Remote work: myths at night

On Habré, the topic of the remote is constantly rising. There was a frank post that responded to the very depths of the heart. Today there was an advertising post where the concept of a remote one is somehow confused with the concept of a freelancer. And now there will be an emotional post - from a simple girl who has been working remotely as an IT manager for 4 years. I will be a myth destroyer, a captain of evidence and a dude with dollars, but about the latter another time.


As an option - isolate boring workaholics

"Wow, you can sleep as much as you want!"

Variations of the phrase "Wow, you can not go to work!", "Yes, you have a shaft of free time!", "Juha, you are right in your pajamas, yes ?!"

No, my dear friends, remote work is a method of work when you belong to a company, you have an employment relationship with it (an employment contract in my case, there is a contract agreement) and you work according to its schedule and established standards. Just because you have access to the infrastructure in the same way, work with documents, communicate with colleagues, connect to some super important meetings, etc. Accordingly, in pajamas or not, and at the beginning of the working day be like a bayonet in the workplace.
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“Working from home is awesome! I got out of bed and now you're at work. ”

It is cool to work from home when your relatives are able to understand and accept the specifics of your work and provide a quiet and comfortable space that you furnish in the most business-like or friendly format. I tell about the cases when you scream on the first day and rush to search for co-working (for the time being we call this place conventionally).

• You have retired elderly parents who manage to occupy you with anything and there is no home office concept in their coordinate system. You sit at home - be kind, file, bring, get, run, count, adjust, find serials. Head to the end of the day turns into a hodgepodge of household chores and work. This is my case, I lasted exactly two days: the first - the experiment, the second - the convulsive ringing of office centers. On the third day I flew to the office after 14 stops.
  
• You have kids - this is no comment. They just will not work. Checked on the niece, with whom I had to sit for a couple of days. It was a courageous war for a laptop with a 9-year-old. Saved a tablet with cartoons and an iPhone to be torn apart. The work was delayed for very long intervals due to fear for the behavior and condition of the child.
  
• You have an endless series of repairs from your neighbors, stuffiness, impossible Internet and other physical conditions in which it is impossible to work.
  

In particularly clinical cases, the process is joined by neighbors who recognize you as an alcoholic, a person under house arrest, a parasite and seriously ill.



Oh yeah, your worst enemy lives at home - the refrigerator.

"You can work at five jobs and row with a shovel"

I do not know. Someone may be, and in my case, a maximum of the second project and raking more than paddling. Again, this is due to working time. The employer trusts you and you have no moral (and, by the way, legal) right to neglect trust and work as a freelancer while sitting on a salary. All that is - all in over working hours. Yes, there is a simpler moment - you can reallocate a little time, but you need to be prepared for the fact that your working day is not 8 hours + lunch, but 12 or even more hours minus lunch. More than two projects in such a period of time to pull unrealistic, and then - only if the second is part-time.

But I warned - a lot of emotions. Therefore, I do not impose my point of view and position, but I consider it to be as decent as possible with respect to the employer.

“Coworking is wow! You can stir up startups "

There is nothing to stir up. Do you know why? And stupidly nowhere. In Moscow, dozens of the coolest coworking, I have been to some - and this is space and inspiration in its purest form. In St. Petersburg - less, but also cute. In my millionaire coworking city ... no. There are a couple of weird hangouts where you are actually sitting in a strange office of a very creative screaming crowd. If you are very unlucky, then there will be wipes, guitar and continuous chatter in your room. The sensible coworker guys sit as quietly as you are and are not particularly ready for startups - they work for the same companies, for example, my neighbors plow to Moscow, Israel and Germany.

Such an organization of labor creates a lot of problems. You do not have a system administrator and you serve all your equipment yourself: viruses, burned boards, dead mice, a broken chair, spilled tea and a laptop in the drying ... You have no colleagues to whom you can turn for human help, which sometimes you really need . Therefore, autonomy is all on your shoulders: water, medicines, peripherals, paper, stationery, and so on. It's a trifle, really: just walk to the nearest store. But it takes time, and often nerves.

"Chief and colleagues are far - YEEESSS"

NO. This is the most difficult and emotional moment. Let's take the points to no water.

• All communications are slowed down (even with CRM, instant messengers, chats, and phone). If only because colleagues and management must take the time to communicate with you, and the remote employee is psychologically always in low priority.
  
• You do not participate in meetings and small rallies "on the run." On the one hand, it does not take time and you already receive a squeeze, but on the other hand, you can not get this squeeze, some of the information is lost and transformed beyond recognition.
  
• The coordination of tasks is very problematic and requires an ideal business process. Generally, only real heroes can build in the remote process — honor and praise them. It is more logical to single out individual tasks and transfer them to a “remote outsource”.
  
• In case of conflicts, working problems and acute situations, the remote is not a refuge, it is 90% impossible to fully explain one’s position or situation, to put forward arguments. If it comes to the messenger - in general the pipe: everyone reads your messages with his intonation, and an innocent offense or a half-laughable reproach turns into a thunderstorm.
  
• You're lonely. No matter how introverted you are, there comes a moment of pure human loneliness - there is no one to turn to, turn to, no one to eat, drink tea, discuss working problems and tasks in an informal setting.
  
• You are completely cut off from the corporate culture, from the traditions of the company, colleagues (especially new ones) hardly perceive you as part of a team, and sometimes they do not even consider it as such. You can love your work and company more than other employees, work responsibly, try, recycle, but always be a “cut piece”. And at some point this is simply unbearable. You are a stranger, and it is impossible to come to terms with this, because you associate yourself with the best company that you trust and which you trust in part.
  

And these aspects are central because it is communication, the work itself and human relations that make up our normal working life. Something has fallen - and that's it, a feeling of emptiness and a hole somewhere, where the soul should be.

About the pros

Of course, any medal has two sides, and the remote is no exception.

• A remote is a degree of freedom that you exchange for responsibility. If your employer is adequate and does not put time tracking on every gadget, you should value trust and reciprocate. But at the same time, you can quietly listen to your favorite music or podcast in the background, go to any sites, switch between tasks in your mode, not in command mode (not always, but still).
  
• The remote is an opportunity to be a little healthier: walk around the office during a break, spend lunch for a solitary walk, etc.
  
• The remote is an opportunity to take a laptop and work without damage, solving important urgent issues along the way (for example, issuing a foreign passport or a hospital examination). Again, this is a conditional plus: there is nothing stopping to do also in office work. Unless you do not annoy anyone with absence.
  
• A remote person turns visiting an office into a holiday: in your own or a distant city (in 99.9% of distant cases) you are always extremely happy to see colleagues, look forward to meeting with them, discussing, solving important issues, etc. My advice: get out more often, it's a charge of inspiration and strength.
  

Of course, each has its own nuances. I wrote about the situation when you work from a Russian city. I did not manage to work with the beaches in Tae or Nice, probably there is something in it, but it is hard to believe. It is impossible to work and rest without nerves in the way that fashion bloggers and remote intergalactic corporations write.

I also cannot say if I am ready to return to the office. More precisely, even while not ready - I love my job. But I do not have enough people, a sense of belonging and integrity with the company, some kind of special office friendship. At some point you grow up to be a professional, but you realize that this, human, is no substitute for anything. However, this is subjective.

And how do you live, brothers and sisters on the remote? (Freelancers, please do not worry).