來年想做自由職業者？那麼，先來看看這些挑戰你能hold住嗎？
One tech worker reflects on all the stress factors–some more obvious than others–that made remote work difficult in the long run.
一位技術工作者總結了所有讓長期遠程辦公不易的壓力因素——當然一些因素較其他更爲明顯。
In software engineering, remote working makes a lot of sense since, most of the time, you only need a computer and an internet connection to perform your duties. There are fewer reasons to force people to sit in an office every day. As a result, it’s become an important feature of a lot of IT jobs, even here in Belgium–which in my experience isn’t always the most forward-looking job market–where remote work is common for at least a couple days a week.
在軟件工程行業，遠程工作已經變得很有意義了，因爲在大多數情況下，只需要一臺計算機和網絡就能執行任務了。現在幾乎已經沒有什麼理由能夠強迫人們每天坐在辦公室了。因此，遠程辦公已經成爲許多IT工作的一個重要特徵，即使在比利時也是如此——儘管根據我的經驗，這並不總是最具前瞻性的就業市場——每週至少有幾天進行遠程辦公也是很常見的了。
I’ve been working remotely for a little more than five years now, and it doesn’t come without stress. I think it’s taken a toll on me over the last couple years in particular, especially when I went almost fully remote for a year, from June 2016 to June 2017. In that period I’ve sometimes felt like I existed in a “remote-developer black box”:
我已經遠程辦公五年多了，但它並非沒有壓力。我覺得過去這幾年對我造成了非常大的影響，特別是在2016年6月到2017年6月，我幾乎完全遠程辦公了一年的時間。那段時間，我有時覺得自己像是生活在一個“遠程開發人員黑匣子”裏：
Here are some of the biggest downsides to that experience.
下面是這段經歷中幾個最不利的方面。
IT’S HARD TO COMMUNICATE溝通困難
Communication tends to stick to structured channels when you work remotely: the chats, daily standups, maybe a few global meetings every other week, Jira for the tasks and bug reports, and lots and lots of emails.
遠程辦公時，溝通往往會變成模式化的幾種途徑：聊天，每日的站立會議，也有可能是隔週的幾次全球性會議，任務相關的JIRA報告和錯誤報告，以及大量的電子郵件。（JIRA是Atlassian公司出品的項目與事務跟蹤工具，被廣泛應用於缺陷跟蹤、客戶服務、需求收集、流程審批、任務跟蹤、項目跟蹤和敏捷管理等工作領域。）
This works well to accomplish structured tasks, but it’s easy to feel disconnected sometimes. The fact that most of this communication happens in written form or in front of groups makes them unsuitable for small talk or more informal information sharing. And it can hamper your work, as just chatting about the general atmosphere at work can deliver important information about the smooth progress of projects. Worse, it can prevent you from feeling like part of a community.
這種模式可以很好地完成結構化的任務，但有時候也很容易讓人產生斷離感。事實上，這種溝通大多數以書面形式或羣體的形式發生，使得非常不適合閒談或更多的非正式信息分享。這可能也會阻礙你的工作，因爲工作時聊天的氣氛可以提供關於項目是否順利進行的重要信息。更糟的是，這還讓你丟失了歸屬感。
In addition, written exchanges are more prone to misinterpretation, even with people you know very well. Plus, if you already spend your day typing on a keyboard to accomplish your technical tasks, it’s annoying to have to communicate in written form, too; you end up feeling like a text-processing machine. I began to miss the coffee chats that I’d previously thought to be unproductive wastes of time. I felt detached from the team, especially when the teams I worked with were made of people working in the same place (and seemed to be having fun).
另外，書面交流更容易被曲解，即使是自己熟悉的人也是如此。另外，如果你已經花了一天的時間敲擊鍵盤來完成技術任務，還不得不也以書面形式進行溝通就是非常惱人的一件事了。最後你就會覺得自己就是一個文本處理機器。我開始懷念起喝着咖啡聊着天的休閒時光，而我原先則認爲這就是在浪費時間。我感到與團隊越來越脫節了，特別是和我一起工作的團隊是由在同一地點工作的人組成的時候（而他們的相處似乎很有趣）。
IT CAUSES INTERRUPTIONS AND MULTITASKING
造成干擾和同時多任務處理
When working remotely as a developer, chat platforms (usually Slack or HipChat) quickly become your lifeline; that’s the way most people contact you. And to me, being responsive on chat accomplishes the same as being on time at work in an office: it creates an image of reliability. If you don’t want to give the impression that you’re taking a lot of breaks, you might find yourself checking your notifications during lunch, for example. Whereas had people seen you working the whole morning, or had you just talked face-to-face with your coworkers by then, you wouldn’t feel the need to be so responsive. I’ve noticed other remote colleagues get criticized for not answering quickly by chat.
