A few years ago, pre-pandemic, before having a baby, and before getting married, my boyfriend at the time and I decided to be really intentional about where we wanted to live and build our lives. I lived in the beautiful Paris, which has always been one of my favorite cities, and my boyfriend was living in Biarritz, in the South West of France. It may seem like a no brainer to most, but this city girl was quite skeptical about a place with 30,000 habitants. And yet it somehow seemed natural to build our lives and happiness where we wanted, and not necessarily where we felt we had to. When we started talking about our shared life, we felt that it made more sense to build our lives in the South West of France, which immediately raised the question around jobs and whether or not we would be able to find opportunities. I still remember the day I said “let's not be those people who live in a big city because there are career opportunities. Let’s be those people who build their happiness wherever they want and create career opportunities for themselves.” I didn’t raise the notion back then, that I didn’t particularly fathom owning my own business. So, the “career opportunities” in question would have to be either remote or a full on change in direction and industry, since my professional experience didn’t really match the local opportunities. But I wasn’t going to focus on that back then.
Fast forward nearly 4 years and we live in the beautiful town of Saint Jean de Luz, which has less than 15,000 habitants; we lived through a pandemic, have a baby girl we are simply gaga over, and I am working fully remote now.
I started my job a little over a month ago, and it was my first time starting a new career experience fully remote. A lot of people ask me “how can you work fully remote? Don’t you miss the human interaction?” Thinking back on the last almost 2 months, I thought it was worth sharing my experience, and why working remote works for me. And by the way, I experience the human factor every single day!
What makes working remote great?
Focusing on the feeling rather than the channel.
I was surprised and excited to learn that starting a new job remote actually felt exactly the same as starting a new job in a physical office. That’s right! On Monday, February 22nd of this year, I woke up way too early, in fear of being late. I felt nervous about what was I going to wear, the same thought that’s always haunted me on the first day of anything since high school. I felt nervous about the people liking me, me liking them, my previous experience resonating with the company, the fact that I was stepping into a new industry, coming back to work for the first time since maternity leave (my daughter was 15 months at this point so it had been a while), and so on and so on. But this first day, showed me that focusing on the what I felt has never proved me wrong in my experience, and it would be no different this time around.
Feeling nervous has always been proof that I was right where I needed to be because that fear also brought excitement, ambition, and a willingness to succeed. So focusing on this feeling showed me that my first day felt like any other first day prior to this experience (and I’ve had many in my career).
Another example of this is the drive I feel when my marketing wheels start spinning with ideas. I get excited, want to write them down, turn them into something visual, and share with others in the company to test if my ideas are generating positive energy from others. 3 days into my role, I decided to white board what my onboarding was generating in terms of marketing strategy (that’s right, I have a small whiteboard at home). I then threw those ideas onto a slide and shared with my colleagues. This is exactly the same process I would apply in a physical office, so again, business as usual.
Virtual coffees are key!
Something I’ve always done when starting new jobs is try to meet as many people as possible, especially in the beginning. Why do I do this? Because 1. it’s nice to feel part of a human organization and not just a company. 2. it’s important to have friends at work who you can exchange with, even if you don’t work with them a lot. 3. I love hearing people’s stories. This is something that comes quite naturally when in a physical office environment, because you can just get up, walk over to someone and suggest “would you like to grab a coffee?” In a virtual environment, you just have to set those up ahead of time, but the result is the same: a laid back meet up that usually results in great conversation. I scheduled quite a few of those for myself my first weeks in the job, and I don’t regret it one bit. In fact, with one of my coffee meetings, we decided to make it a weekly thing to talk about our work or personal lives.
Every meeting is intentional which makes just everything easier.
One of my biggest frustrations in my career has been the meetings about meetings culture. I’ve been in many companies where people seem to think that if they don’t meet 10 times about the same topic, then somehow things to get moving.
When working remote in a company that values efficiency, I’ve learned in just my short time that every meeting is intentional with a set agenda, shared items prior to the meeting, and I end up feeling like I’m part of a live working session, rather than a “meeting.” This particular fact also makes it much easier to know what you’re doing after just a few weeks in the job.
What basically happens is we show up, we check in with each other to make sure everyone is in a good headspace, and then we discuss topics that we’ve already prepped for via a shared workspace (we use Notion), and each meeting ends with clear action items on everyone’s part.
The entire organisation is bought in.
Everyone in the company is excited by the shift of being a remote-first company. Even the people who live near an office often choose to work remote. No one feels like they are getting special treatment as it’s truly part of the company culture.
Culture comes from the top.
Early in my interview process, I learned that the CEO and CTO/COO of the company have been working in a distributed workforce way for pretty much their entire collaboration. They live a 3 hour drive from each other and have never made it mandatory to meet up in person on a daily basis. The CEO also lives an 18 hour drive, or short flight from the city where the company was founded and where the biggest office still exists. So in other words, the company has in one way or another actually always practiced this way of working even within Norway. When COVID hit, they realized that the company functioned well remote and that they could tap into a larger pool of talent by becoming a remote-first company. If this strategy was not engrained at the top of the company, then it wouldn’t be bought in by those in other levels of the hierarchy. They communicated their vision of a distributed workforce to me since my first interview, which immediately made me feel that our conversations were about my experience and vision, and not about where I was based.
Gratitude for being where I am and not having to sacrifice on my career.
Working remote for a company I respect, in a role that I feel challenged by, and in an industry that needs our vision, innovation, and technology, all while living in my 15,000 habitants town makes me feel extreme gratitude on a daily basis. Perhaps this should be the new norm, but it isn’t quite the case just yet. I read a few years ago that when a human brain feels gratitude, it is incapable of feeling any negative emotion at the same time. So gratitude is actually the most healthy thing we can practice and do for ourselves. Living in my beautiful small town with my family, giving my daughter a unique quality of life, and getting to do that without compromising on my career: well there’s a recipe for gratitude!
Working remote also allows me to feel accomplished in my personal life thanks to the windows that help me get ahead. Taking a few minutes to launch the laundry or prep dinner helps with my mental health and that is something that has no price and also makes me feel gratitude on a daily basis.
What is the downside?
I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t share that there are some downsides to working remote, just as there are to being in a physical office. A few red flags that I’ve seen in the last few weeks:
Overworking is an easier bad habit to develop when you’re remote.
I have noticed that it’s easy to just keep going and not take a lunch, or that much needed break. So I try to give myself daily reminders for taking a walk, stretching my legs, or just getting something to drink.
Working out is also key because overworking immediately translates into lack of movement. I try to consistently work out twice a week and if I can’t, then an afternoon walk usually does the job, not to mention clears my head.
Feeling isolated and missing human interaction.
Surprisingly enough, I haven’t felt this too much since all my meetings include video and if you’re truly engaged, the humor, empathy, ambition, and fun that comes from working in a team is felt the same as in-person. It also helps that the team and I meet once a quarter for some accelerated quality working and fun time together.
To avoid feeling isolated, I also try to make plans with friends at least once a week after work, and up my virtual coffees with colleagues when this feeling starts to approach.
It’s not for everyone, but it’s right for me
Like everything else in life, it’s not for everyone. But if you’re a dreamcatcher like me and want to put your dreams ahead of geography convenience, then working remote might help you get there. And Generation Z certainly won’t tolerate giving up their dreams just to come into an office.
