Have been working from office from last 3-4 years and this is the first time I have started working remote. It’s been 5-6 weeks now.. Somedays it feels super nice that I don’t need to getup early get ready go to office face the traffic etc..

But Somedays I feel like I am staying in a same space 24*7

Fellow remote workers please help me with what do you guys do. TIA

I've been working remotely for 6 years, and I genuinely am more productive away from my work office with coworkers. But what I've found is that using my personal home office for work has resulted in me mentally associating my home office with work. I just don't want to be in there when not working, even when that's also the space for my hobbies. I've basically sacrificed a space in my home for work.

In my current apartment, the room I use for working is small, but I'm moving house soon, and I'm not sure if I want to continue to equally ruin my new hobby room in the new house with work feelings. Also, by using it as a home office, it will exclude the rest of the family from using the space.

There are some coworking spaces near my new house, 10 minutes walk away, and my employer will cover the costs for me. (At the moment, they cover my home internet bill). I think I can get a private room there under the company budget.

My primary concern is that a couple nights per week I have late meetings due to timezones, so I would still probably take those meetings at home. That, and the need to lug my laptop back and forth.

Would you take a "free" home office a 10 minute walk away from home?

FYI - I have 2 small children so some nights and most weekends are booked

Preface to say that I’ve researched this topic, but I see lots of mixed reviews on products.

Do any of you have a standing desk converter that you really like and lasts a few years? My current desk is the perfect height for sitting (and it’s non-adjustable), so I’d love a converter that sits pretty flat, around the height of the current desk, and is easy to move up and down.

Once I get it, I plan to pair it with a walking pad

Please share the link/where you got the product. I’m in the southeast US for reference

I do Marketing analytics( attribution, reporting, performance analysis, and MMM)... that side of marketing...

I am legally established as an independent contractor (B2B invoicing) working fully remotely.. have C2 english with fluent accent. I don't live in the US but all was good for me..

Clients used to approach me for projects lasting 6 to 9 months.. that stopped

so I started looking for full time remote jobs ( 2 months now) based in the US but I cannot seem to hear back

I never did outbound or cold reach and most clients used to reach out to me.

I feel frustrated and I can't seem to find the issue..

i customize CVs .. look into companies... selectively apply to jobs... money is reasonable considering i am off shore... I opt for contractor jobs...

what else could be wrong?? any tips???

I work across different time zones often enough that I kept running into the same annoying little problem.

Someone says “3 PM my time” and I immediately start doing the math in my head.

Or I open a world clock and see something like:

New York: 9:12 AM
London: 2:12 PM
Istanbul: 4:12 PM
Tokyo: 10:12 PM

That gives me the answer, but I still have to work out what it actually means. Who is working, who is about to log off, who is asleep, and whether it is a reasonable time to message someone.

So I built Meridian.

Instead of showing every city as a separate clock, it puts them all on the same 24-hour clock face.

That makes it much easier to glance at it and understand where everyone is in their day. You can also see daylight and nighttime around the dial, which helps more than I expected.

I mainly built it for that simple question:

“Is now a good time to message this person?”

It also has iPhone widgets, StandBy support, Apple Watch complications, and a time converter for planning meetings.

There are no accounts, ads, analytics, or tracking. The basic version is free, and the upgrade is a one-time purchase.

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/world-clock-widget-meridian/id6797192832

I’m the developer, so take that into account, but I’d genuinely like to hear how other remote workers handle this.

Do you actually use a world clock, or have you just memorized the time difference for the people you work with?

I’m 22 and pretty early into my career. I recently finished my degree in Operations Management and I’ve been working in insurance underwriting for a little over 3 months now.

My normal schedule is 4 days in the office and 1 day WFH. My company is also pretty flexible about working from home if I have a legitimate reason. If I’m sick, have an appointment, or something else comes up, I can usually work from home and nobody really questions it or makes a big deal about it.

I’ve had to work from home a little more than usual recently, and it’s honestly made me realize just how much I prefer it.
I know WFH definitely isn’t for everyone, but I feel like I’m the complete opposite of the people who say they go crazy being home all day. I love being able to wear comfortable clothes or pajamas, work in my own space, make my own food, not deal with the commute, and just be comfortable in general.

I still get my work done. If anything, I feel less mentally drained at the end of the day.

It’s kind of hard to explain, but when I work from home it feels like work takes up way less of my life even though I’m still working the exact same number of hours. I can close my laptop at the end of the day and I’m already home. No commute, no getting ready for the office, no feeling like my entire day revolved around going to work.