作爲開發人員，在遠程工作時，聊天平臺（通常爲Slack或HipChat）很快會成爲你的命脈。因爲這是大多數人與你聯繫的方式。而對我來說，在聊天上即時的反應與在辦公室準時上班的概念完全一樣：它創造了一個可靠的形象。如果你不想給別人留下自己總在休息的壞印象，你可能會在午餐時間檢查你的通知。但是如果別人看到你整個上午都在工作，或者你剛剛還在和你的同事面對面交談，你就會覺得沒有必要這麼快做出迴應。我注意到其他遠程辦公的同事因爲沒有迅速答覆聊天而受到批評。
Since people don’t see you physically, they can’t really judge if it’s a good moment to interrupt you. So you get interrupted a lot, and if you’re like me, you feel forced to answer quickly. So you interrupt your own work a lot (programmers in particular tend to loathe this, since it saps their productivity and breaks their focus).
由於人們沒有親眼看到你正在做什麼，所以他們不能真正判斷現在是否是打斷你的好時機。所以你會經常被打擾，如果你像我一樣，你還會被迫着馬上給予迴應。所以，你也會經常打斷自己的工作（特別是程序員，他們往往很厭惡這個，因爲這會降低他們的效率，分散他們的注意力）。
The other problem with remote chat is that people don’t know whether you’re already speaking with somebody else. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been juggling three different conversations at the same time, which to me can become stressful, especially when I have tasks to finish by the end of the day.
遠程聊天的另一個問題是人們不知道你是否已經在與其他人交談了。我已經數不清有多少次同時進行三個不同的對話了，這對我來說壓力非常大，特別是當我在這天結束前還有任務需要完成。
There are often “leisure” chats as well, about non-work stuff, which can become very, very chatty. To keep my sanity, I mute these chats most of the time, but when you come back, catching up on everything that was said can be a daunting task, even though it may be my only opportunity to take part in the “office spirit” I’m missing by being a remote worker.
通常還有“閒聊”，大都是與工作無關的東西，而且同事們很可能會喋喋不休。爲了保持我的理智，大部分時間我都會把這些聊天設爲靜音模式，但是回過頭來，要想追上羣裏所說的一切可能是一項艱鉅的任務，即使作爲一名遠程工作人員，這很有可能是我唯一一次可以參與我想念的“辦公室精神”的機會。
IT ENCOURAGES OVERWORK超負荷完成工作
Most jobs come with at least two types of obligation:
大多數工作至少有兩種類型的義務：
Obligations of results, where you commit to give a certain result by a given date. Typically for a developer that means completing a sprint with a given set of bugs/features to develop by a certain deadline.
給出結果的義務，你承諾在約定日期內給出某個結果。對於開發者來說，通常意味着在最後期限前完成程序故障的排除或軟件特徵的開發。
Obligations of means, where you mainly commit to spending some of your time every day on your work, and you just deliver the results you’ve managed to produce within that time.
過程的義務，你主要承諾每天在你的工作上花費一些時間，而你只需要提供在那段時間內創造的結果。
I’m not naïve, and I know that in the end (especially in software engineering), most jobs are really about results–you’ll get fired if you produce nothing–and not means. But since people can’t see you work remotely, you might feel more obliged to show results every day, even if it forces you to work way past eight hours a day. I can’t count the number of times a configuration problem or a customer call took a few hours of my day, but I still felt forced to finish the task I’d committed to that day, just so nobody could assume I was slacking off instead of working. Had my coworkers seen me in front of my computer all day, I probably would’ve felt relaxed enough to finish it that task later.
我並不天真，而且我知道最後（特別是在軟件工程領域），大部分工作都是要求結果的而並非過程——如果沒有任何結果，你就會被解僱。但是由於人們看不到你在遠程辦公，你可能會感到更有必要每天有結果產出，即使這會每天強迫自己工作遠遠超過了八個小時。我無法計算有多少次，由於配置問題或客戶電話佔用了我好幾個小時，但我仍然被迫完成了當天承諾的任務，只有這樣纔沒有人會認爲我懈怠了一天而沒有工作。如果我的同事們能看到我一整天都坐在電腦前，我會感到放鬆，也就可以毫不擔憂地以後再完成這個任務。
This instinct has led to two things for me: being really appreciated for the reliability of my output, and being seriously overworked. According to Basecamp CEO Jason Fried, this is “the true challenge of managing remote workers: People who work too hard.” In the end, it comes down to the question of trust: My employer trusted me a lot, allowing me to work on my own terms, and in exchange I’ve always felt compelled to work a lot more than if I were in an office.
