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#jobs-discuss
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2016-04-12
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sveri12:04:03

@lmergen: Regarding https://clojurians.slack.com/archives/jobs/p1460465455000164 - Have you read the The Mythical Man-Month?

lmergen12:04:26

hah as a matter of fact i have simple_smile

lmergen12:04:54

i agree with you, as long as people get their work done, we should be fine

lmergen12:04:28

the problem is, i have to work with a CEO who decides what money goes where, and as soon I start hiring remote people, his opinion is that I should just look for qualified, cheap labour

lmergen12:04:58

so I have to work with what I have

lmergen12:04:20

we also have investors who really value things such as building company culture

lmergen12:04:05

so this is a mostly political decision -- I'm pretty sure I can convince the whole organisation about the advantages of remote work, but that takes time

hans12:04:55

how does the mythical man month relate to remote work?

sveri12:04:29

I totally understand your point and where you are coming from, and maybe even can follow the CEOs thinking, but seriously, building company culture? From investors? How I hate that bullshit. The older I get the more I see it as psychological trick to keep you working more for less. In the end its the investors that "value" company culture, that will not hesitate a second to unemploy half the business if they think they have to.

lmergen12:04:33

communication overhead, imho

thomas12:04:31

IMHO it is a trade off. working remote compared to all onsite.

thomas13:04:17

when the option is to commute extended periods of time (2 hours + each day for instance) then there is value in remote.

lmergen13:04:30

yes @sveri i completely understand, and I actually believe in results, and that good developers will be able to decide for themselves how they can work best

thomas13:04:39

long commutes are not healthy .

sveri13:04:47

@hans: from my point of view its not directly related to remote work. But, as @lmergen pointed out, working remote (which I did a lot in the last two months cause of ongoing serious problems with my throat when talking to much), show me how nice work can be actually, beeing freed of all the stupid discussions that always come up when a team of two QAs, 5 developers and one PM do BLGs, dailys and other stuff that everyone thinks is important.

mishok1313:04:15

@thomas long commutes are way less of a thing in Netherlands, even less so in Amsterdam

lmergen13:04:35

i think @thomas is well aware of that simple_smile

thomas13:04:38

@mishok13: yes, very dependent on country (I am looking at you UK!)

hans13:04:39

well, a discussion is only "stupid" if the people discussing are allowing it to be stupid.

hans13:04:55

if "remote work" is just another way of avoiding having to spend time with the "idiots", then yes.

sveri13:04:49

I never called my colleagues idiots. And they surely are not, that was not my intention. Actually they are very decent, intelligent, humble and friendly, we also have a lot of fun during these discussions. That is not the point. The point is the psychology of not having a "dictator" that stops endless discussions about different viewpoints. And then we get to the mythical man month again where such a "dictator" ship exists. Working on my own for me basically made me that dictator for myself and freed me of all the time wasted by "flat hierarchies"...

hans13:04:29

@sveri: i read this as "i'm not a team player", which is fine, but then you can't be asking for a job in a team anyway. why talk about "bullshit" and "stupid"? there are different people, different companies, different settings.

sveri13:04:07

@hans of course you can read it as you want, this is up to you. Apart from that I am the total opposite. Being a teamplayer is what I have done long before I started working and will do for the rest of my life. I also can subordinate and did so and do so. That does not change the fact I am more effective when not taking part in these discussions. And also I excuse myself for using the words "bullshit" and "stupid". They have been over the line, I agree.

lmergen13:04:00

i think we've all been bitten in the past about slow moving projects, and endless discussions when you actually just want to Get Shit Done

lmergen13:04:16

remote work is a great way to optimise communication for this

lmergen13:04:40

it all depends on a good or bad project lead

hans13:04:25

the success of a project depends on everyone. it is easy to say "it failed because the leadership sucked" if you're not the leader, and vice versa.

hans13:04:30

in the end, i think the process is most important. often, success is not easy to measure and does not directly depend on the work done, so it is really more important that the work itself is enjoyable and interesting.

hans13:04:20

so if you enjoy sitting on your computer alone most, then remote work, sure. i did that for many years. but that is just a matter of choice of the remote worker, and not so much a "recipe for success" or anything like that.

hans13:04:42

in my experience, there is rarely one thing, method, form of work, person, strategy that determines success or failure. it is always a combination. i've seen a big, very big project go bust even though i was a very successful and prolific remote worker in it.

hans13:04:56

could i say that it failed because of remote work? certainly not.

sveri13:04:11

I was not referring to the success of a project, but to this line "not just productivity-wise, but also for building an actual team, doing things together, etc". I totally understand there are people that can enjoy these things, but it is not my kind of stuff. I find happieness in seeing progress and do what I can to achieve that (if it means, attending meetings, then be it). Apart from that work is work and doing stuff together is something for my spare time where I choose what to do and not my colleagues. If it overlaps, I am fine, but most of the time it doesnt.

dottedmag14:04:15

There's cheap way to improve communication for distributed teams: encourage people to visit HQ as often as they want. Flight tickets and hotel costs are peanuts compared to the rest of the compensation.

dottedmag14:04:08

It also helps if HQ are located somewhere desirable (e.g. interesting city or a tropical place).

dottedmag14:04:53

Company I work for has this policy and many of the remote workers spend the whole winter at HQ, which is in Israel.

thomas14:04:35

@dottedmag: that sounds quite nice actually simple_smile

dottedmag14:04:04

@thomas: We're hiring :) Just in case. Not Clojure though.

lmergen14:04:10

unlimited vacations to israel? count me in!

thomas14:04:39

@dottedmag: what are you developing?

dottedmag14:04:25

Yep, that's it.

lmergen14:04:37

wow your CDN is dirt cheap

dottedmag14:04:46

It is. Also check out the demo at the top -- it's fully interactive: you can enable/disable servers as you want.

lmergen14:04:54

we consume around 250TB of bandwidth a month and aren't getting prices nearly as good

thomas14:04:20

@dottedmag: what language do you develop in?

dottedmag14:04:40

@thomas: ES6 server, ES5 (soon ES6) client.

dottedmag14:04:12

@lmergen: Hola CDN is an overlay -- it needs the "base" CDN to get video from, but reduces traffic to "base" CDN significantly.

lmergen14:04:29

ah, that explains!

lmergen14:04:16

and since we are a video distribution platform... this might be interesting

dottedmag14:04:30

@lmergen: Can I pass your contacts to our folks?

lmergen14:04:43

sure thing!