A Remote Work Guide

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A Remote Work Guide

Steve Jones - SSC Editor

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April 24, 2020 at 12:00 am

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tommy Newbie Points: 1 More actions · Answer 1

tommy

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April 24, 2020 at 6:00 am

#3745875

Very true. And don't stop engaging right!

nicksamuel SSC Enthusiast Points: 105 More actions · Answer 2

I live in a house with a decent-size garden. Behind it is a semi-wild area with mature trees I can see from where I work. Sitting here, reading the editorial, I wonder what I would be feeling if I lived in a flat with a view consisting of other flats! - a bit hemmed-in? Would the lockdown promote feelings of claustrophobia? I know some people are going to very stressed in a situation outside of their control with limited choices remaining. I know some people are going to react badly to their situation - feeling isolated and 'shutting-down' communication. As I work for the NHS, the Trust I am working is having a strong push to get staff to communicate to a support team if they have any such issues. If you are reading this and are thinking that you could do with that, at least pick up the 'phone and talk to somebody. If you know of services that could help, post them on here. See if you can set up video-conferencing with your friends (perhaps not Zoom - it has had issues - use Jitsi?) Can you imagine what it would be like with no internet? Be grateful for the amazing technology we now have.

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 76000 More actions · Answer 3

I was fortunate in that one of the last MeetUps I went to was about remote work. It wasn't so much the hints and tips that were valuable as the "these are the pitfalls" that has really helped me.

Our managers have noticed activity on our repos and MS Teams at unusually late times of night and are challenging "Why are you working at 23:45"? The answer is generally "I'm bored, by myself and have nothing better to do".

This presents a conundrum for managers. On one hand they don't want people to burn out, want a fresh and engaged set of employees but on the other hand the situation is not one where they can insist of downtime. The logistics of cutting off VPN access at 20:00 are tricky because a requirement to kick all but support staff out of the system has never arisen. It's obviously technically possible but like all thing you have to design to take advantage of the technically possible.

I was sorry to miss the Redgate meetup. I've met quite a few of the Redgate people over the years and it is always an energising experience. It would be nice to have SSC zoom sessions.

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Doctor Who 2 SSCrazy Eights Points: 8194 More actions · Answer 4

Oh, I really hope that this time of having to work from home will prove to my managers that it can work. Thus allowing it to continue in some form past this forced stay at home.

Rod

nicksamuel SSC Enthusiast Points: 105 More actions · Answer 5

My wife just asked if there were any support services for families of those having to cope with people working from home! A sense of humour does help.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004339 More actions · Answer 6

I have to say that I'm loving the isolation (of course, I don't have kids at home and I don't like the reason for the isolation). Not much has changed except I no longer have a commute (even though it was a short 10-11 minutes). People still PM and Email me for things they need, just like they did at work. Since work was a pretty open layout, I could hear everything near by . At home, I hear none of that and that is both good and bad. I'm able to concentrate better but I can't really keep my finger on the pulse of the group anymore. It's amazing what you can learn about what's going on just by keeping one ear open. 😀

It also allowed be to hear discussions of problems that the Developers might be having and now I can't hear them nor say "I know how to fix that" (for example) and save them a wad of time. People still don't understand that picking up the phone for a brief conversation is usually much more efficient and fruitful than going back and forth in seemingly interminable PM or Email discussions.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736210 More actions · Answer 7

This is a strange time, and I agree, Jeff, the pulse of the people is what's often lost. I get some of that from randomly flipping through Slack when I need a break, but there isn't as much there as there used to be.

David, I should do some early morning (my time) SSC calls. I'll see if I can find a time once a week to do that with the UK. Maybe I can get Kendra to set one up that I can join since she's over there. Surprisingly, I have a lot more sales engagement right now, with lots of early morning calls.

jasona.work SSC Guru Points: 50117 More actions · Answer 8

So, some of what's in the linked article I've done / got, some I haven't. My workspace and my personal PC space are just a 90 degree turn of the chair from each other, but I make it a point to shut down the work PC at the end of the day (except for the recent OS updates, then I left it on and connected to get them overnight.) But, the work phone is *RIGHT THERE* and it's terrifyingly easy to pick it up and glance at the lock screen notifications.

I'm trying to break that habit.

I think for me the part that's making me the most crazy about it all is, the lack of human contact, and I'm more of an introvert / "the quiet guy" than a fair bit of the team. The lack of background noise is another thing that makes me a bit crazy, I've been turning on the local radio news station on streaming for background noise, which helps.

We just started using MS Teams for communication (with some restrictions on what can be discussed,) because our VPN to the office has a hard time handling ALL the users and Teams at least can be used on cell phones or personal PCs.

Chris Harshman SSC-Forever Points: 42192 More actions · Answer 9

Jeff Moden wrote:

...I hear none of that and that is both good and bad. I'm able to concentrate better but I can't really keep my finger on the pulse of the group anymore...

I second that! The biggest advantage of being out in the middle of the developers / QA area, is that I do hear everything. People have joked numerous times that if they say "database, database, database" that I show up like Beetlejuice. 🙂

Now I find out about things later and wonder why they did it that way.

Chris Harshman SSC-Forever Points: 42192 More actions · Answer 10

jasona.work wrote:

...My workspace and my personal PC space are just a 90 degree turn of the chair from each other, but I make it a point to shut down the work PC at the end of the day...

Being able to turn off the work computer is a definite must. I have my work laptop connected to my home main monitor as a second screen. I'm able to control that main monitor through a KVM switch, and so far only once have I tried to drag my mouse cursor from the main monitor to my laptop screen when the KVM was turned to one of my home computers. LOL

I sympathize with the phone issue though. I have a cell phone provided by work, so it gets all my work e-mails. I had to turn off e-mail notification noises on my phone because it was just too aggravating.

jasona.work SSC Guru Points: 50117 More actions · Answer 11

Chris Harshman wrote:

I sympathize with the phone issue though. I have a cell phone provided by work, so it gets all my work e-mails. I had to turn off e-mail notification noises on my phone because it was just too aggravating.

I've got a work phone and my personal phone, so at least I can leave the work phone 99% of the time once I'm done working for the day.

Someone asked this morning if I'd loaded the Teams app on my phone (it's not allowed on the work phones,) and I flat out said no and I had no plans to because I was already having a tough time "unplugging" at the end of the day.

Everyone (including my boss) chuckled at that.

Steve Jones - SSC Editor SSC Guru Points: 736210 More actions · Answer 12

I keep everything on my desktop, laptop, and mobile, but that's because I'm often on the go. However, I've turned off most notifications because I don't want to interrupted if I'm not working. The exception is direct notes to me, but I have learned to ignore those outside of my hours.

David.Poole SSC Guru Points: 76000 More actions · Answer 13

When one of us is working from home its fine. With two of us video conferencing starts to break down. When my son wakes up and fancies some online gaming before his night shift there's no choice but to log off.

My house is a place to live it isn't geared up as a permanent work place for two people. It's not just internet bandwidth, its the physical layout of the house. There needs to be a physical separation between work space and home space if there's a long term need to work from home.

The other insight I've gained is that the material possessions that I genuinely appreciate are those that allow me to create or those that enable me to appreciate creativity.