Lessons from 23 Years of Working Remotely
From October of 2000 until this day in 2023, I have worked remotely. Before then, I taught writing and disability media classes at community colleges in the Portland, Oregon, area. What I liked best about teaching was the face-to-face time I spent with students, either in a class or one-on-one. I enjoyed getting to know about students’ lives and helping them become better writers.
At first, when I decided to change to a remote magazine job, I worried that I would miss the students, and I was right. My new job was exciting and included writing as well as editing, but I missed being with students. Now I had to do my work in private, and always from an office with a large desktop computer, printer, fax machine and telephone. Every weekday my dedicated work cave swallowed me up mornings and spit me out late afternoons. After a month or so, the excitement of the new job began to give way to a feeling of isolation and loneliness. I wondered if I had made the right decision.
I would go days without ever leaving the house. My wife started feeling neglected because even though we were living in the same house, we sometimes didn’t speak to or see each other until dinner or bedtime. So I started taking small breaks, leaving my work cave, talking to my wife, and sometimes even driving into town to pick up a coffee at a drive-thru. I might only speak to the anonymous person on the drive-thru speaker or the barista, but I also got to see people walking on sidewalks, driving, and going about their days as always, and I realized how important human contact is, even if it is only seeing people from a car.
Remotely I could speak to co-workers by phone and send emails, but video meetings were not being done then. I didn’t start to feel comfortable about working remotely until about six months into my new job. By then, I had gotten to know staff members and we began talking about things that weren’t strictly work-oriented. New friendships developed.
But the first really big advantage to working remotely became apparent one year after I had coronary graft bypass surgery. I bought my first laptop, and my wife and I took a working vacation in Kauai to celebrate my one-year anniversary of heart surgery. While there, I worked in the shade of palm trees and ocean vistas in brief one-or-two-hour stints. Upon returning home, I started making up my own work schedule and deciding when to take breaks. Sometimes I worked leisurely on weekends. That meant working fewer hours on weekdays, which gave me more time to have a life apart from work.
Join Our Movement
What started as an idea has become a national movement. With your support, we can influence policy and inspire lasting change.
Become an Advocate
An equally important advantage came into play when I had complications to deal with related to my spinal cord injury. I knew if I put my personal needs first, my co-workers, most of them disabled themselves, would understand. I learned then the importance of working as a team and respecting each others’ needs, “paying back” co-workers by taking on more work when they needed their personal time.
The biggest advantage of all, though, has become even more important as I have aged — discovering and becoming a part of the community that I write for — others with disabilities similar to mine. Now I know my decision to change jobs was the right one at the right time. Moving from one career to another always takes adjusting. Today, as long as I have a laptop and a phone, I can do my job from wherever I am. I’ve worked on vacations not only in Hawaii but also in Arizona, Florida and California. I’ve worked in my car at a park and in hospitals in bed. But my favorite workspace is in the fresh country air outside on my deck.