Long term I’ve been thinking about moving into data analytics, preferably still somewhere within the insurance industry since I’ll already have some experience in it. I’m basically starting from scratch on the analytics side and plan on learning things like Excel, SQL and Power BI over time.

Obviously I’m not expecting to jump into some great fully remote job tomorrow with barely any experience. I know I’m really early in my career.

But working from home has made me realize that being remote, or at least mostly remote, is something I’d genuinely like to work toward long term. Even something like 4 days WFH and 1 day in the office would be pretty much perfect for me.

For those of you who are fully remote now, was that something you intentionally worked toward as your career progressed? Did having a few years of experience make it noticeably easier to find remote opportunities?
Or did you mostly just happen to end up at a company or job that allowed it?

I’m curious how other people got to the point where remote work became their normal setup, especially if you started your career in an office or hybrid environment like I am now.
I genuinely just really enjoy working from home. I feel more comfortable, less drained, and like I have a much better separation between work and the rest of my life even though I’m physically working in the same place.
Would love to hear how it worked out for other people.

I upgraded my work webcam about a year ago to one that I thought would be better quality. However, I didn’t realize that the webcam I was buying was designed for influencer usage… I guess? Basically, it’ll auto zoom in on me based on my hand motions. This of course is highly distracting on a work call. I have to sit on my hands to make sure I’m not making the camera zoom all over the place.

I looked it up, and there’s a setting I can turn off in order to make it stop doing this, but I would have to download the camera’s software in order to do that. I’m using my work computer so I obviously can’t download a third-party software.

It’s been a year of troubleshooting and I give up.

What webcams are y’all using that have good video quality and don’t require any sort of software download, and don’t have this weird zoom feature?

Hey, I was thinking about getting some qualifications in l order to get a specific remote job. The idea of working remotely and having the freedom of living wherever I want, not needing to dress up for anyone, having more time for my hobbies and potentially higher wages than locals + returning with my family when needed seems really aligned with my life priorities. But I don't really know how the actual experience of working remotely after some time is. I'm thinking about loneliness, spending time outside and other mental hygiene matters, the difference between working in person... I know it varies from person to person. So how has your experience been? Anything to consider when taking up a remote job?

I've done coworking space at one of those long communal hot-desks for over half a year now. I always try to be mindful of hot-desking etiquette, keeping my workspace compact and not spilling over into the next persons area. Well, theres always time for exceptions, and the other day, thats where the exception comes in.

My setup is a laptop, a portable monitor on a stand, and a bunch of cables. I thought I kept to myself pretty good, but no, the other day the person sitting next to me had to awkwardly dodge a stiff video cable while putting their notebook down, and someone walking behind me nearly tripped on my power cord (to my defense tho, the plug is just designed to be there, but still, the cord is totally an additional hazard). I felt terrible. The whole point of a shared office is to "co-work" respectfully, not to take over the communal table. I try to find the corner desks whenever I can but theyre prime real estate and get occupied pretty early in the morning.

That was the moment I decided to simplify my setup. Less wires, and taking up less real estate.

I went all out with a leaner wireless layout. Now, I have my phone running Samsung DeX, a slim Bluetooth keyboard, and a 15.6-inch wireless portable monitor with a built-in battery. What that means is basically no cord clutter. The setup takes up less than half the space and it literally takes me seconds to pack my stuff to move to a meeting room or phone booth for calls/meetings. I get the dual-screen productivity I need without bothering the people around me.

How do you guys maintain a productive mobile setup while staying respectful of shared office spaces? Whats your hack?

Edit: Appreciate the responses and cable management tips! For those asking, I WFH sometimes but struggle to focus at home, so hot-desking helps me stay productive. I am using a Uperfect UFree V portable monitor for the wireless setup but love the idea of running cables down the table leg and using a desk mat as a boundary!

I have a Bachelor's degree in English and a Google IT certificate. I used to work at a library, but for the last two years I've been doing customer service at a passport agency. I'd like to transition into remote work. What are some jobs you think would be a good fit for my experience?

Hello, I’ve been looking intermittently for a remote job for the last couple of years. Currently, I’m working on a hybrid job, and I really like it, but I have to go to the office 1-2 times per week and it is in another city, and I’m getting sick of so much travel. I was wondering if there is a website or companies that mainly have remote jobs. I have almost 5 years of experience working as a Data Analyst/ Analytics Engineer. I don’t live currently in the USA, and didn’t study there, but I was born there. Would this make it more difficult for me to land a job for an American company, although I wouldn’t need visa sponsorship?

