The Telecommuting Developer
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I am still learning the ins and outs of being a telecommuting developer. I recently returned from a trip outside the US, was gone for a while. Now I am sitting in a state far away from my office where other people are diligently working daily. I have another job that I am doing during the day which for this post I will leave out. Yet I am trying to help my company on projects that need to be completed. I am trying to help yet feel as though I am pulling my hair out trying to understand this new DB schema. I look at columns and tables trying to get description, how the flow of the data will go. I have pages taped on my wall of diagrams trying to piece together the missing pieces in my mind on how it all fits. I've read the documentation that's been generated. Column and table descriptions are not really all that descriptive, almost vague. I find myself stuffing data into tables on my system trying to make it make sense. I have tasks to complete, and sometimes not really getting as many tasks as I would like, but have asked and asked and asked only to come up with even more questions. :confused: I am wondering if there are any other telecommuting developers out there and if they have any horror stories, experiences, lessons learned about walking into a project midstream and trying to pickup and understand where everyone else is at. Especially when you are trying to do it from home. I am really trying to make this telecommuting work. I also appreciate if anyone has some good telecommuting tips too.
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I am still learning the ins and outs of being a telecommuting developer. I recently returned from a trip outside the US, was gone for a while. Now I am sitting in a state far away from my office where other people are diligently working daily. I have another job that I am doing during the day which for this post I will leave out. Yet I am trying to help my company on projects that need to be completed. I am trying to help yet feel as though I am pulling my hair out trying to understand this new DB schema. I look at columns and tables trying to get description, how the flow of the data will go. I have pages taped on my wall of diagrams trying to piece together the missing pieces in my mind on how it all fits. I've read the documentation that's been generated. Column and table descriptions are not really all that descriptive, almost vague. I find myself stuffing data into tables on my system trying to make it make sense. I have tasks to complete, and sometimes not really getting as many tasks as I would like, but have asked and asked and asked only to come up with even more questions. :confused: I am wondering if there are any other telecommuting developers out there and if they have any horror stories, experiences, lessons learned about walking into a project midstream and trying to pickup and understand where everyone else is at. Especially when you are trying to do it from home. I am really trying to make this telecommuting work. I also appreciate if anyone has some good telecommuting tips too.
Acopa wrote:
I also appreciate if anyone has some good telecommuting tips too.
Good communication skills between home and office are very helpful :-D
"I've seen more information on a frickin' sticky note!" - Dave Kreskowiak
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I am still learning the ins and outs of being a telecommuting developer. I recently returned from a trip outside the US, was gone for a while. Now I am sitting in a state far away from my office where other people are diligently working daily. I have another job that I am doing during the day which for this post I will leave out. Yet I am trying to help my company on projects that need to be completed. I am trying to help yet feel as though I am pulling my hair out trying to understand this new DB schema. I look at columns and tables trying to get description, how the flow of the data will go. I have pages taped on my wall of diagrams trying to piece together the missing pieces in my mind on how it all fits. I've read the documentation that's been generated. Column and table descriptions are not really all that descriptive, almost vague. I find myself stuffing data into tables on my system trying to make it make sense. I have tasks to complete, and sometimes not really getting as many tasks as I would like, but have asked and asked and asked only to come up with even more questions. :confused: I am wondering if there are any other telecommuting developers out there and if they have any horror stories, experiences, lessons learned about walking into a project midstream and trying to pickup and understand where everyone else is at. Especially when you are trying to do it from home. I am really trying to make this telecommuting work. I also appreciate if anyone has some good telecommuting tips too.
I'm going to ditto Paul Conrad's response. I do not have any horror stories, because my in-office co-workers are as helpful as can be. My company is located in New York. I worked there for 2 years but wanted to move to Kansas for personal reasons. (I know, I know. "Who moves to Kansas willingly?") When my boss realized that the move was really going to happen, he was very generous in offering me a telecommuting position. Since then, I have been thrown into the middle of a couple of projects. When that happens, I typically end up spending as much as 3 hours on the phone (spread throughout the day) with my in-office co-worker who is the acting project manager. After the initial hand-off, additional emails, IMs, or phone calls ensue as more questions arise. Never are there complains or attitude from my co-workers. It probably helps that I had 2 years to build up my working relationships with them before I moved. But the point is that the communication is always wide open. I am also conferenced in to weekly, department-wide status meetings, so I am always aware of the projects other developers are working on, even if I am not involved with the project. Finally, I am also conferenced into our monthly, company-wide meetings. It's hard to hear some people in the room, but the main presenters are the ones closest to the speaker phone, so I get the general idea of where things are at company-wide. Minus the lack of the face-to-face interaction I used to have, I barely feel like I've left the office. Right now I'm looking at different web conferencing packages that will enable my co-workers and I to interactively share diagrams and things like we used to do as whiteboards. One of my in-office co-workers and I will be making a proposal to my boss sometime down the line when we're confident we've found the right package. If you don't have a lot of communication, demmand it. You may be a telecommuter, but you're still part of the organization.