A Love Letter to Remote Work
4 years in the making
I remember the first time I imagined the possibility of it — we just finished up the best powder skiing I have done in my life in Steamboat Springs.
A single thought popped into my head “Wouldn’t it be great if I could stay here a few more days and work from here?”. With that, the gears were set in motion to go from being an on site personal trainer to now working remotely in IT.
I remember waking up as a trainer for work in the morning and my first thought being, “Fu*k, I don’t want to go to work today”. If that’s not a sign it is time to change something then I don’t know what is. The problem though is that change in and of itself is challenging, but completely changing your career path is in another realm.
Soon my thoughts shifted to going back and forth between “Is this worth it?”, and “Will I actually enjoy doing this?”. The time came to talk to my manager at my last training job, and I remember the dread of having to face that conversation. Thankfully it went well, there were no hard feelings, and it ended with a hug. Thanks for being an awesome manager Matt.
Now, it’s time to take out $7,000 in debt and give up my income as a trainer to go to a full time tech bootcamp and learn the required skills.
“Is this worth it?”
I believe so. Soon the first taste of learning programming starts and I remember feeling overwhelmed for a few weeks. I forced myself to keep showing up, then things started to click and get more enjoyable. The answer to “Will I actually enjoy doing this?” started shifting to yes.
Then I started to think about all of the possibilities of being able to work remotely (this was before covid), with a variety of different skills depending on what I liked doing. One of the beautiful things about working in tech is that there are many paths to choose, you don’t have to be going mad reviewing thousands of lines of code.
One thing these avenues tend to have in common though is that they have the potential to be fully remote, all you need is your device and a reliable internet connection. Why spend money on travel and office space when you could not? There’s also the potential to do a hybrid model if you do value face to face connection, which quite frankly is the best way to make and maintain relationships if that is required.
However, the things people don’t talk about is what makes remote work so great.
Got that never ending pile of laundry you can never get to? If you work from home then you will have time to get to it. Amazon packages left at the door? Let me go grab that real quick before I forget.
A big one I have discovered recently is, got a new child at home? Great, daddy day care is open for business. It’s hard, but not impossible to raise a child and work. The key is to practice discipline and take advantage of open windows of time (her nap time is my magic hour).
Speaking of discipline, it is very important you have it when working remotely because it is much easier to get distracted and not take care of business. It is easy to work for a few minutes then get distracted and go off on a tangent doing something around that house that eats up an hour. You need to have a dedicated environment for working, which in this case would be a sweet home office setup. You get to customize it however you want and nobody next to you can complain about your music volume.
I do love making connections with people, but I also love living life a little more on my terms as well. It all contributes to my life quest to achieve as much freedom in all areas of my life as possible, and working remote is a huge part of that.
At the end of your workdays if you come home, tired and not really thrilled that it is only Tuesday, maybe you should start asking yourself “Is this worth it?”. If over time (don’t quit your job tomorrow), you find the answer to be no, start asking yourself if you are willing to take a series of risks for a better life.
I was in that exact position in February 2019, and I decided that the risks were indeed worth it. And I can say in this present moment, they were worth it. Life is a series of risks anyways, so why not make my own choices?
Working remotely has changed my life, and it can do the same for you.
