Tag Archives: remote work

oped, remote work

Mini rant – Do not use the mic on your laptop!

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With Coronavirus forcing isolation, we are seeing a huge uptick in the number of remote interviews and broadcasts from home on TV. But please, people, do not use the cheap mic on your laptop and expect to have a good interview! I’ve seen many of these interviews where the boomy echo of the room is picked up by a mic attached to a laptop with an acoustically reflective screen and a built in fan. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. The latest I saw (not to get political) was from a Trump campaign social media expert criticizing the Biden campaign for taking so long to do online broadcasts, but Biden at least had enough setup to use real mics instead of a laptop mic as that guy was doing. 🙁

I need to do a longer post about acoustic and video setups at home and why some things are just never going to give a good experience.

remote work

More links for the family of Remote Workers

We have had a few discussions at work about what to do when your family is at home while you need to work remotely. I wanted to capture a few links and ideas that have come up related to keeping the family engaged when they are out of school. This is a follow up post to https://www.ispeaksoftware.com/remote-work-with-family-members-who-arent-at-work/

Remote Work with Family Members who Aren’t at Work
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oped, remote work, software engineering

Remote Work with Family Members who Aren’t at Work

I have kids. I love them all, but they can be distracting at times. Normal work days 2/3rds to 5/6ths of them are in school and the house is pretty quiet, with a few bumps from the preschoolers. But during summer, or holiday breaks, or global pandemics, there are times when my house is full of family members who aren’t at work like I am. So how do I handle it?

My first set of points about this:

1. Set some expectations that your are “at work” and can’t respond to every little request all day.

1a. Having a door on your office or room you work helps with that. I know that is a challenge for those working from home only temporarily, but look for other ways to formalize some distance. It helps with the “I’m at work” state to have a physical indication.

2. Take breaks to interact with the family, like at lunch or afternoon walks.

3. Some music or controlled noise helps drown out background distractions.

4. Keep a list (at least mentally) of the things you wish you could do with them during the day so you can find other times to help with art projects or math problems.

It takes a bit of reinforcement and some consistency, so don’t give up if the first day has a lot of interruptions.

Also, everyone should agree that ‘working from home’ is not a substitute for good child care. You won’t be doing your job honestly if you claim to be working but spend all your day doing stuff for the family.  Flexibility to watch your kids for a bit while your spouse runs to the store or an appointment is great, but don’t abuse it and expect to be successful.

I’m sure we will see lots of posts about this in the next few weeks, and here is a good one to keep from going crazy.

remote work, software engineering

Teleworking can be a good thing

I have had a couple conversations where the topic of my work arrangement has come up. I still keep in mind this article. http://martinfowler.com/articles/remote-or-co-located.html
Effectively, I think having a good manager who knows the team and how well they are working is key. Having team members who have integrity and want to get the job right helps, and pair that up with good remote-worker skills and tools and you can be successful anywhere.
Of course there are some jobs where you need to be with the equipment, but if you are writing software that often isn’t the case.