What Does The Ideal Remote Office Look Like?

This week the guys talk about their office equipment and remote workspaces which range from working in a winery to building a standalone office in a backyard. They also go full old cranky developer mode on the new office paradigms and warn the youths of back issues stemming from working on couches and bean bags. Don't get them started on open floor plans or unassigned desks! Learn what has, and hasn't, worked for each of the guys on their quest for the perfect coding space.

Links:
FogBugz
Joel Spolsky
Joel Spolsky's Blog - Bionic Office
Hint
ErgoDox
Regus
International Residential Code

Full Transcript:
Starr:              00:00          So you just got out there and you reached a moment, you reached a point of decision, and you decided I'm just going to keep going.

Ben:                00:07          That's right, yep.

Starr:              00:08          Yeah, all of us I think dream of that.

Announcer:          00:10          You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. Time to start a fire, crack open a can of Tab, and settle in for FounderQuest.

Starr:              00:22          And sometimes it's like you go out to buy some milk for your child, or whatever, it's like I'm just going to keep driving. Just keep going. Really. No, I love my child.

Josh:               00:33          Before I became a father, you always hear those stories like, dad went out for a pack of smokes, never came back, and I'm like, "How could people do that?" But now that I'm a dad, like I totally get it.

Starr:              00:43          Yes, it's not ...

Josh:               00:46          I mean it's still wrong.

Starr:              00:47          It's very wrong, but it's like I understand the sentiment a little bit better.

Ben:                00:53          Of course, my keep going moment just happened to be when I was doing a loop, so I don't know what that really says about me, but ...

Starr:              00:59          Oh, that's deep. We're getting really into the weeds now.

Ben:                01:03          So how's your shake coming, Starr?

Starr:              01:06          It's coming pretty well. Maybe we should ... Should we talk about offices work environments and then we can save it for the podcast? Save it for the-

Ben:                01:14          Oh, yeah. That's a good plan.

Josh:               01:15          This is the podcast.

Starr:              01:18          Holy shit, Josh.

Josh:               01:19          Did I just blow your mind?

Starr:              01:21          You blew my mind.

Ben:                01:22          Because we just fix it all in post around here.

Starr:              01:28          We do. Yeah, actually since we're restful, wouldn't we fix it all in put?

Ben:                01:36          That's deep, man.

Starr:              01:37          Yeah, that's a bad ... That's like a combo, like a dad joke or something. All right. So today I think we're going to talk about offices and work environments, which is, I mean we don't really have offices here at Honeybadger headquarters. Honeybadger headquarters is more of an idea than a place, I think.

Starr:              01:57          Each of us has our own customized work unit in the place of our choice. We all set it up to achieve maximum efficiency. And so I thought it might be fun to talk a little bit about that. It's like what do we like in an office? What don't we like in an office? Do you think we'll ever have a big Honeybadger open floor plan office?

Ben:                02:21          No.

Starr:              02:22          No?

Ben:                02:23          Never, no.

Josh:               02:24          If we had an office it definitely wouldn't be open floor plan.

Ben:                02:27          Do you remember the business and software forums back in the day with Joel, and he had this ... When he wrote his blog, he had some awesome stuff about making an awesome development environment, and he had this one about his office space. So they had office space, I think it was in Manhattan, and he went into great detail about how they made it perfect for developers and he just-

Starr:              02:52          I realize that. I remember that.

Ben:                02:54          Do you remember that blog post?

Josh:               02:55          Yeah.

Ben:                02:55          And he talked about how each developer had their own office, with a door, and I believe all of them had exterior light, like they all had an exterior window. And I remember him describing it. They had to angle the walls in a certain wall so they could all get a little sliver of window. Anyway, reading that-

Starr:              03:13          This was at FogBugz, so Joel Spolsky, FogBugz.

Ben:                03:13          Yeah, that was FogBugz, yeah. Yeah. So after I read that I was convinced, yep, that's the way to go, that was the gold standard right there. So I determined that I would never be happy in an open space ever again.

Josh:               03:27          Well, I currently am in an open space because my other company, Hint, which is a software, Ruby consulting shop. I'm the only one who likes closed off...