TrotterCashion

Being on my honeymoon in St. Barths has got me thinking a bit about working remotely. Don’t worry, I’m not working on this trip. I’m more trying to think if ways I could stay on this trip indefinitely, but still manage to make some cash.

I’m no stranger to remote work. As some of you may know, I live in Philly but continue to work for Motionbox in New York. I commute two days per week, and spend the rest working from home in Philly. Over the past year, I’ve started to catalog my likes and dislikes with this arrangement, and I’m going to list some of my dislikes here along with some possible ways to improve things. For now, we’ll just look at the first problem I’ve encountered:

You’re out of touch

If you’re distributed while the rest of the team is collocated, you will be out of the loop. When your boss is walking around the office and stopping at various desks, he won’t be stopping at yours. If you’re looking to be recognized for your accomplishments, this can be a major problem. It’s difficult to advance in the company if you’re not visible.

To combat this problem, I’ve found getting everyone on IM and IRC to be very helpful. If your company uses an open office, you’re in luck. The noise from the floor plan typically causes people to use headphones, so they’ll be much more prone to use IM and IRC for all their communication (even with those people right next to them). Another good technique is to send copious amounts of email. If people are cataloging what should be done and who has done what through email (a good practice regardless), then it’s much easier for you to keep track of what is happening in the office.

I don’t think that Skype or frequent phone calls help much in this regard. Typically, you’re only talking to one person and all the speaker phone arrangements I’ve seen aren’t that great. Voice is great for quickly hashing out the details of a plan with one other person, but is terrible as a mechanism for keeping up with the goings on of the company.

Making time (and spending the money) to get to the office at least once a month is invaluable. Though email, IM, and IRC help, they’re not a real substitute for quality time in person. One of the most important things I’ve done at Motionbox is to know when people are going out for after work drinks to celebrate various accomplishments and made sure that I was able to be in town for them. Though it sounds silly to talk about drinking as an important part of work, the main thing you miss by being remote is the social component. It’s much more important to get in town to socialize than it is to do actual work. You’ll have plenty of time to work when you’re home alone the next day.

Anyone have any thoughts on other ways to keep in touch while working remotely?