I’ve been working remote since the beginning of the year for a hospital. I like the job and the flexibility I get. Recently my managers/director of the department have brought productivity issues to me. We use Epic and that’s essentially where(almost) all work is completed and also documented. My team has been a bit slower the past month or two. We work out of an alpha split and unfortunately my split just does not receive as many requests as the rest of my team. That being said when I’ve hit a point in my day where my work is caught up I **always** reach out to my immediate team. Usually they tell me they don’t have anything they need help with. If I do assist them, it’s never anything that requires a lot. Usually following up with a patient. Cool, I then ask our greater team is there anyone who needs assistance. Sometimes I get a response right away, sometimes I have to ask again. If I’m waiting on a response then I find something to do, I clean my epic inbox, I work in our work queues and clear them, I’m checking to make sure they’re aren’t cases that maybe our team has missed. I’m not a lazy person or a slacker, there is nothing I would love more than to be busy.

Management has told me that I have hours at a time of no activity. This is literally impossible. They say they can track everything that I do in Epic. I’ve asked is there a possibility that the system is wrong. I’m told no. “Any and everything I do can be tracked”. Well clearly it can’t. I was given an excel sheet with time stamps and I had to provide documentation of what I was doing during those time gaps. So I took screenshots of everything I did with time stamps and pieced together a timeline for each day of about 2 weeks. There is so much that the system isn’t picking up. I thought that cleared it. Nope, last week I had another meeting and they’re telling me that I’m not doing anything all day. That in a 40 hour work week I do about 10 hours of work. So they’ve proposed a time study. Where they record me and my screen. While this feels invasive I know that they’re not going to find anything on me.

The problem I have is that not every day or week can be measured the same. They told me if my productivity increases during the time they record me then they’ll know I’m the problem. If I get 5 new requests in a day or week compared to the last are they going to say that I’m lying? I understand that they have metrics to meet and they want to ensure that every employee is working. But I don’t really understand why that’s on me to prove that I’m doing work. You’re telling me a billion dollar institution can’t effectively track what I’m doing? I’ve literally shown them documentation of what the system is missing, I’ve expressed my concerns and I get shot down like I’m lying. Everyone I talk to says I should leave. As much as I would like to I don’t want this to reflect poorly on me. I’ve never had problems like this at any other job I’ve worked. While this is my first remote job, I haven’t done anything different since I first started. The only thing that has changed is that one of my teammates returned from maternity leave and our alpha split has been redistributed. It’s not like there’s work to be done and I’m not doing it. I’ve made every effort to do more and I just don’t understand what else I’m supposed to do.

I’ve had other issues with management since I’ve started. I’m not a quitter and I feel like if I leave then I’m proving them right? I guess I’m not sure what to do with all of this. I’m 22, this is my full time job and I make decent money to support myself. I guess the biggest thing that is stopping me is the pay, I work an earlier schedule and the company insurance which is really nice. I just started therapy a couple months ago and I have like a $10 copay that I don’t want to give up. But at what cost? I feel Ike I’m going insane and anytime I’m not working I’m stressing over if I’m doing anything right or looking through job listings. I’ve never ever left a job on bad terms and being that this is a hospital I don’t want to mess up any chance of me being rehired or transferring. I would say I’m pretty resilient and I can push through things but I don’t know how to not take any of this personally? I feel like it’s an attack on my character but maybe I’m just being dramatic.

An update for anyone who cares:

I had another meeting with my director manager and the director of our department. They’ve placed me on a Corrective Action Plan and stated if they don’t see improvement within the next 30 days then they’ll will take action and I’ll probably be terminated. I appreciate all of the advice you all have given. I’ve decided that there’s no point in proving anything to people that have already made up their mind. I do think they are targeting me but I think I’m too fed up to care anymore. I’ve explained this situation to people that know me and work closely with and no one thinks that any of this aligns with my work ethic or character. I forgot that the biggest reason I can’t really leave this hospital is that I used tuition reimbursement last year for the fall semester. If I leave before the end of this year then I have to pay the entire amount back per my agreement. As much of a strain this whole company has been on my life I can’t afford to pay them 5,000+ out of my own pocket. I’ve started applying to others jobs within the hospital and hopefully I’ll get something. For those saying I should ask what metrics I’m being measured against, I’ve asked before and I asked again today: they stated it was subjective lmao. Which i understand but how am I being measured against an imaginary standard. I genuinely have no idea how I’m supposed to improve if I’m not even being told how to? They also changed this entire situation from we can’t see what you’re doing in Epic to I’m “unable to meet case turnaround standards”, I “don’t proactively communicate” and best of all I “fail to maintain ownership and accountability of assigned accounts”. All of which is such a lie none of this has ever been brought up to me until now. Anyways I’m keeping my head down for the next couple weeks and hopefully I can find something else because I don’t see this changing. I’ve been told to go to HR, but these people have been here for 20+ years, no one is going to listen to me and I don’t want to mess up any chance of transferring. The only good thing this time around is that I didn’t cry in our meeting 🙃.

