Remote Work — New Era

As some of you may know, I already wrote an article with tips and tricks on this subject (that can be found here), but it was more for managers and for people in leading positions. Now I want to talk more, from a developer perspective, someone that doesn’t have any leading role and doesn’t have any direct responsibility for another person.

First of all Remote work is not work in quarantine. During this pandemic, a lot of people from different areas started to work from home. They needed to do that, or they were forced to do that. This is not remote working, this is a way of working for the moment and if you feel that you are working from prison and you absolutely hate it, don’t feel ashamed because you aren’t the only one! I have a lot of people around me, that got their laptops and were sent home, without absolutely no training nor idea how they should work. A part of them thought that by working from home they had more time and loved the idea that besides working they can watch a movie in parallel, or watch their kids, others totally hate it from the beginning because they took fewer coffee breaks and had no people around to go and talk to after 1–2 hours of work, or when they finished a hard task.

If no one tried at least to teach you what you need to do, I hope this post will help you to get an idea about how to deal with remote working stuff and maybe help you remove some of your frustrations.

First of all, if a cat jumps in front of the camera or if a kid starts screaming while you are on a call, this is a normal thing right now! You shouldn’t feel ashamed and the others from the call should take it as it is. You should still keep on being a professional, but you shouldn’t feel bad if things like that happen. The same if you are on the other side of the camera: you shouldn’t judge people in this kind of situation.

Try to communicate as much as possible. Maybe some will feel that you are over-communicating. This is way better than thinking that the others know things or understood some things and they didn’t. You are not on your desk in the office with everyone around you. They don’t know what you’re not letting them know. It’s your job to schedule one to one meetings if necessary or team meetings (yes, even if you’re not the team lead). You can ask even for a virtual coffee to mimic the breaks after launch, or after you finished a hard task. Use as much as you can the progress board that you have. It’s harder for a manager now to know the status of each thing. They can’t come to your desk and ask. In the office they could do that and most probably find out in 5 min what everyone around you did, basically the entire team, but now, it will take them 5 min per member. Help them!

Ask for (and invest) in reliable tech. You should have a stable internet connection. It’s crucial to have a clear voice in meetings, to have a camera, everyone to see you because even the body language is saying a lot! Ask for noise cancellation mics, a second screen, anything that helps you to do the job properly, like in the office and maybe even better.

Be part of a community. Help build a community inside your company. Before the pandemic, if you had a question, you had a lot of colleagues around to talk to. Now you are alone in the room. Create channels/groups in which you can easily throw questions and get answers fast.

Have a workspace. During the working hours, you are at work. Consider that you are in the office and try to remove all the distractions that might appear. If you loved a lot of “sounds” around you, you can work from a coffee shop, or turn on the tv, or even better: find a colleague and pair program with him, or at least work in parallel on different things, but stay in the same call and talk. This way you won’t feel alone and you will socialize as you did in the office. It’s not strange! Everyone has their working style.

Take care of yourself. If you are in a silent room with your important task, you should still take some breaks to fresh your mind and eyes! It’s easier to drop in the hole of working more from home.

Let everyone know when you leave. The team is not around you. They don’t know when you “leave your desk”. Let them know when you log off.

Those are the pieces of advice that I can give you. This is what’s working for me, after around 4 years of working remote. As you can see I am not an expert and this is not a bulletproof solution, but try it out. It might help you “suppress” some of your frustrations.