I left my newspaper job in 2007, in part because I wanted to go on a three-week trip.
There was no way to accommodate my being out of the office that long — working remotely was so completely out of the question that the possibility was never even mentioned — so I gave my notice, and the paper lost a valued (I think!) employee.
This year, when I told my boss I was thinking about going to Europe for the summer, his response was something to the effect of “oh, cool. Have fun.”
When you’re already an offsite employee (my house is about 1,000 miles from the Chicago office), for a company that extols the benefits of a remote team, it doesn’t much matter where you’re working from. I took advantage of that flexibility and spent my summer working from Scotland, England, France, and Ireland.
For 37signals, the main advantage of a remote workforce is the ability to attract and hire the best people, no matter where they live. But for me, remote work is a major employment benefit. More than a 401k, more than a health care plan — the fact I no longer have to save up vacation time to take one or two short trips a year is huge. I don’t have to wait until someone gets married or dies before I can go see my family — I can just go see them, and work while I’m there. If my girlfriends are going to Mexico for a week but we’re slammed in customer support, I don’t have to choose between letting down my pals or letting down my team. Gone are the days of spending precious PTO on obligatory holiday travel, resenting how I’ve still never seen Vietnam.
I mostly stayed with AirBnB hosts, anywhere from a few days to a few weeks at a time. Since all I need for my work is my computer and a reliable Internet connection, I just made sure before I booked each place that I’d be able to get online.
Sure, there were snags. If I did it again, I’d want to be more on top of the schedule, more available by phone, and more certain of an always-reliable Internet connection. I felt guilty toward my team and our customers whenever issues along those lines arose. My next computer will likely be an Air — the MacBook Pro is great, but probably packs more oomph than I need, and it’s a bit of a beast to lug around. And I’ll likely be more mentally prepared to work different hours from the rest of my team. Euro hours are quieter and I could get a lot done, but they’re also kind of lonely when you’re used to hanging out in Campfire with your work buddies all day. Of course, now that we’ve hired a few folks overseas, that may be a moot point.
Overall, though, I found my work was highly portable. I could always get what I needed, and my team and my company were super-supportive. I had an amazing time, and felt beyond lucky to work for a company that lets me — encourages me, even — to live a life like this.
Bill
on 19 Nov 12I did something similar two summers ago. I was unhappy with where we lived, but not the job. At the time they were not terribly supportive of remote workers, having been burned by a contractor once already. I found a job outside the area and gave notice. Once I explained my reasoning for leaving, they arranged for me to work from that city as a remote employee.
I had everything packed up and ready to move to my new home there when the lease on the house we were looking to rent fell through (it was a divorce situation and the ex wife wanted to stay in the house after all). So there we sat with all our stuff in boxes, our current lease cancelled, and limited housing options in the new city.
So instead we put everything in storage, bought an RV and travelled around the US for 5 months, staying in places for 3 to 4 weeks at a time. It was a lot of fun and we got to see some places really in depth. It was nice when we were out west since the time difference from the home office meant I could work 6 to 2 and then have the rest of the day to explore the area.
To those that think you can only do this if you are singe etc. I am married and we traveled with 7 kids. I kept working and we home schooled the kids as well as we travelled. It was kind of fun watching my oldest do his biology dissections on the picnic table with all the younger kids huddled around.
I now work for another company that is also supportive of remote work, so we could potentially do something similar again.
Craig
on 19 Nov 12Great story Emily, but one question: are you not meant to have a work permit to work while in another country, even if you’re being paid (and paying tax) in another?
Adam Hallett
on 19 Nov 12I did something similar as well. I rented a vacation house in Prescott, Arizona for 1.5 months when my lease expired this year. I drove out, brought along my macbook, monitor, and keyboard and set up shop. There was a two hour time difference which meant that I could go hiking later in the afternoon and of course on weekends. I had lived in Arizona in college and I knew a lot of great things to see and do and also visited with a professor who retired there.
At the end of my stay I took actual vacation and my girlfriend flew out. We had a great time and the weather was much improved from Chicago. At the time I was working for a startup that valued GSD (getting shit done) and I had proven that I could work from home long before I took this journey.