這種本能導致了兩件事情：我很欣賞自己輸出的可靠性，但是我也嚴重地超負荷工作了。根據Basecamp公司首席執行官Jason Fried的說法，這是“管理遠程員工的真正挑戰：那些工作太認真的人”。最後，可以將其歸結爲信任問題：我的老闆非常信任我，讓我可以按照自己的意願進行工作，作爲交換，我總是覺得比在辦公室裏時，我被驅使做了更多的工作。
IT’S CHALLENGING BEING A STAY-AT-HOME DAD
家庭奶爸的挑戰
When you spend a good part of your time at home, your family sees you as more available than they sometimes should. Even if you have places dedicated to work that should be off-limits to your kids, it’s still tempting for them to come ask you “just a little something.” It’s hard to expect children to compartmentalize their home–actually, it’s hard for me, too.
當你在家裏待了很長一段時間的時候，你的家人會認爲你比平常更有空。即使你有專門的工作場所，而且禁止你的孩子進入打擾，但是他們仍然抵不住誘惑來找你幫忙“一點點小事”。很難期望孩子能把家劃分開——實際上，這對我來說也很難。
This can make video calls a bit stressful. You’re talking with a customer for example, and your kids end up just appearing behind you on video.
這會讓人在視頻通話時有點緊張。例如，你正在和一個客戶交談，而視頻裏你的孩子剛好在你的背後出現。
I also know some people have problems resisting the need to perform home duties, like cleaning the kitchen. This has never been too much of an issue for me, but it’s created tension with my wife from time to time, since it was difficult for her to understand how I could’ve left a dirty dish on the dining room table all day while I was actually at home. (Answer: I was working and avoiding interruptions . . . )
我也知道一些人無法抵抗自己做家務的需要，比如打掃廚房。這對我來說從來就不是一個太大的問題，但是它不時讓我與妻子的關係緊張起來，因爲她很難理解我怎麼能讓髒盤子留在餐桌上一整天不收拾，而我實際上就在家裏。（答：因爲我正在工作，而且我在避免被打擾......）
IT CAN FEEL LONELY讓人有孤獨感
Working at home can mean a lot of loneliness. I do enjoy being alone quite a lot, but even for me, after two weeks of only seeing colleagues through my screen, and then my family at night, I end up feeling quite sad. I miss feeling integrated in a community of pairs.
在家工作可能意味着孤獨。我確實很喜歡獨處，但即使對於我來說，在兩週的時間裏，只有通過屏幕看到我的同事，然後到了晚上才見到我的家人，我感到非常難過。我懷念那種融入團隊的感覺。
Interacting on social networks might help you fight that loneliness a little, but the experience isn’t different enough from working on your computer. Plus, it’s also well-known that spending a lot of time on social networks tends to make you less happy than the opposite. Eventually, I really started to hate being alone; it began to impact my mental health and my mood (another well-documented phenomenon).
在社交網絡上進行交流可能會幫助你打破這種孤獨感，但是這與在計算機上工作的體驗並沒有什麼不同。此外，衆所周知，在社交網絡上花費大量的時間往往會讓你更不快樂。最終，我真的開始討厭獨處了，它開始影響我的心理健康和我的情緒（另一個有據可查的現象）。
WORKING OUTSIDE YOUR HOME HAS DRAWBACKS共用工作空間有缺點
One of the most common ways to fight this is to work in coworking spaces. But I find them a mixed bag; they cost real money (which your employer might agree to pay, or not) and often ask for time commitments (usually at least a month). They can create social environments and work opportunities, but at the risk of feeling a bit too much like a vacation camp, with activities every day (cooking, massages, meet-ups) designed to force people to socialize. I actually found myself going to coworking spaces only when those events weren’t scheduled, since it seemed pointless to use a coworking space to avoid loneliness only to not talk to anybody.
對抗這個問題最常見的方法之一就是在共用工作空間。但我發現這也有好有壞;它們確實費錢（你的僱主可能同意支付或不同意支付），並經常需要承約期限（通常至少一個月）。它們可以創造社會環境和工作機會，但也面臨着太像度假營般的風險，因爲每天都有活動（烹飪，按摩，聚會），強迫人們進行社交。實際上，我發現自己只有在沒有安排這些事項的情況下才會去共用工作空間，因爲使用共享空間來避免孤獨，但不去與任何人交談，這看起來似乎毫無意義。
Commuting to a coworking space takes time, and when you’re there, you may work with headphones all day to avoid distractions, barely taking breaks (because you lost time commuting), and feeling awkward for not taking advantage of the community. As an added problem, video calls are more difficult to do in these settings, since there’s not much space to be alone, always a bit of noise, and the risk you’ll annoy people in earshot (or you have things to say that you don’t want them hearing).
