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+---
+title: "Why I prefer remote work"
+date: 2022-10-15
+lang: en
+categories: [ blog ]
+tags: [work, remote]
+translationKey: "2022-10-15-remote-work"
+---
+
+Having both worked in office and remotely (aka working from home), I find
+myself preferring the latter much more.  In this post, I will detail on how
+much the benefits of remote work mean to me as well as why I don't view its
+drawbacks much of problems.
+
+## Pros
+
+### No need to commute
+
+"No need to commute" doesn't sound much; "no need to commute in congestion"
+would be more telling about the advantage of remote work.  Most jobs
+start and end at around the same time windows and as a result, we have a thing
+called "rush hours", where we have abnormally high number of people being
+outside on the road.  By simply not having to go outside around these time, I
+would save up to 3 hours a day!  Being stuck around a bunch of cars also
+contribute to my daily stress.  Even when I don't have to travel during these
+time windows, it would still take me half that time, as most tech companies in
+my city are located around that place.
+
+Not only do I save time, I also save fuel, thereby saving more money as well as
+reducing gasoline consumption and pollution.  By working from home, I would
+save more than 3 L of gasoline and avoid exhausting 4 m<sup>3</sup> of
+CO<sub>2</sub> per week.  Speaking of exhaustion, breathing it continuously in
+high concentration for 3 hours a day is not exactly healthy.
+
+The saved time and money can be spent on more meaningful things, such as doing
+daily workouts or sleeping a bit more, both of which I am lacking.  This means
+that remote work is the only way for me to live healthily.
+
+### More freedom overall
+
+When I work at home, I can wear whatever I want and no one is gonna judge it.
+Some workplaces require strict dress code like tugged button-up shirts and
+shoes.  Fortunately, I never worked in a workplace like that, but I am still
+required to wear uniform on Monday and employee card. There are also implicit
+dress codes like no slip-slops, shorts or sleeveless shirts in the office,
+which is no problem if you're at home.  There are also no surveillance camera,
+(unless you're not already covering your laptop's).
+
+I can slack off from time to time: I can do small talk with friends and read
+new updates from my RSS feed without disapproval eyes from other
+coworkers---not that this is strictly forbidden, but some people seems to have
+this weird idea that you have to spend 100% of your time to work.  Well, you
+can't constantly focus for 4 hours long; at least people I know of don't have
+such attention span.  Temporary procrastination can actually help with
+productivity.
+
+### Higher focus
+
+While some people complain about constant distractions from home working, my
+experience is on the contrary.
+Each job differs from another, but in one of my job, my coworkers constantly
+need to ask me for help.
+By distancing myself from my coworkers constantly asking for support, I can
+actually focus on my work.
+This also means that I cannot ask others instantly, but I also find that not
+being able to do that force me to figure out the problems myself, which in
+effect help me understand the issue more profoundly.
+
+### Less land required
+
+If you're working remotely, you won't use that 3 m<sup>2</sup> office lot and a
+parking lot (assuming you're not using public transport).  If your entire
+company work remotely, you won't need a whole building.  Well, you probably
+still need some office somehow, but from an employer's point of view, shouldn't
+this be a tremendous advantage?
+
+## Cons
+
+### Under-communication
+
+As many people point out, it can be hard to communicate when you're working
+remotely.  This is very true at the beginning of the forced remote-work (i.e.
+the COVID pandemic).  Since then, video conferencing and other communication
+methods have improved, but network failure is a problem that always persist.
+Nonetheless, as I mentioned above, low and unintrusive communication can be and
+advantage.
+
+### Over-communication
+
+To address the above problem, some people resort to over-communicate. We have
+daily meetings, weekly meetings, fortnightly meetings, monthly meetings---you
+name it---that are supposed to be 5-minute sync, but can creep up to an hour or
+even more.  This is not to mention random checkup meetings for some urgency.
+This is the very same problem that would happens with in-office working that I
+mentioned [above](higher-focus).
+
+### Work-life balance
+
+Over-communication can in turn lead to work-life imbalance.
+
+There is a reason many people have a self-policy of not bringing work home.
+This includes not working at home and not discussing work at home.  I am such
+person.  Learning from my past internship, I know how distressing being
+contacted from work can be[^0], so I don't install any work-related apps on my
+own devices, and if I do, the notification is always turned off.
+
+Nonetheless, some people seem to have this notion that as you *can* do work
+outside your working time, you *should* (or worse, *have to*) do it.  I had a
+coworker who brought her laptop home.  Yes she did work at home in the evening,
+and when the temporary remote work period ended, she still kept that habit,
+even went so far as checking messages/doing meeting on her train.  Now, I'm no
+one to judge her work-life boundaries, but it's extremely annoying that she
+expected me to be able to contact in some way outside my working time.
+
+Of course, if you have clear boundaries and principles, this shouldn't be a
+problem.
+
+### Security
+
+Network are not to be trusted, especially when it goes out of your local one.
+From an employer's standpoint, remote work can be undesirable because a
+malicious employee can leak data to an opponent, which is a valid concerns,
+except that, they're using cloud services to host their data, communication,
+and even software substitution.  They're already sending data outside to a
+third party!  Not to mention that, there are already plenty of ways to send
+information out of the office without network, such as copying files to an USB,
+paper, or just remembering the information.
+
+On that note, blocking internet in a software development environment, unless
+you're developing internal software and host your own servers, software and
+documentation, which include, but not limited to:
+
+- compilers
+- operating systems
+- software package mirrors
+- language and libraries documentation
+- version control server
+- database servers
+- email servers
+- instant messaging servers
+
+that are required in doing software development, or other kind of office works,
+because as soon as you leak data to the external internet, that false shield
+has been broken. Well, disclaimer, I'm not a security expert.
+
+## Some thoughts
+
+No, I don't think remote work is for everyone, but I insist that allowing it
+is a must.  Obviously, there are jobs where remote work doesn't make sense, but
+for me particularly, remote work is a step forwards in maintaining a healthy
+mind (well, at least if you're already principled enough not to bring work
+home) as well as contributing to environment preservation.  If I'm to found
+a company, I'd encourage my coworkers to work from home, because I believe
+that's a win for both parties.
+
+[^0]: While I wasn't *directly* contacted during my internship, I was in a
+  chat group at work, and them constantly discussing work even after midnight
+  gives me unintended pressure.