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What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

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Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#61
There was an article about loneliness a few days ago, it’s not related to remote work, you can be lonely and working at an office and living in a city for years, I think it depends on the persons social skills, programmers are introverted and they will feel lonely if they don’t work on their relationships.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#62
Sounds more like the author had psychological problems than problems specific to remote work.

I don't travel much, but I woudln't stop working remote for all the money in the world. Working when and from where I want is a huge chunk of freedom.

Don't throw you lifetime away.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#63
People who want to go to Thailand are ignorant — it’s a red flag you can use to spot naive people. Thailand sucks. It’s filled with crime and people there are very petty. Usually it takes Americans several years of living there to realize this. Anyway, I also think it’s dumb when people attribute their happiness to one thing or another. A featured tweet said that “crafting things with my hands is key to my happiness.” That’s so sad to read because as long as you are searching for specific remedies to unhappiness, and therefore as long as you are attributing progress to one arbitrary construct like “crafting” with your “hands,” you are unhappy. People who say they found happiness in X are always actually still in the middle of massive unhappiness. Their special activity almost always lapses after a while.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#64
I haven't worked remotely but I have travelled solo a fair amount and his points about loneliness resonated with me. However, I don't think everyone has to stay traveling if they are a remote worker. As he mentions it takes time to build community and relationships, but for me that is a reason to go remote. I want to live stably in another city where I feel I will integrate better with the people then the city my office is currently located. I don't want to switch apartments every month or live out of a backpack.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#65

> I lived in Taiwan for about a year before I returned to Europe. The whole Taiwan part is not really related to the issue of remote work. Remote work or not, moving to another country and then returning to home country after 1 year simply means you made a rush decision to relocate or you are bad at coping with a new environment.

Or he tried living in Taiwan for a year and decided it wasn't for the best. Not everyone can just fit in anywhere but its still worth trying if you feel you should.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#67
post #18

This article seems to conflate "remote work" and "being a digital nomad". Lots of people work remotely without being digital nomads. Lots of people have families and work out of a home office. Especially folks over the age of 30.

I think most people use "remote work" for the most extreme version where there is no other typical jobsite. The worker works from home, or wherever they choose, and has no regular work-imposed constraints such as onsite meetings with clients. This often applies to worker bee or creative tasks like programming or long-form writing. With teleworking infrastructure, it can also apply to more boiler-room sorts of work which have frequent interaction but no fixed location.

People in sales or consulting who nearly always visit other sites used to be called "road warriors" which is definitely not implied by "remote work" in my mind. On the other hand, "work out of a home office" can mean anything. It can be someone with an office who stays home a few days a week or month, or even just works extra hours in early morning or late evening. It can be someone who does visits client sites and has client meetings in public, but keeps their files and records at home because they don't need a storefront. This could include road warriors who lack an assigned space in their nominal place of employment.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#68

I've worked completely remote for the last 5 years. Before doing so, I read articles and sought advice. Most of the advice was the same — "try to get out of the house for a few days per week", "be sure your home office has a door", etc. This type of advice is shallow, obvious, and unhelpful. The only thing that has worked for me is having a disciplined routine that I follow. - Bed by 10pm - Up by 5:30am - Coffee made…

Doing the math... this looks like 1.5 (email) + 12 - 2 (work till dinner, minus break) + 2 (dinner to bed) = 13.5 hours of work a day. That sounds awful.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#69
post #68

I've worked completely remote for the last 5 years. Before doing so, I read articles and sought advice. Most of the advice was the same — "try to get out of the house for a few days per week", "be sure your home office has a door", etc. This type of advice is shallow, obvious, and unhelpful. The only thing that has worked for me is having a disciplined routine that I follow. - Bed by 10pm - Up by 5:30am - Coffee made…

Doing the math... this looks like 1.5 (email) + 12 - 2 (work till dinner, minus break) + 2 (dinner to bed) = 13.5 hours of work a day. That sounds awful.

When you enjoy what you do and get paid well for it the math works out.

Re: What Most Remote Companies Don’t Tell You About Remote Work

#70
Why is there so much pressure on Americans to leave their family's home as soon as possible? I lived with my parents and my two sisters in Mexico until I got married at 32 and I think that helped me avoid depression in my twenties. Had I've been alone in those years I think I would have killed myself.

And apart for having moral support it was financially sound. When I was doing well with my freelance gigs I would contribute to the household and everybody enjoyed the fruits of the excelente USD to MXN exchange ratio, when work dried up I knew I wouldn't starve.

There's always a character in US sitcoms that lives with their parents and is portrayed to be such a loser. I just don't get it.

I guess, what I say is: if you want to travel around the world do it. If you want to live alone or with annoying room mates do it. But if you're happy with your parents (and vice-versa) why does the culture wants force you to be miserable and alone?

Screw the culture.

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