with an otherwise centralized team. I know, and have seen examples, that remote working can work brilliantly when it is long-term, team-wide, and within a few hours time difference. In my case, it was more of a mixed bag.
What worked?
One of the biggest advantages remote working gives to you is flexibility and greater control over your workday. I’m usually a morning person and I try to be in the office by 8am when in SF. Remotely, I tried to start work around 10am or 11am and then work through until around 8pm (when San Francisco HQ has lunch). This fluctuated though: some days I would start a little later (to maybe have a coffee with some family) and so work later, or conversely.
A big positive for me was obviously the opportunity to carry on working. Having to head back to the UK for over a month, my company could have easily made me take unpaid leave (or worse!). The prospect of losing a month’s salary is not pleasant (especially whilst still paying extortionate rent on my SF apartment), and neither is the idea of stopping work on some projects that were holding onto their deadlines by the ends of their fingertips.
Back in the Bay Area I have a pretty awful commute (of my own making), that takes around two hours each way. Clearly a commute consisting of about 20 steps from my bedroom to the study was an improvement! Add to that the benefit of getting to see my parents everyday on that “commute” and it adds up to a much more pleasant experience.
Finally, and possibly most substantially, I saw a big increase in productivity, barring issues described in the next section. If I started work at 10am, I would have around six hours where I could work without any interruptions: timezone enforced radio silence. It is amazing to realize how many distractions there are working in a office, especially an open-plan office.
I also maximized my productivity in general. Whilst completing my PhD I developed a sense for when I was going to work well, or when I needed to clear my head before continuing (after a walk, or such, my productivity would be increased tenfold). It can be hard to take breathers like this when in an office under superiors’ scrutiny, but the flexibility of remote working allowed me to take advantage of this.
I’d also note that it wasn’t just my company work that saw a productivity increase. I also worked more on my own projects and education. I fleshed out a small python library I’ve been working on, started the Udacity course on Deep Learning, shrank my Pocket list of articles substantially, and wrote a few draft blog posts (like this one).
What didn’t?
Obviously it was not all roses and unicorns (else this article would bear a different title). There are some very real and practical issues with working remotely like I did, and some of them affected me substantially.
The hardest part of remote working is certainly communication, and this was the root of most of my problems. There are technical issues to deal with (no one enjoys conference calls, especially with slow-speed farm-internet) but mainly it is just hard to communicate effectively from afar.
To start, the timezone issue meant that there were moments where I got blocked on a story at midday, say, and knew it would be at least six hours until I would be able to talk to the person who could help unblock me. Furthermore, there were moments when I would not only be blocked, but also feel completely uninformed. A story of mine was blocked due to an action taken by someone at HQ on a Friday night. This meant when I logged on first thing Monday I found I couldn’t work on my tasks and didn’t know why the action happened or even if it should have happened in the first place. I was sat there not sure if this was a serious issue with our application, or a planned action where the person had not considered the implications on the rest of the team (I eventually discovered it was the latter).
Whilst the above issue was a problem with a lack of communication, the opposite issue was also prevalent. Whilst my productivity (assuming my stories weren’t all blocked!) was increased during the day, as soon as HQ came online my productivity would inevitably plummet. I would spend the next couple of hours in meetings and on calls trying to answer questions HQ have, ask questions I have, and try to ensure maximum sharing of knowledge to prevent potential blockages.
There were a few issues that may be specific to myself. The first was a slight paranoia that HQ wouldn’t think I was working full workdays. Maybe it’s the imposter syndrome that my PhD ingrained into me, but it resulted in me working more than back in the States. There would be days starting at 10am and finishing at midnight, and I would often eat dinner at my desk (to maximize time speaking with HQ). This was combined with/caused a little bit of ‘cabin fever’: sitting in the same small study on a farm in the middle of the countryside every day became rather repetitive! All throughout my PhD I would have similar feelings, feeling frustrated at working in my own flat so spending most of my time in the office or random coffee shops. I enjoy the physical separation of work and home, which helps me (try to) switch off mentally at the end of the day, and I couldn’t gain this separation.
Finally, because of the time zone issue and the fact I live in the middle of the countryside, I ended up being a bit anti-social whilst at home. It’s hard to organize to meet someone for an 8.30am coffee, and meeting for dinner was almost impossible (6pm stand up call plus meetings/calls to HQ, along with a long drive to meet anyone). Not an insurmountable problem, but one that was frustrating nonetheless.
What would I do differently?
I think as my weeks of remote working continued, I started to adapt and learnt ways to handle the issues and capitalize on the benefits. So I think I’ll rephrase this section and answer a different question:
What advice do I have?
Most of my advice for someone in a similar situation to me, is with regards to the work you are doing. Most importantly, pick your stories well. If at all possible, try to choose (or ask to be given) stories that are fairly independent components of work. I think working on well-established code is also a good idea as it is likely to be stable and not suddenly change (stopping you from working).
To help prevent myself being being blocked, I tried to make sure I always had a decent backlog of stories. That way, if an issue arises with one story, I can just switch to another and continue working (knowing that I should be able to unblock the first story once HQ awakes). If you’re coming to the end of a sprint this may be tricky, but there is always work that needs to be done if you find yourself blocked — no one complains at new documentation or tests!
To keep myself on track, I tried to finish every evening with a good idea of what I would work on the next day. I would make sure I had a decent amount stories to work on, code to peer review, bugs to investigate and so forth. During my PhD I developed a habit of writing a list before finishing work of everything I wanted to do the next day. Then my first job the following morning was rewriting out that list in priority order. For me, this reminds me what needs to be done, and also sets clear and explicit goalposts for the day. Working remotely, I found this technique even more powerful than usual.
Also, make sure everyone else is on track with you work. Communicate. Be Verbose. Comment on all your stories with status updates. Let people know a half-hour before you’re going to sign off to give them time to clarify anything they are unsure on. Make sure people know what you’re working on and its progress. Make sure any stories that need reviewed have been assigned someone. And don’t be afraid to remind people! Whilst it’s not as extreme as the saying “out of sight, out of mind”, it can be easy for code reviews to slip people’s minds when the PR’s owner is not in the office.
Finally, a bit of advice that I follow but might not be to everyone’s preference. Even though you’re not in the office, dress as though you are. When I’m at HQ I tend to wear office-casual, so I didn’t change this working remote — no hoodie and slacks for me! This doesn’t just have a visual effect (you never know when you might need to video call someone) but also served to remind me that I was representing my company, even from afar, and helped signify the start of my workday (similar to my commute in SF). I firmly believe that looking professional leads to acting professional, and this was my attempt to keep that up from 5,500 miles away.
Conclusion
So whilst remote working was a necessary situation, it was not the easiest of experiences. However I think I gained some skills that will help me now I’m back in the office, and also learned a little more about how I work and what I need to be productive.
When I first found out I would be working remotely, I was a little flippant at my preparations. I just assumed that it would be easy enough to manage — you just shift your workday by eight hours, right? But there was so much that I took for granted from working on site.
I would be happy to work remotely again in the future, especially with the benefits of seeing my family. But I would ensure I was fully prepared to do so.
