A modern vision of remote work

My reality before the pandemic

Due to the global pandemic we’ve been facing for the past year and the restrictions imposed as an attempt to slow its spread, many companies had to quickly adjust the way they operated to adapt to this new reality.

One of the main changes adopted by several companies — and one of the biggest challenges — was the transition to remote work, a new and challenging concept for many employees. At the same time, some employees, such as myself, used to work from home even before starting this pandemic, which doesn’t mean it didn’t impact our workdays. It just wasn’t as abrupt. The main differences I noticed were in productivity and motivation, bearing in mind that the latter may influence the former. With the pandemic, and especially the confinement, the line that separates work and personal life becomes more blurred, and it is easier to get distracted more often. Besides that, the ability to recharge and abstract from work outside office hours became more complicated, having a huge impact on morale and contributing to a decrease in motivation.

But before continuing, let me introduce myself: my name is Mariana, I’m a Software Developer at Ubiwhere, and I’ve been working remotely since the beginning of August 2019. However, I haven’t always worked remotely and my journey at Ubiwhere started a while before that.

It all started back in 2017, when I was still finishing my Master’s degree and the opportunity of a curricular internship arose. The theme of my thesis was “Mobile Backend as a Service” and it allowed me to explore different technologies and to learn a lot about distinct areas, both in back-end and front-end development. It proved to be a very enriching experience as I got to practice what I learned through my academic journey but also by working in a professional environment, where I could grow as a developer. After the conclusion of my internship, at the end of nine months, I was offered the opportunity to continue my journey at Ubiwhere, and so I did. I started by resuming the development I did during my internship and after some time ended up transitioning to other projects, focusing mainly on the area of backend development with Python and the Django framework.

Having in mind my personality and what I do on my workdays, I’ve always looked at remote work as more positive than the opposite since it allows me to be more autonomous and have a more flexible schedule.

For me, the advantages of this working style before the pandemic could be summed up by the following topics:

Increased productivity

The subject of productivity may be arguable. While some people believe that working remotely can positively impact, others think it’s the other way around. I believe my productivity increased since I started working from home by focusing on my tasks and having fewer distractions or at least more control over them.

Less time spent commuting

Instead of commuting to the office everyday, that time could be applied in other ways, like by starting working earlier. Even though it doesn’t seem to be that significant, it makes a real difference after some time.

Better work/life balance

This is another topic that may be debatable since working from home can mean having more distractions, but before the pandemic, in my opinion, it was easier to manage time, to set work hours and to stick to them. Furthermore, being more productive could also mean finishing daily tasks sooner instead of extending working hours to finish them.

On the other hand, working from home can have its downsides. It can start to feel monotonous quickly, and feelings of isolation can easily surface. Other disadvantages might be:

Communication gaps

It isn’t the same thing to message someone about a specific topic and discuss it in person, especially when it comes to project requirements. It isn’t as efficient as talking directly to someone, and sometimes it can easily lead to misunderstandings.

Forgetting to take breaks

As I mentioned before, one of the benefits of remote work is the increase in productivity. Still, one downside of being more focused is the tendency to forget to eat the recommended number of meals or take breaks.

Since the global pandemic, I believe the advantages and disadvantages of this working style were almost the same, but with a few differences on:

Decreased work/life balance

With the pandemic, people started working from home, which meant more distractions unless you live alone. Besides that, being unable to leave our homes and do our lives as we used to do could mean losing track of time and ending up overextending working hours.

Isolation

I didn’t feel the impact of isolation before the confinement, mainly because even though I was more isolated at work, maintaining my social life outside it compensated that. In contrast, social interactions in person became more limited to confinement and significant parts were replaced by messages and calls.

I still maintain my views towards remote work and its advantages, even though it can be more saturated than before. It is harder to work from home considering this new reality, and it has been far longer than we ever thought it would be. Still, we have to remind ourselves that this situation won’t last forever, and things will eventually get better. 😊