2020: The Remote Life

In early 2020, I became a full-time remote employee. I have always loved remote right from the days when I used to work from home once/twice a week. A 100% remote job was something I had never explored before but always wanted to. I never really saw a point of going to a real office in any dev job except for some socialising. My day to day commute got up to 4 hours sometimes. Lo and behold, I became full remote.

I believe remote is a very subjective setting. It might just do wonders for somebody, while completely sabotaging someone else. How productive are you in a remote setting mostly depends on your level of self-discipline and only you can answer that question.

To get to the perfect setting that works for you, there’s always some exploration that needs to be done. To make myself comfortable in a day to day scene, I tried exploring various nooks and corners of my house experimentatively and finally set up a mid-sized desk. [ Pic coming in the next update ]. It now is, a regular office day for me minus the commute.

Things that surprised me:

  • I had too much time on my hands and most of the times I did not know what to do with it. That made me realise I have spent a big portion of my life commuting too much right from my college days.
  • I realised I am not that anti-social I thought I was. I do miss talking to my colleagues, the brain storming sessions in some physical meetings, and ofc grabbing a cup of coffee with them on the fly.
  • There is just so much addictive peace around. :)

Things that are not too well at the moment:

  • Communication: The amount of time I spend on slack has gone up crazy. It keeps me anxious and I always feel the pressure of responding to pings right away vs what I am currently doing. Mainly, because I am still learning how to use it as an async mode of communication.
  • I do experience loneliness sometimes.
  • Pair programming certainly needs some training in a remote setting.
  • Plugging off from work can sometimes be a challenge. A regular office day that used to shut at 4 for me now goes on until 6 or 6:30 sometimes.
  • Team communication sometimes feels fragmented; which means more time is invested to bridge the gap.
  • My commute time was some mostly passed listening to audio books. I barely listen to any, anymore.

Things that have greatly improved:

  • My working speed and focus. In barely a couple of hours, I get quite a lot of work done. I would attribute it to the disappearance of the ad hoc requests for help or pairing up while being in the office, I guess.
  • The amount of freedom I have felt as a dev has gone up.
  • A lot of time for learning new tech or exploring the one that greatly interests me.
  • My health has never been better.
  • I can easily make time for meeting my friends and relatives. In fact, I met most of them right within the first remote month. This had never happened before.

However, the true essence of remote work is often misunderstood in India. It isn’t very popular and is often accompanied by bad remote practises and lack of trust. COVID-19 may just do the job and prove that remote work is here to stay. Hopefully, we see more remote people in the coming years enjoying their lives in the best form.

I do not until when my remote life will continue, but until next time, adios. :)