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Agreed - but the essential part is the face. A good video conferencing system is a million times better than a phone conference or a multi-participant text/image based online discussion.
I worked on a distributed project where we never met physically for a kick-off meeting, but had two meetings a week where we "met around the table": acutally, it appeared as if our table extended into the screen, continuing in the table at the other side; we both had large screens. One essential thing: After each project meeting, we had a social off-work chat, telling about our private activities, talking about the weather and whatever. So when we first met physically, half a year into the project, it was as old friends knowing each others' manners and laughter and hangups 
In the old days of mediocre telecom facilities, having a physical kick-off meeting was far more essential. But even in those days: My first distributed project based on video conferencing was in 1985. We started out with 5-part phone conferencing; that didn't work out at all. One of the participants was the Norwegian public phone company, offering video conferencing from their downtown facilities many years before it was generally available to business. Going from sound only to video was like coming out in the sunlight!
So, while not quite the same as physical face-to-face, video conferencing at its best comes so close that it certainly is worth the installation of a fiber connection
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I had been working from home most days for quite a while and then was exiled (by taking away my office for some big shot muckitymuck) to only working form home. That was at the end of January.
It is a common thread over the years that doing things to me can earn the doer's some really bad karma. Now that everyone works from home, no one has my office.
Mwah-hah-hah!
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I have been working from home for over 6 years now (remote/telecommute - separate home office). Mostly, contract assignments.
For me personally, working contract assignments has greatly reduced the office politics and crap one would have to endure otherwise. Greatly reduced, I did not say fully eliminate.
Working from home and not at the office, saves me tons of $$ on transportation, vehicle costs, etc. too.
-- I don't miss anything about not working at the office.
modified 18-May-20 6:01am.
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Same here. I've been working from home for almost 14 years, visiting the office no more than 6 days each year. My work is very self-contained and my employer recognises that I work best on my own (I'm high functioning autistic).
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I am a thousands times more productive at home than at an office.
However, working from home is not for everyone. Some adults need constant supervision in order to be productive. 
modified 19-May-20 7:41am.
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I don't always work from home, but when I do I remote in to my workstation.
This can be flaky at times due to connection/lag. In addition, you don't always get a good visual replication, which can be a pain when working on design elements - particularly colours. Is that a #f00 or an #f01?!
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Both due to the idiotic new rules (can't move between offices at all - what good is it to me being among my coworkers if we can't exchange a single word?), to the 1.5 hours commute on halved public transportation (brilliant: how do we reduce overcrowding? Cancelling all the 7:30 - 9:30 trains!  They are usually packed with standing people, go figure now).
Going by car is elephanting expensive and there are no parkings whatsoever near work so I'd have to wake up even earlier than when I use the train and spend a lot more, as in 12€ per day just to get to work. I get 80...
Leave me at home for Godzilla's sake!
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
modified 18-May-20 7:02am.
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Ditto. My total commute is ~1.5 hours/day through potentially heavy traffic filled with idiots who have no idea what a directional signal is, nor that other people are on the road with them. Many words can describe it, "relaxing" is not one of them.
I'm loving a 35 step commute vs. the normal 34 miles ...
In addition, I save $140 USD/month in gas alone, not including wear-n-tear on the car.
I have my laptop + dual 24" monitors at home (we were allowed to bring our equipment home) so my setup is the same as the office. I chat with co-workers during the day, and use conference calls when voice is needed, so my work is pretty much the same.
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Mine is 1.5 hours one way, 1.5 back. With overcrowded unreliable public transportation.
My setup is identical to work but the monitor is better, keyboard is better, mouse is better. No coworkers strolling behind my back, no stupid conversations. My wife in the next room. Three hot meals per day compared to one. Alarm clock set to 8:30 instead of 7:00. I will effing glue myself and the equipment to my desk.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Thank you for making me appreciate how good my commute really is!
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And the thing is, everything about letting people work at home more is better. The air is cleaner, the roads aren't as crowded (so those folks who do need to go in don't waste nearly as much of their lives in a car), it reduces peak infrastructure requirements, it lowers gas prices and reduces our dependence on oil, companies could reduce their facilities requirements or expand headcount without new ones by just having open desks for folks to come in and plug into.
