Bookmarks for July 18th – Special Remote Worker edition

These are my links for July 18th, a special edition about remote working:

  • Being a Remote Worker Sucks – Long Live the Remote Worker – Scott Hanselman – Scott Hanselman writes well on the pros and cons of being a remote worker and gives some tips on how to improve the situation.

    Having been a 100% remote worker for about the past 13months (barring monthly office visits for the first 9 months or so of that) I agree with pretty much everything in here, especially the items about status and team building.

    I have no experience with the ‘do be seen’ item, but each team I’ve worked on in the 13 months I have been remote have had a sufficient text chat solution that I feel pretty decently connected to folks most of the time.

    The item on ‘find a place to be productive’ is good advice, but don’t read it as mandatory that you need a place other than your desk at home. I have worked in coffee shops and libraries on a couple of occasions, but only out of necessity. I’m a creature comforts and familiarity kind of guy so am 100% happy and feel at my most productive when working from my little study/office room.

  • Scott Hanselman – 30 Tips for Successful Communication as a Remote Worker – Some communication tips for remote workers from remote workers at Microsoft.

    This is all good stuff, at least in spirit (it is, perhaps obviously, Microsoft tech centric) and matches pretty well to the list of things I came up with whilst working remote for a large corporation.

    Now that I’m in a smaller team with a majority of remote workers some of this stuff is less relevant to my current situation, but all of it is worth bearing in mind for remote workers.

I wrote about about why these posts are being generated here: Sharing Links.