The Remote Revolution
Fire, posters, graffiti, bullets, bullhorns, riots. Who needs them? Modern day revolutionaries have the most powerful weapon in the history of mankind at their fingertips. Since becoming omnipotent at the end of the last millennium, the inter-webs have been at the source of every social revolution and movement — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Like all tools, the internet is on its own, devoid of any moral characteristics, neither inherently good nor evil. But in the hands of an individual or group of individuals, we have seen it used as both an overwhelmingly productive tool and a devastatingly harmful weapon.
I, like many of you, have been both a victim and a capitalist of the dualistic nature of the internet. A perfect example is the remote working movement.
They came for our work-life balance…
It all started when big corps created smart phones that connected to corporate email accounts — thus striking a serious blow to our collective work-life balance. But the madness didn’t stop there. Just when everyone was readjusting to the new, less-balanced lifestyle, other big corps invented the cloud, and work-life balance went POOF! RIP, WLB. You had a good run, though. I just wish you held on for a few more years so that I could have gotten to know you — I heard so many good things!
Now “the man” had us just where he wanted us. Trapped in an office every week day and trapped on our phones every night, weekend, and vacation. But the man didn’t count on one thing. The very technology used to entrap us could be used to set us free and fuel a shift in professional culture that would forever change the global workforce.
The revolution was born…
I remember the moment the revolution called me. It happened upon a dreary NYC night, as I was gazing longingly out of the small window (which can’t be opened from the inside) of my office on the 36th floor of a law firm located on on sixth avenue. My office was standard-issue big law size (i.e. just wide enough to lay down and take a 30 minute nap in after pulling consecutive all-nighters). The pungent smell of thai food faintly wafting through the air from the associate’s office next to me, this was the third night in a row he had ordered thai. He hadn’t been home once during this stretch. I was in one of those deep trances — that only those who have experienced the potent cocktail of intense boredom, extreme pressure, and sleep deprivation can relate to — when suddenly there came a tapping. As if someone gently rapping, rapping at my office door. It was Robert from IT, and he came bearing gifts. Specifically, the new monitors and “bat phones” the law firm was issuing as part of its efforts to make it easier for people to work from home during nights and weekends. The bat phones plugged into your home internet and mirrored your office phone. So, if someone called your office line, it would ring simultaneously on your home bat phone.
The general reaction among associates to this new hardware was negative — seen as a further encroachment by the firm upon the rest of our lives. But, as Robert stood in my office doorway explaining how the technology worked, I was having thoughts of revolution. “So, if I set this up at home and use it, there’s no real way for people to know if I’m in my office using my phone or whether I’m logged into our system and using the bat phone, correct? I’m asking for a friend…” Robert nodded and then told me that they were also rolling out a campion app, that essentially turns your i-phone into a bat phone as well. I was practically wearing blue body paint and screaming FREEEEDOOOOOOM at this point.
The plan was formulating. Everyone at my office was busy and stressed, my superiors didn’t often stop by my office, it was always easier and quicker for people I was with to simply shoot me an email or call my office line. What’s more? Due to our floor layout, it wasn’t very easy to tell who was in and who wasn’t unless you physically entered a specific office and looked around. I speculated that as long as I was responsive and getting my shit done, no one would even know if I wasn’t in the office.
So I did what all new revolutionaries do, I began testing the boundaries. It started small, I would work from home on a Tuesday morning, this quickly graduated to working from home every Friday, and before long, I was working from my friend’s house in the Hamptons for an entire week. The wild part was that no one really noticed. I mean, some of my colleagues and friends noticed, and one or two of the partners who I had a more casual relationships with were aware that I was working remote more often, but no one ever said anything negative to me or asked me to stop. And most importantly, not only did my work production not suffer, but I was doing the best work of my career.
When I was physically present in the office, I acutely felt all of the negative cultural elements that law firms are known for. For example, I knew that even if I wasn’t as busy (which was rarely the case), I was going to feel pressure to stay around until late, because I would be judged harshly if I walked out at 7pm. I was afraid to go to leave at lunch or go to the gym during the day when I had a lull — even if I had just been in the office all weekend. This environment breeds bad habits like procrastinating and spreading out the work that you have over longer periods. It’s no wonder that online shopping and gambling addictions (just to name a few) run rampant. A bunch of young, intelligent professionals, spending the prime of their youths cooped up in offices all night and weekends — making good money without time to enjoy it. Hey, maybe those new YSL boots will help, or an LV bag to hold the paperwork you haul around. Anything to feel something. I’m not throwing rocks, I was certainly guilty of it to. Thankfully, the revolution found me.