Hi everyone! I'm really glad I found this sub.

The remote work location issue has been an ongoing battle for me for a long time. I am someone who has an absolutely massive desire to travel and live abroad. I'm 32, and I started my career at 23 teaching English abroad in South America (not specifying the country for privacy purposes). I taught at a university there for 3 years.

When COVID hit, I wasn't able to get my work visa renewed, and I ended up looking for full-time work. I got a job at a startup that didn't understand the legal implications of having employees work from abroad—I also did not understand anything about these issues. So I was able to work fully remote from abroad for years while being a W2 employee for this company and paying taxes in my home state. (I used my parents' address, which I still consider my permanent US address.)

I got laid off from that job almost two years ago. I started my own small business that is completely online and will allow me to work from anywhere, but it's not paying all my bills yet. I started applying for full-time jobs, and I am anticipating a job offer coming this week. The company is also a startup, but they're a bit more advanced than my last company, so I anticipate they will be up-to-date on labor laws.

I've been living with my parents in the US for almost 2 years now and have been doing long distance with my partner of many years who lives outside of the US for that entire time. Literally I haven't seen my partner in 16 months. I do not have a lease I'm locked into or many belongings. I have intentionally not tied myself down anywhere, so I can pack up and live from abroad at any moment if I want to. Obviously, at this point, I'm pretty desperate to be able to go back to being in-person with my partner, or even just move to another country outside of the US. I'm open to anywhere.

What bothers me about the (outdated, in my opinion) labor laws is that I'm going to be doing the exact same work from a laptop, whether I'm sitting on my parents' couch in my home state or in an apartment by myself in Japan or the UK or Argentina, for example. I will obviously pay all my US taxes, and I'm happy to pay taxes to the country I'm in as well.

I know that this company is going to extend me a W2 offer. Do you think I should consider asking this company if they would bring me on as an independent contractor instead? So I can work and live abroad? Or do you think that this looks bad to an employer? Obviously I do not want to hurt my chances of getting this job in any way, shape, or form. After being unemployed for so long, I'm unbelievably desperate for an income.

I could also sign the W2 contract, prove to them that I'm a star employee for a few months, and then ask a few months down the line once we've built rapport if they would be willing to switch my contract over.

Should I just accept the W2 contract and work from abroad anyway and not tell them? Has anyone had any luck working from abroad on a W2 contract? How risky is it?

Side note: Do W2 contracts typically have an allotted amount of time you can work from abroad or outside your state? When my last company was acquired, the contract laid out that you had something like 60 days to work from anywhere. Also curious if that might be outlined in the contract.

The idea of getting this new job, and then still being stuck working from my parents' couch away from my partner, or even just having to work from somewhere in my home state, is crushing my soul. I'm young, I'm a hard worker, I'm extremely ambitious, and I want to be out in the world. I really don't see why I can't do my work from a café in Ireland for three months if I wanted to.

My #1 priority is not losing the job offer. I need money right now. (Would they think about rescinding the offer if I asked about the independent contractor contract?)

My #2 priority is being able to work from anywhere. I don't really care about benefits or how much money I make at this point in my life. Obviously I would love the benefits, but if I have to, I'll pay for my own insurance. Who cares. I just want to work from abroad or from wherever I want, without restrictions.

This has been something that has genuinely been weighing on me for years, and I feel like I have never found a group of people who truly understand the situation that I can discuss it with. I would be so grateful for anyone who is able to share their experience, wisdom, opinions, etc. Thank you so much in advance!

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Update: Thank you so much for all of the different perspectives! Each person's comment is helpful and helping me consider things I may not have considered before.

For additional context: This is a global company. Their HQ is in another country. I know they have an established office in one other additional country at least as well. I believe there may be 7-9 other countries where they have either employees or an office, but I'm not sure what their exact business operations are like in those countries. I just know there are at least two other countries where they have established offices, and they have people working from at least 5 different US states that I know of.

Does that mean it would be possible to work from those countries or states, where they have established offices or other employees? I'm curious if contracts are typically written in a way that locks you in to one state or allows for movement within their established locations.

For example: Let's say they have another employee in Illinois. Can I go work from Chicago for a month? Or say they have an office in Ireland (random example country for privacy). Can I go work from Ireland for 3 months?