But, all of that is overwhelmed by (most likely) the paranoia that people won't be working as much. But I think that's crazy. Be results oriented. They either produce or they don't. If they don't fire them.
Does it matter where or what time of the day I do the work as long as the work gets done? Do you get more out of me when I'm sitting at my desk just counting the hours to go home and possibly nodding off because the hours I have to be at an office aren't conducive to my natural rhythms? No, not for a lot of us in this profession.
So, human nature being what it is, we'll all be forced to do the worst case thing, despite all of the benefits to the contrary.
Explorans limites defectum
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Dean Roddey wrote: They either produce or they don't. If they don't fire them.
My country has laws that make this quite hard to do for companies with more than 15 employees. Here it's justifiable trying to keep a tight check on some employees. But why do I have to suffer and be less productive and getting less money for a percentage of leeches? Punish them, not me.
Dean Roddey wrote: Be results oriented.
That should be the spirit, how many companies don't even know what the **** they are doing in the first place? They don't have an idea of which results they want so they need to keep everyone in the same place and blindly herd them somewhere, fast!
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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I don't work, but if I did, I'd miss the good old coffee machine, which gives coffee with the special office-taste
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To be fair the coffee from these machines is usually horrible. That said, I've worked at a couple of places where they served excellent coffee - at one place it's actually prepared by human baristas ![Java | [Coffee]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif)
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We can't have coffee machines (unless we smuggle them in, and we do, but the smell gives them away quickly) and are stuck with vending/serving machines. That thing is not even coffee, it's really just a caffeine fix in a horrible and overpriced beverage.
GCS d--(d+) s-/++ a C++++ U+++ P- L+@ E-- W++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: To be fair the coffee from these machines is usually horrible.
There is a major distinction between machines making coffee from some concentrate, and those grinding beans on the fly. The whole beans variant delivers coffee that is certainly drinkable. Obviously, they cannot in 20 seconds get the same aroma as properly brewed coffee, but it is a lot better than the concentrate. Our current machine even has containers for two different kinds of coffee beans.
The major disadvantage of these machines is that with twenty people in a row to fill their coffee cups, it takes time. They are great for one or two cups, but if you want coffee for a meeting with a lot of participants, you rather go to the canteen to pick up a couple large thermoses of properly brewed coffee.
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Spending a small fortune to slowly get from A to B, then B back to A, either in a car (wears out the vehicle quickly, costs a fortune, very slow), on a train (not a lot faster, crowded, smelly, liable to delays and cancellations), on a bicycle (slow, wide open to the elements, liable to death or physical damage, breathing in fumes, will stink all day unless the company provides showers), or even by motorcycle (faster, but wears out the vehicle quickly, wide open to the elements, liable to death or physical damage, breathing in fumes).
Ah! Spending an hour each way every day on a nice big motorbike - unless someone did something really stupid, in which case double that. And they did something stupid at least once a week. The stress levels, the need to drink to reduce those so I could sleep.
My word, but I miss that, and I'd go back to it like a shot!
NOT. 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I work at a manufacturer I also do support
Have you tried explaining to a worky that the thing they don't get isn't really an application problem, it is in fact that they have never done the first time set up that the application consultant showed them 3 years ago? Its very much easier to give them a five minute training session and close the ticket having helped rather than argue out the fact that they shouldn't have raised the ticket in the first place, then argue with their boss when it is escalated, his boss when it is escalated again, your own boss when the production director has a word in her ear and so on. The guilty process is of course all nicely documented in a manual, but it should be noted this is a manual IT never got, it was written by third party application consultants and was kept by one of the staff who does the work. Of course he\she knows all about it but no-one ever thinks to ask them. Instead when a new guy starts they always raise a ticket on the IT support system. The ticket wrangler fires that into applications development because it is an application after all. So under normal working in the office conditions we take a nice walk out to the shop-floor, or if we are really lucky an ever nicer stroll to one of the neighbouring buildings. We then have a pleasant 5 minutes talking directly to a fellow human or two, exchanging jokes. A lot of fingers get pointed at screens, we read the words written on them (which is a skill that users never acquire). Then like a magician click the relevant button, check box, or whatever. We show the user what we've done and it all works hooray everyone is happy. If we are really lucky we find the manual and add it to our system (that rarely happens). Now try that on teams!
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