Hello, my name is Nathan…
I think it’s important to take a moment here and acknowledge that I’m a workaholic. I was always the one scoffing at remote workers and people in “lifestyle” industries. Jealousy is a powerful emotion. Notice I didn’t say “recovering workaholic”. That’s because I still am one, and I don’t have any plans of changing. Starting a remote working company and devoting my life to helping other people and companies experience the benefits of location independence was never motivated by a desire to work less. I didn’t leave big law because of how much work it was or the pressure — those are the only things that kept it interesting, IMO.
But wait, isn’t remote work just a conceit invented by millennials so that they can be lazy, entitled, and travel the world? Nope, not in my experience. I am a remote working convert because I realized very early on in my remote working experiments that distance and a different environment allowed me to tap into a certain focus and creativity that I was never able to consistently access in the office setting.
Almost immediately after starting to spend time working outside of the office, I started to feel engaged in the subject matter again, the fog I would feel every morning in my office drinking bad coffee and wearing uncomfortable shoes began to clear. Because I had the option of doing other things during my day, I was forced to put in shorter spurts of highly concentrated effort as opposed to a stretched out period of average to below-average effort (I’ll give you one guess which of these approaches produced better work product). I quickly learned that despite the fact that I thought I was working hard and fast in my previous office-bound life, once I was remote, in an environment stripped of all the office bullshit, surrounded by interesting, inspiring people and things, and motivated to work efficiently so that I could seize the day, I found I could do better work in less than half of the time. All because of a change of scenery.
From materialism to experientialism.
There is no shortage of different and valid reasons to embrace a location independence life. Another very impactful one that I’ve personally experienced is the realization that the materialism is mostly the result of boredom. What’s better than owning stuff? Doing stuff! When you’re outside the office you have a lot more freedom to assess what work you have to get done and then integrate it into the non-work things you want to accomplish as well. Obviously the flexibility of your work schedule depends on the type of work you do. But many of us have a workload that is some combination of project-based work and live events. Spend even a little time remote working and you’ll become very proficient and moving things you can move and scheduling around things you can’t in order to make the most of your time.
Waves look good at 2pm? No problem, get up early to knock out your big project for the day and schedule that conference call for 4pm. The soft opening of your friend’s new restaurant is tonight at 6pm? Don’t miss it, tell your boss your deliverable will be in her inbox by tomorrow morning, and just work after the event.
Viva la revolution!
It’s been over a year since starting WYCO and going from tentative participants to leaders in the movement. From day one we decided we were going to be ambassadors of this movement and take the fight to the strongest fortresses — not just scoop up the low-hanging fruit. So we built a platform that allows even people who are working in traditional office settings, who currently don’t have any remote working capabilities, to have hope for a location independent future.
Of course we love our entrepreneurs, freelancers, and people at more progressive companies who already have some amount of location independence, but the most rewarding thing we do by far is investing time, sometimes months and months, into an individual who is passionate about the cause and wants to become the first person in their office to secure any kind of remote working ability. These successes are so rewarding because we know the impact they have on the larger movement. Both the company and the employee will see the benefits of the movement, other employees will participate, outdated office policies will be relaxed, and the company will be in a position to capitalize on the remote movement instead of fighting a long losing battle against an irresistible cultural shift.
The revolution is still in its infancy. Corporate culture takes a long time to change, but we are making real strides. It’s incredible to see and hear the difference that just one year can have on the attitudes of HR managers and executives at companies around the world towards WYCO and the remote movement in general. In the beginning employers were generally dismissive of the remote working concept and now we frequently have blue chip corporations reach out to us unsolicited with inquiries. Can’t stop, won’t stop. We staffed up, we geared up, and we’re mobilizing to garner new recruits from both employers and employees in the most hard-to-reach corners of the corporate world. We will be spreading our message through every medium available to us — including through upcoming blog posts, podcasts, conferences, and other media put out by our staff, Roamers, and other leaders in the Remote Revolution.
If you’re reading this, congratulations. You’re on your way. Maybe you’re questioning the constraints of the corporate world. Maybe you’re simply starting to think of a different way of doing life. Whether you’re a perspective participant in the revolution or a sympathetic observer, I’m here to tell you that you can do your part. If you want to get involved, send us an email — info@we-roam.com. Tell us your story. We’re here to help. Let’s change the working-world together.
For more information on WYCO, check out our FAQ page.
If you’re interested in becoming a Roamer, submit an application here!
