My CTO strongly discourages working from home because he insists that "leaning over to the next cube to ask a question" is far better than sending a message, email or making a phone call. He went as far as saying it takes too much effort to do the latter... How is interesting someone while they're working more efficient???

*How is interrupting.... damn autocorrect

@lreading is CTO short for complete tosser?

I tend to work from home specially when I don't want to be disturbed.

@helloworld actually the current trend seems to be that many large companies are transitioning away from remote workers because they feel that the advantages of in-person teamwork are too great to discard.

@helloworld that being said, as a developer I fully appreciate being given the option to work remotely :)

@garrettw You're 100% right... and if valid arguments were presented (even if I, personally, disagree with it), that'd be one thing. Saying it's too much work and encouraging constant interruption? Idk, haha.

While I think devs shouldnt be interrupted as much as possible, I also experienced lots of advantages if all team members sit very close together...

I had it so many times someone could explain everything that matters from a multi-page documentation or many lines of code in a couple of minutes..

@grashopper99 It's a fair argument, but I don't understand why that can't be done via video chat.

I work in a cubicle environment and we still use Slack to communicate, mainly because it's less distracting to get a notification on your screen than someone staring at your door interrupting your flow and thought process.

I think a lot of communication is lost via videochat et al. We all know 90% of communication is body language, which includes tone of voice etc., all of which is at least filtered out or blurred with a low-res digital mirror image of reality with video chats...

Also, it is so much easier to socialize without any technical barrier in between, which includes picking up cues about the timing when to interrupt someone in their work..

Last but not least videochat with more than two people is a pain (see http://youtu.be/zbJAJEtNUX0 ;)
In real life other people can pitch in easily..

Me writing such a lengthy comment also shows me I ve had far too many video chats and telephone conferences already..

Nevertheless I have noticed and seen some people who can cooperate via videochat apparently fine, ...