Why I Only Work Remotely
I rarely work remote even when I have the opportunity to do it; I&#x27;ll explain.<p>The author seems to have a single-mindedness about optimizing their own performance. If performance in terms of your value to the business was about sitting down at a computer and coding, getting in a &quot;flow&quot; state, etc, I would agree. Problem is, personal efficiency doesn&#x27;t necessarily align with value generated. I&#x27;ve seen engineers spend months regularly obtaining &quot;flow&quot; with few interruptions or meetings, only to have the projects scrapped because they weren&#x27;t what the business needed. The fact that the code was immaculate didn&#x27;t end up mattering at all.<p>Informal, personal communication can make a big difference. Yes, getting up and talking to someone <i>is</i> more efficient than starting an email thread or slack conversation in many cases. Many of those conversations are engineer to engineer and involve important technical decisions.<p>And, an aside: remote meetings are simply worse than in-person meetings. Having worked on several teams where some members were in completely different locations (and time zones), I never want to experience that again. Give me every person relevant to my work in the same physical space; I don&#x27;t want to get blocked from doing my work because you&#x27;ve gone dark on slack.<p>I promise, I get it. If I had my way, I&#x27;d work on whatever I wanted to work on, with no meetings or interruptions. I&#x27;d just be a lone wolf cranking out awesome features and feeling great about it. That&#x27;s just not what any business needs, and it&#x27;s certainly not what they pay me for.