Rob Fahrni

Guess this means I’m a super corporate employee now? 🤣

I put together some tips for folks at work back in early 2020 as COVID was starting to spread like wild fire here in the States.

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I thought I’d throw some work from home tips in a doc. I’ve been working from home off and on for the past 20+ years, give or take.

1. Keep your routine - get up at the same time, prepare for the day the same way you always do.
2. Get dressed for work - Dress how you’d dress for work. I need this one otherwise I’d lay about all day in my PJ’s. It’s so easy to get lazy, at least for me it is.
3. Create a dedicated workspace - This one can be tough, but if you’re able, do it. This allows for a bit of separation mentally between work and home life. If I don’t do this everything starts to blur together.
4. Take breaks - Since you’re home it’s easy to skip these. Take a few minutes, get up, stretch, and walk around. Go outside, take a walk. If you have a pet, take them for a walk. They’ll love you for it! Chill during lunch. I like to eat away from my workspace and on occasion I’ll watch a bit of TV.
5. Work outside - I love doing this on nice days. I’ll work outside for a bit. It kind of goes against having a dedicated space but it’s a nice change. I tend to do this in the morning while sipping coffee. It’s so beautiful here. I’m really looking forward to trying it.

Everyone has to find a rhythm that works for them. These are the things that work for me.

When I initially started working from home I would get up, get dressed, eat breakfast (not always), and drive my kids to school. When I got home I was at work. I’d walk into my office, close the door, and go to work. It may sound silly but I needed it to get me in the proper frame of mind. If it would help you, take a quick drive to emulate driving to work.

I plan on getting out a bit. Going to the store for the usual stuff; milk, coffee, etc. The daily necessities. I’ll batch them up but I need a bit of time away from the house to preserve my sanity.

I received an email out of the blue from a co-worker from years ago. He was a Software Engineer in Test who wrote code to test code. The project was an SDK.

I had no idea I left an impression on him but I’m honored to know I did. I had wonderful mentors during my time with Visio who all left me in awe of their kindness and willingness to impart their wisdom with a young, energetic, kid that knew very little but was willing to learn.

Anywho, here’s part of what he said. ❤️

just wanted to say that I made the leap from test to developer many years ago and feel that I’m quite adept at it at this point. Of course I had to overcome the imposter syndrome for a while in retrospect (and still fighting it a bit now) but I just wanted to say thank you. You were one of the few devs that would listen to my input and also take my “advice” on where I thought bugs were stemming from. You really helped me, whether you knew it or not, build my confidence that I knew at least a little bit about what I was taking about lol. I know it was probably nothing big to you but I felt like you really treated me as a peer rather than some “tester” that didn’t know what he was taking about. Which I felt was sadly the norm a lot of the time.

Today’s podcast queue should get me through the jungle I’m gonna tackle outside our backyard fence today, and then some.

If you’re a recruiter from Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, or Facebook please save yourself some time and don’t pursue me as a candidate.

I’ve been around for a long time as a developer but I’m not someone you’d want to hire.

I’m not that smart. More than likely I won’t be able to get through your interview process. I do ok as a developer but I’m not an algorithm guy. I try my best to write easy to read, maintainable, and stable code.

I’m not a ninja, rock star, or 10x developer. I’m kind of slow paced, iterative, and discerning. Definitely not a code factory.

If you’ve ever seen the movie Bull Durham I’d compare myself to Crash Davis – played by Kevin Costner. My best days are behind me. I had my time in The Show as part of Visio – which became part of Microsoft – but that was over 20-years ago. I’m in that stage of my career where I’m trying to help younger developers learn the business so they can get to The Show.

I still like to write code but I’m not a good fit for Big COs. I don’t have the energy or desire to work 80-hours a week for months on end. Living for the company.

I’m beginning my twilight season and I’m certain you’ll find your perfect candidate.

Take care, and remember, we only get one shot at this beautiful life. Make the most of it.

P.S. - If you’re a Facebook recruiter, this is the page I want you to see. You should really question why you work for a company like Facebook. If the answer is “because money” you’re doing it wrong. Facebook is a vile company.

Quartz: “The investment in Redmond also assumes workers will be be using offices in the future, when it’s clear many won’t. When given the choice of working remotely, many workers opt to stay home (or find a nearby coffeeshop), to the extent that Automattic, maker of Wordpress, shut down its San Francisco office because no one was using it."

This is from a late 2017 article. Clearly folks have wanted to work remotely for quite a while. COVID-19 has definitely driven that point home, no pun intended.

I’ll continue to advocate for it.