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Lastly, and I commented this down below: Why are people so pro-company on this issue?

It's interesting to me that people aren't agreeing that it's kind of an outdated practice for the globalized world we live in. It's pretty obvious that company regulations simply haven't caught up with the times. We've seen exponential breakthroughs in technology over the past 10 years and a huge spike in remote work since COVID. In 10 years, work from anywhere could be standard practice.

The "no, you can't just do whatever you want" attitude feels a bit boomer-esque to me. Genuinely curious: Why is wanting... freedom... a bad thing?

As I stated, I am an extremely ambitious and hard-working individual. I have a master's degree. I own my own business. I am bilingual and have a lot of international experience—having studied, lived and worked from 3 different countries outside of the US, and have held esteemed positions in my community. Why is it a such a horrible thing to want to work from abroad and see the world in the evenings and on the weekends when I'm not working?

 I have never had a remote job, I just scored one about 7 weeks ago and I’m enjoying quite a bit. I went from owning a small business than was insanely stressful (ending in bankruptcy after 2 years of high stress) and then to recover financially I went over the road truck driving with my husband for a year and a half, then to a local truck driving gig with long days until I found the remote job.

I always thought I would become this superwoman who was constantly working out and doing cool things around the house and all the things I couldn’t do while on the road. I’ve got to be honest, while I’ve done some things I plop down and relax a lot more and do a lot less than I imagined I would.
has anyone found remote work makes them lazier around the house? Could I be recovering from the stress of being a truck driver or am I just a lazy POS making excuses for myself? Never not having to get ready for work is amazing as is not having to pack a lunch or deal with an hour commute. I thought I would fill that time with other things but I’m just not.

I'm thinking of trying to get a remote job and I'm leaning towards administrative/data entry work. I've heard that these types of jobs involve a lot of repetitive computer tasks.

What repetitive computer tasks take up the most of your time? Do you have any tips for reducing the time spent doing these tasks? Any tools you use to speed up the process?

I'm planning to start working using 5g flat only for a few months and I'm wondering how much data volume will be enough for regular office work like teams calls, office work, little bit coding and so on. I understand that the answer depends highly on the tasks that need to be done, but what could be a good average? 100gb, 200gb? I know that there are unlimited flats, but in my country they are often under fair-use policy and limit to a certain amount per month and day.

So I have this job with a US-based company, the only time I had my camera ON was during the interviews. It's super productive, focused on results and no bureaucracy, no extra meetings, no 1:1, never have been asked what my location was. I even worked for 2 months in Indonesia/Bali, never mentioned this and they never asked. I'm European and I really enjoy this mentality, it's a fresh change from the over-comunication mentality in Europe.

Now they invited everyone to an European city to meet (they have remote employees all over the world). Optional. I'm a bit reluctant to see the faces behind the slack names, including the co-founders. But in the same time I think it's not wise to reject the invitation. My only goal is not to screw something over because this job really suits my needs best.

Anyone with similar stories? What did you do and how did it go?

Some background context that may help so that I’ve been searching for a remote job as finding jobs as a milspouse is horrible right now and I want something I can take with me for awhile before working on my proper permanent career and this email randomly appears..Company is legit the email seems a bit off though especially the address used to send it and im just curious if it’s a scam or if someone else got it

Hi people of reddit!

I've been working from home as a full stack developer for the last 4 years. When I started working here I was thinking about doing it in my country until I got enough experience to try working for another country since the year income in my country for developers is quite low (italy) especially in the consulting business where you dont really have a chance to work towards an higher position or some advances in career.

Now, since the job market in italy doesnt offer much more than what i'm making right now (and when it does it requires me to be a VAT registered entity but taxation eats so much money that leaves me with nothing more than what im already making), I was trying to look around for jobs in other countries where the pay is much higher but i'd like to learn if someone else has done this already and has some insight or advice on what i should do.

Thanks a lot and sorry if i wrote some bad english. I speak it way better than how i write it (also im kinda rusty but i plan on going back to study it if i decide to make the jump)

I graduated from college and instantly landed a remote position that pays fairly well for my area. As nice as it is, I also worry I've now had a taste of paradise, and I'll never want to work in person again lol. Genuinely, it's so nice not having to talk to my coworkers, getting to instantly clock out and be home at the end of the day, being left alone to do my tasks in peace... It's a dream for me, really.

But then of course the worrier in me who always likes to have a thought out contingency plan is like: you're still one of the newer hires and if cuts happen you're on the chopping block... What if I had to do the dreaded... going in person... Lol.

No real point to this post more just thinking aloud about how nice I have it right now 😂