Technology

So essentially you’re saying that communication falls apart and you don’t have the correct tools for remote work.

I worked remotely starting in 2002, as I relocated from the NYC area shortly after 9/11 to get out of the region. My doc said "breathing issues in the tri-state area? World Trade Center Syndrome. Can you just move?" and I was done. I was on an H1B anyway, so I had no established ties. I was the youngest of a small group of remote coders, and they reallocated my time so that I worked on the same work as an existing remote team. Work was work.

In 2002, our 'correct tools' was a pair of headphones and skype: we ran skype all day. It was on, it was connected in a conf call, but all mics were muted among the 7 of us who were in the work group. Have a question, you'd either type it out or just unmute, ask the group - yeah, nothing more granular - and discuss it, and then go back on mute.

(I actually had a TV running in the office for background noise, as I couldn't do the silence; and even the w98se sound system mixed it well enough to hide the background slush of the call)

It worked well. The existing remotes had a good culture and allowed for a water cooler around a coffee time and lunch time so you could stay and be social, and everyone adapted to the equivalent of someone gophering periodically and chatting over the partition. The company had a strong policy against open pit environments, and they actually worried there'd be too many on the call, but the team was great.

We were working on AT&T Fucking Unix. Tell me again how you didn't have the tools when Skype and a 2002 USA broadband connection was the only thing we added to our workflow and we coded a secure OS for secure workloads. When I abandoned my visa/PR efforts and moved back home, I did it over a couple days off and had a rudimentary office ready to go in my home country immediately after.