Quarantine work is not Remote work
It's hard. Now, to be clear, if you're working at all in these times, you're very fortunate. I am very fortunate to have a job that lets me work from home. Many of my coworkers, friends, and colleagues have been thrown into remote work - some in a frantic "get your laptop and you're now working from home" moment.
I have written a lot about Remote Work and done a number of podcasts on the topic. I've been working from my home now, full time, for 13 years. It's fair to say that I am an experienced Remote Worker if not an expert.
If you're new to Remote Work and you're feeling some kind of way, I want to say this as an expert in remote working - This thing we are doing now isn't remote work.
Quarantine work !== Remote work
Know that and absorb that and know that you're OK and this thing you're feeling - wow, Remote Works SUCKS! - is normal. You're not alone.
Just look at the replies to this tweet:
Quarantine work !== Remote work.
— Scott Hanselman (@shanselman) April 20, 2020
I’ve been working remotely with success for 13 years, and I’ve never been close to burn out.
I’ve been working quarantined for over a month and I’m feeling a tinge if burn out for the first time in my life. Take care of yourself folks. Really.
People are overwhelmed, afraid, and stressed. There's a background pressure - a psychic weight or stress - that is different in these times. This isn't a problem you can fix with a new webcam or a podcasting mic.
Working from home feels freeing and empowering. Working while quarantined is a luxurious prison.
I've got two kids at home suddenly, one who's had their last year before high school cut short and now we struggle as a couple to work our jobs AND educate the kids in an attempt to create some sense of normalcy and continuity. I applaud the single parents and folks trying to work outside the home AND take care of little ones in these times.
We also feel the guilt of working from home at all. We appreciate the front line workers (my wife is a nurse, my brother a firefighter) who don't have this luxury. The garbagemen and women, the grocery store stockers, truck drivers, food processors, and farmers. We do our best to be thankful for their work while still getting our own jobs done.
What's the point of this post? To remind you, the new remote worker, that this isn't normal. This isn't really representative of remote work. Hang in there, things will hopefully go back to some kind of normal and if we're lucky, perhaps you and I will be able to try out remote working and feel ok about it.
Here's some more resources. Be safe.
- Love in a time of Corona Virus - Tips, Tricks and Best Practices for Working Remotely
- Good, Better, Best creating the ultimate remote worker webcam setup on a budget
- Tragedies of the Remote Worker: "Looks like you're the only one on the call"
- Take Remote Worker/Educator webcam video calls to the next level with OBS, NDI Tools, and Elgato Stream Deck
- A Guide to Remote Work with Courtney Nash
Sponsor: Have you tried developing in Rider yet? This fast and feature-rich cross-platform IDE improves your code for .NET, ASP.NET, .NET Core, Xamarin, and Unity applications on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
About Scott
Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.
About Newsletter
This is a crisis. Surviving is the goal, not excelling. It is enough just to get through - take stock later. Give yourself a break, accept that it will be hard and you will make mistakes. Be kind to yourself.
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The garbagemen and women
as
The garbage collectors
Hope you find this useful and not annoying.
I've been working remote for years as well, and strongly agree with essentially everything here. One additional difference that I find poignant:
As our particular team at Tiller Money has grown, one of the things I have found myself very much looking forward to is the occasional face-to-face in-person time, such as when a few of us get together regionally, or especially when all of us get together for our company-wide all-hands. Right now: that's all now at zero; gone.
I hope that one silver lining to the massive dark cloud of this pandemic is that the logistics get in place for more folks to be able to embrace remote work. As we then eventually emerge into a 'new normal' of remote work, I want to encourage new practitioners to remember to look for some opportunities to get together in person, at least occasionally and no matter how briefly - it makes a big difference for some folks' appetite for remote work and overall effectiveness as a team.
-Tim
You've never really worked before, have you?
Or maybe he has worked so hard - 100 % - every day and now the covid crisis is just too much?
Don't be so judgemental to people you barely know.
For me, being holed up at home still beats having to ride the damn tube, eating junk food, drinking very questionable coffee and working in the shittiest if hippest open space office.
I'm significantly more productive and significantly less stressed, even accounting for the fact that I might be out of a job in a matter of months.
And don't get me started on having your own choice of peripherals and even OS (or not having to live with a locked down OS), if you're lucky enough.
For me, being holed up at home still beats having to ride the damn tube, eating junk food, drinking very questionable coffee and working in the shittiest if hippest open space office.
I'm significantly more productive and significantly less stressed, even accounting for the fact that I might be out of a job in a matter of months.
And don't get me started on having your own choice of peripherals and even OS (or not having to live with a locked down OS), if you're lucky enough.
We homeschool our kids, and it was a very conscious decision. There are routines and schedules, and an environment to learn in, that we've designed and adjusted over the years. They meet up with friends and go on field trips. The situations we're finding ourselves thrown into happen to be remotely and at home, but with no time to prepare or adjust, they really aren't accurate representations of anything in normal life.
This would definitely be the completely wrong time for someone to decide they don't like remote working (or homeschooling, or anything else we're being forced by circumstance to do, for that matter).
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Thanks.
Before this, I never ever felt the need to go out. Now I find myself going out more. It is not normal.