Be the first digital nomad @REWE digital

This is my first official week as a digital nomad in Research & Innovation at REWE digital. This week I’m working from Львів (Lviv — Ukraine).

It must have been October 2018, when we (my wife, two children, aged 11 and 13, and I) had the idea of traveling the world. Of course, the first thing that popped up in our minds were doubts and fears. “The kids have to go to school, so many risks, dangers, insurances, what to do with our apartment, we have no van, no money!”

So we sat down and talked about the beautiful sides of this idea. Soon we realized that our doubts are mere virtual barriers in our minds. Being what they are, we approached the fears and doubts one by one to create a realisable context for our dream. We decided to do homeschooling for the kids. We rent our furnished-apartment to students. Scouted for a suitable van (if possible an old VW-T3) and sold our “family” car. But how to pay our bills?

Since we are not rich and do not have a lot of savings, I started thinking about an alternative way of making money whilst on the road. “What if I transformed my current “traditional” workspace, into a remote workstation?”

Most of the work I do is doable from anywhere on the planet, given the proper internet-connection and suitable laptop. Due to living in Bonn and working in Cologne I’m used to working on the train every day anyway.

Sometime around April 2019 I got together with my boss and proposed my idea to him; “Ask the Team!” he said, and followed with “We haven’t done this at REWE digital yet, but let’s give it a try, let’s be innovative”.

Fortunately, my team is very open-minded and everybody was in favor of the experiment. Of course, we had to go some rounds with HR to work out the legal-side. But all-in-all everybody seemed to be very enthusiastic about the idea and the options it might offer in the long run for the entire company. I am very grateful for that!

So here I am, with a part-time corporate contract including medical-insurance, fixed salary and holidays as a “normal” employee on the one side. And the freedom and possibilities of a digital nomad on the other side for one year. I’m determined to make the best of it.

побачимося незабаром (see you soon)

Rutger

p.s. If you’d like to see some of our traveling-photos, I invite you to have a look at our family-blog at www.welt-blick.eu