[OPINION] Best place in the US for NetAdmins

Sun Jul 27 17:13:06 UTC 2014

On 26 July 2014 17:10, Joly MacFie <joly at punkcast.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk at gsp.org> wrote:
>
> > Telecommuting should not be a rare exception: it should be the default.
> > And "corporate headquarters" should be as small and inexpensive as
> > possible,
> > staffed (in person) only by a handful of people -- if even that.
> >
>
> Automattic (WordPress) works like that.
>
> There's a book about it.
> http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com/dp/1118660633
>
>
Yes, and the book title is not at all misleading! However there's a few key
differences between Automattic and your regular company. First is that
we're flat, so there's no employees to manage (ie: you manage your own
workload). Second is that we dont do meetings. Period.

Overall, I think remote working can be successful, however you need a few
things in place:

1. More efficient information sharing system than meetings (*cough* blogs).
2. Flat to almost flat structure.
3. Senior hires who can manage their own workloads and not be dependant on
a "big boss" to dole out work.

There's still some issues that need to be worked out (Timezones, the bane
of my existence!), however the benefit of being location agnostic HUGELY
outweighs petty fights over the office thermostat, office politics and
being forced to recruit from a localised talent pool.

The downside is that being located in a different region than you're buying
your equipment means that you get stiffed on vendor lunches :)

/Ruairi

> j
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