DHH
on 19 Nov 12Craig, she was not a resident of that new place and she did not work for a local company, so no.
Rich
on 20 Nov 12I am with Emily. I feel beyond grateful for my company letting me travel. My wife, four children, and I left our home on July 1, 2012. We are traveling around the world and won’t be back home until some time in May 2013.
I echo Emily’s sentiments about the importance of quality Internet service. A couple of times I have lost connectivity at inopportune times. I have a MiFi device but have not been diligent about getting a SIM in every country. Fortunately my co-workers have been supportive and forgiving during those times.
For my circumstances I switched from working local business hours to hours that significantly overlapped business hours back in the US. This allows me to see/do things with my family in the morning and be online during the local afternoons/evenings for US business hours.
Anonymous Coward
on 20 Nov 12The above are necessary but not sufficient. What kind of Visa #were you on? How long was ‘my summer’? Were you getting paid?
Hard to enforce though.
I hope no one at 37s gets burned by these sorts of things, but I hope even more no one else decides to visit a cool part of the world and just assumes the rules are in your favour.
Nice post Emily.
GeeIWonder
on 20 Nov 12The flip side of this is that job where you can just travel and continue work as normal is a job very easily moved indeed.
If job security matter to you, you better be good, and stay that way. I am sure Emily is/will continue to be. DHH’s value calculation in his recent post sort of shows the employer perspective though (and might be slightly worrying).
So this makes a dual point then - that the previously presented value calculation is not sufficient (i.e. is ‘good’ a binary state? are there other intangibles that should matter to employers/employees) and that this whole remote working as a panacea is, quite ironically, sort of very dependent on the time and space you find yourself in. You may in fact find that the time + space work window of remote workers/collaborators is much narrower than the old paradigm - you can work from anywhere, but not for long.
Devan
on 20 Nov 12You can take this concept one level further, and say that if your worked for YOURSELF, then you have even more freedom to work anywhere and at anytime. I find it strange that a lot of people will spend time looking for a JOB that will give them a choice of workplaces and times, but very few are willing to go the next level and forge a business for themselves that will allow them the same and more.
Sure the risks are higher, but IMO so are the benefits, i.e. the ability to say ‘No’ to certain customers or vendors, and the ability to change your core business on short notice.
Andrew
on 21 Nov 12Working remotely from a ‘vacation’ destination can be good and bad. It’s definitely not the same as being on vacation.
When you meet up with your family who’ve been by the pool all day, you still have work running around in your head and more than a slight guilt about there being more hours in the day, but you’ve stopped working.
And then there’s the internet connection. Last year I worked remotely from a hotel in the UK. Uploading a build of my work (a once daily task at the minimum) takes 10-12 minutes at home and was taking 2.5 hours in the hotel (after I negotiated with the hotel to lift upload limits just for me). This meant that I had to leave my laptop uploading in the afternoons and went several days without having my room cleaned because I couldn’t risk the cleaner turning off/disconnecting the laptop.
So – it’s definitely more stressful than normal working-from-home ‘remote’ working.
Eric Anderson
on 21 Nov 12I work for myself and take advantage of seeing the world while I work. I haven’t been “home” in 5 month. I have an RV and stay in a place for about a month at a time. Been exploring the northeast this summer/fall. Remote working is a huge benefit to me.
David
on 22 Nov 12I have been working remotely for almost a year now and I find that my performance and my dedication are both much higher.I sit down in my home office, have my coffee the way I like it and finish my tasks one after the other, without being interrupted or distracted.
Michael
on 24 Nov 12The beauty of working anywhere in the world is that you don’t have to make this trade-off. Your door is closed to petty office distractions, but it’s wide open to anything you want, and if you want something new, you still get the serendipity.
Michael
on 24 Nov 12Sorry, that quoted paragraph is from R Hamming’s “You and Your Research” speech, and it seems to not have indented even though I surrounded it in supposedly allowed blockquote tags. Can we get a fix for that, please?
This discussion is closed.