上下班需要時間，而且當你在那兒時，你可能會整天使用耳機來避免分心，幾乎沒有休息（因爲你失去了上下班的那段時間），並且因爲沒有從團隊中得到好處而窘迫。還有一個問題，視頻通話在這些環境下更難操作，因爲沒有太多個人的空間，還總是有些噪音，而且你可能會惹惱聽到的人（或者你有不希望他們聽到的話要講）。
Working remotely outside my home–whether in a coworking space or not–sometimes means not knowing where I’ll be working every day, and it’s stressful having to think about which hardware I need to take with me (keyboards, DVI adapters, chargers). Coffee shops are usually a bad idea, at least for full days: there’s too much noise, and I don’t like feeling obligated to buy something to eat or drink periodically to justify my presence.
在家外面工作——無論是否在一個聯合的空間——有時甚至意味着不知道我每天將要工作的地點，而且需要考慮需要攜帶那些硬件（鍵盤，DVI適配器，充電器）。咖啡店通常是一個糟糕的主意，至少對需要全天工作的情況來說是如此：噪音太大，而且我也不喜歡必須要定期地購買吃的、喝的東西來證明我的存在。
Obviously, when you work remotely you don’t leave your workplace at night. And if your coworkers are in different time zones, you end up communicating a lot after your workday is over (I did that for months when working with people based in New York or San Francisco). It often makes sense; otherwise you might have few chances to speak with your team, which can really slow down projects.
顯然，當你遠程辦公時，你不會在晚上離開工作場所。如果你的同事在不同的時區，你還得在工作時間結束後繼續與他們溝通（與紐約或舊金山的同事工作時我有過好幾個月這樣的經歷）。這很正確; 否則你可能就沒有什麼機會與你的團隊交談，而這可能會減慢項目的進度。
Finally, working at home doesn’t leave time to cool off while coming back home from work. For me, the ideal commuting duration is 15–20 minutes. That gives you some time to walk (which means at least some physical exercise) and change your thoughts a bit. Many evenings, I’d go from a video meeting to a family dinner in 30 seconds, making it hard to offer my kids my full attention.
最後，當從工作狀態迴歸到家庭時，在家工作缺少時間來緩和。對我來說，理想的通勤時間是15-20分鐘。這給你一些時間走路（這至少意味着一些體育鍛煉），並且能改變一點兒你的想法。許多晚上，我在30秒內從視頻會議到家庭晚餐，這讓我很難給予孩子我全部的注意力。
IT COMES WITH UNFORESEEN COSTS伴隨着無法預見的代價
If you want to gain responsibilities over time, working with limited visibility can be a problem. At one employer I felt that people in the office were preferred for promotions. To be sure, working remotely over the last few years has been a boon to my family while our kids were small. It made it possible for my wife and me to pursue our careers with minimal hassle, since I was more available to take care of the kids when they were sick (which happens a lot in their infancy). And while that meant catching up on work in the evenings and weekends, I appreciated that flexibility.
如果你想負責更多的工作，那麼在有限的可見度下工作就成了一個問題。我感覺僱主更願意給辦公室裏的職員升職。可以肯定的是，過去幾年的遠程工作對於我的家庭來說是一個福音，因爲我的孩子還很小。這讓我的妻子和我以最小的麻煩去追求自己的職業生涯，因爲當孩子們生病的時候，我可以更好地照顧他們（他們還是嬰兒的時候經常生病）。而這意味着我得在晚上和週末趕上工作，我很欣賞這種靈活性。
Remote working also allowed me to join high-quality teams I wouldn’t have found in my local job market. So while I’m still a fan of remote work, it really took a toll on my mental comfort sometimes, which has impacted my family relationships–mainly just through my own irritability. In my experience, remote work can cut you off from the human interactions that make all those work-related tasks feel meaningful. Ultimately, for all its benefits, I don’t like being in the remote-developer black box.
遠程工作也讓我能夠加入我在當地就業市場上找不到的高素質團隊。所以，雖然我仍然是一個追捧遠程辦公的人，但是它有時候真的會對我的心理感受產生影響，進而也這影響了我的家庭關係——主要是因爲我自己的煩躁。根據我的經驗，遠程工作會阻斷你與人之間的相互交流，而正是這些交流讓這些工作有關的任務變得有意義。最後，至於它所有的好處，我不喜歡置身於“遠程開發人員黑盒子”裏。
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