Working: not for everyone
A few days ago I came across an article that reports how bosses today expect their team to work onsite a.k.a. in the office. I thought to myself: there it is, another batch of people trying to prove that remote working is a myth in 2017. Much like what has been done in 2016, 2015, 2014 and years before.
I am here to tell you that remote working is not a myth, and there are companies out there which actually believe in super efficient teams no matter where they’re located. Why can I be so sure?
Because I worked for five years remotely, defying time zone differences, blissfully aware that traffic issues was never my problem.
I worked when most people in my time zone are asleep, clocked out at 5am, slept until 2pm, did grocery shopping and other errands at the window of my free time between 3pm to 8pm where I had to clock in again until 5am. I had no traditional social life a.k.a. hanging out with friends after work, but I thanked technology gods for social media. It was 2008 and Twitter was on the rise, Facebook kept revamping to connect me with my human friends. There were no ‘fake news’ or religious blasphemy issues that made all the hard-liners ‘take over’ my Facebook feed. It was all about commenting on each other’s activities, photos and statuses.
And I did it all from the comfort of my own home-office.
Trouble came once in a while whenever I had to deal with real-world things like renewing my driver’s license or print my bank book as governmental bodies and banks only open at ‘human’ hours. On those days, I would clock in early at about 5 or 6 pm only to have an excuse to clock out at about 3am to pass out until 2pm. These ‘small things’ will mess up my sleeping schedule and affect my productivity.
So, do I slack around?
No. Because working from home with trusting bosses who gave me a good salary, signed me up for webinars to enhance my skills and allowed me to go on vacation twice a year was everything I wanted to keep forever. Until I had a baby and figured that living the life of Batman will not be good for our health. I’ve already had diabetes due to my unorthodox lifestyle, I wasn’t going to make it worse now that I’m with child.
After five years of comfort in my own cocoon, I returned to the ‘normal hour’ workforce, gave up my home office, dealt with Jakarta’s unforgiving traffic and begun a new life as an office worker within my own time zone. Sure my health improved, I have a social life and human-flesh friends who I talk to at lunch time, great bosses, a good salary and insurance, but one thing that I will always hold dear is the fact that I still sometimes miss my remote working days. What can I say, I am a hermit who enjoys teamwork in solitude. No wordplay there, just the facts.
The debate of whether an employee should or should not work remotely is, apparently, still ongoing. HR traditionalists still believe that being onsite will increase employees’ productivity, assist with better face-to-face communication, provide social needs and (this is actually the main reason) give management full control of the employees. Even modern-day start-up companies lure workers with bean bags, nap pods, full-stocked pantries, personal chefs and laundry services to keep their engineers onsite. Does this work? In luring the employees, yes. In fact, some people have start applying to these sort of companies for the frills, rather than the main benefits or, alas, the desire to do the actual job.

I have come across friends who work in several multinational companies, who say that the companies they work for actually allow working from home on certain occasions with their superior’s consent. Although I believe this is a great start to reignite the full-time remote working campaign, in Indonesia particularly, the light towards that direction is still dim, I daresay barely a flicker. Local companies still refuse this concept, and would rather have commuting employees whose part of happiness are ripped off on their way to and from work every day.
However.
Remote working is not for everyone, that is the fact, and I agree. When the company you work for allow remote working, you do not slouch around and have your laptop on but run Netflix all day. Even in your pyjamas, you work, in a closed space, find your quiet and be 100 percent in your element. You tick off whatever it is you need to do that day, take a one-hour lunch break, work some more, send in your reports at the end of the day and clock out at five. Because really, remote working is just a matter of geography. And this, is something that most people who are not familiar with remote working, fail to understand hence the abuse of the convenience.
One of my friends once lamented, “Ever since I work full time from home, I feel like I’m there but not ‘really there’ for my kids.” This is a correct statement because mothers who work from home often forget that although they don’t have to leave their houses and still be near to their kids, they still have to work. The misconception of ‘working from home means I can be a full-time employee and a full-time mother’ often clouds one’s judgment of being a work-at-home-mom. Working from home means being a full-time employee who cut down on commute time and save those precious two hours in the attempt to achieve that somewhat elusive work-life balance.
There are tools to measure productivity and I have worked under one. Back in the day, my boss will be able to look at what I’m doing throughout the day as she had the access to monitor my desktop within the working hour. So, no, she didn’t have to check on me every hour. She could check on me whenever she pleased without me knowing. Meetings were done via Skype, mostly conference calls because why would we spend quota on video as long as we can deliver our briefs?

All I’m saying to you, dear friends, after such a lengthy post: those who work remotely should not be social pariahs. Companies which offer remote working should not immediately be seen as scammers, and if the company you own or work for still hasn’t offered the opportunity due to control phobia, it’s time to really talk about it and make its management consider to do it. Why? Because remote workers should be given the same amount of opportunity as their onsite peers.
Those who despise remote working due to its ‘loneliness’ should not abuse the privilege when given one and make a bad name for remote workers. Stay in the office and endure the traffic, while remote workers juggle their crying baby and a conference call that starts in five minutes. There are pros and cons about each choice and it’s yours, and only yours to make.
Because in the end, let’s all be honest: working, be it onsite or remote, is not for everyone.
