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Working from Home on a Tropical Island Paradise?
CarrotLord asks: "I've recently returned from a holiday in Bali, and I liked it far more than I like London, where I live and work. With the growth of telecommuting and outsourcing, surely it should be possible for a technology worker to relocate to a cheaper, more pleasurable location such as Bali, and work from there, living an enjoyable life, working less, earning less, but still being able to afford a good standard of life. Personally, I would take an 80% pay cut quite happily to live there, and I'd still be financially secure. Surely, someone could set up a company, employing skilled workers in locations of their choice, to do remote outsourcing work at a relatively low price? Does anyone do this? Has anyone thought about doing this?"
If you live in a miserable place, all you have is your work, so all you do is your work. If you live in paradise, why would you want to do work that you probably don't really care about?
Before you go taking that 80% pay cut, allow me to point out that "80% pay cut" and "80% of current pay" are two very different things. You might want to choose your wording very carefully.
Absolutely people have thought about this. Frankly the only issue I see is a stable broadband connection. If you can guarantee that then you should be able to work wherever you wish. Frankly most server administration tasks can be done remotely nowdays and even with KVM you can have console access to a server without physically being present. Combine that with all the forms of groupware, email, IM, etc. it is very easy to telecommute in the IT industry. Granted everyone can't flee to the tropics but I know of a programmer who has not been to his office in 6 months and he works for a large company and works in a team environment.
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I've read several anecdotes about tech workers willing to move to India to work, but were refused work visas. But that was a while ago...maybe it's no longer true?
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Oh man, I would dearly love to do this.
One major problem though is that people love to be in direct control of those who are working for them. Furthermore, they do not trust what they can not see. If they can not walk by your cubicle and physically see that you are working, then to them, you are NOT working.
This pretty much cuts out hourly or salary work. There is contract work though...
I would find it an interesting challenge to gather up cheap (pricewise) but quality talent gleaned from people who are living in their version of paradise and create a contracting company based upon this premise. Happy people generally make great quality code. There are two very large show stoppers still.
I would need to write contracts that were highly prejudiced against the worker in order to protect myself from slackers and thieves. What this means is that I would be able to cut you at any time and deny you pay for time worked. Would you trust me enough to sign a contract like that? Of course, I would be honorable and continue paying all of those who come through; otherwise my business would falter... but seriously, I wouldn't trust a boss with that kind of control so I really do not expect you to either.
The other big show stopper is bandwidth. You would need a high quality, low latency, high bandwidth connection in order to do video conferencing. I have done projects through IRC before and it works relatively well as far as low impact programming goes. For serious projects, voice communication is an absolute necessity. Adding video on top of that is more of a requirement than a bonus; although whiteboard programs and such do somewhat alleviate the need for video.
Really, this is a great idea and I would love to participate, either as a business owner or a subcontractor. I think the first show stopper kills it though. Trust... *sigh*
strike
"Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Seriously, stop for a moment (before you go to the interview) and think about what kinds of things would make you not want to work somewhere: Are there "death marches"? Frequently? If you have issues with your immediate supervisor, is there someone higher up in the chain who is specifically set aside to mediate? Ask to meet your prospective teammates (cow-orkers?). Do you get a fluffy bunny when you do something outstanding (rewards)? Just think about what is important to you. Some things will stress you out, but won't stress me out so you will need to decide for yourself what are the most appropriate questions to ask. I recall being younger and just being thankful that they were even considering me. Now, I will reject any company that does not fit my criteria (which is as it should have been even when I was first starting out!).
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
I am currently working on a project with a team that is spread across two locations, and I find that are team is much less efficient than if we were all working in the same building together. The main reason for this is that it is much harder to collaborate on things. Normally, if a group of people need to hash out some ideas together, they get in a room with a white board, put their heads together, and usually they leave with a common understanding of the problem and the solution. However, when you need to do this type of activity with people with whom you cannot meet with face to face, this type of activity takes a lot more time and is a lot more inefficient.
Certainly, technology does help to a certain extent. We use email, phone, instant messaging/ Net Meeting, virtual whiteboard, etc. However, it seems like it is harder to convey ideas using these techniques. What ends up happening is within a site, people generally end up on common ground, but between sites is where most of the disagreements in point of view occur.
The second roadblock is that team unity and cohesion suffers. If you see someone on a regular basis and can have informal conversations with them, you can build up a lot of goodwill and trust over time. You know where the person is "coming from" and you have a better understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and point of view. However, building this type of cohesion across long distances is really hard and it takes a lot more time and effort. As we all know, teams which are "tight" and have a good working relationship are very effective, while teams that lack this often work at cross purposes.
The third roadblock is that communications and information is not propogated efficiently across sites. Sometimes, news and information are passed through informal chats with people. Sometimes I will go over to a co-workers office just to "shoot the breeze" and I will end up learning a lot about what that person is doing and about the project in general that I do not get in the formal meetings.
Based on these personal observations, it seems to me that a virtual team really needs to really need to think about how they are going to overcome these issues in order to really work.
Personally, I think, first and foremost, you need a strong manager who has experience herding cats across time zones.
Second, you need to have a strong technical lead who can set the technical vision and direction for the group, since a virutal team cannot be lead by consensus.
Third, you need to have good collaboration tools to maximize the efficiency of the communications and to try and reproduce the "bull sessions" as best as possible.
Finally, you need to be able to divide up the work so that there are as few dependencies as possible, so that people can work independently on their piece with minimal active collaboration. Obviously, there will be a need to communicate at the integration points, but if you accept the fact that virual teams will not be bale to communicate as efficiently, the need for this communication should be kept as low as possible.
I am not saying that virual teams can't work. However, they need a different style of management, a different style of organization, and they are probably best for certain type of projects.
Now that I think about it, there are a lot of parallels (no pun intended) between parallel computing and the optimal organization of virtual teams. Perhaps there is a thesis topic lurking in there somewhere!
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In Australia, it's popular for young professionals to move to the UK for up to 10 years, to cash in on the higher wages. Many plan on moving home with enough savings to live comfortably, although many don't come back.
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I highly recommend it. A few thoughts:
--MarkusQ
P.S. My present job (which I'm taking a break from for a few minutes to cruse /.) is in the US. My house is on the side of a (dormant) volcano near the equator.
Yeah, I'd say you're on to a good idea.
I used to work with a guy who telecommuted from Hawaii to gigs in the US. He used to get up 3AM his time, work until noon and then go surfing. He used to answer the phone Aloha.
It wouldn't have been too bad except he wasn't a very good programmer and we had to spend a lot of time cleaning up his mistakes.
Not a good experience.
I forgot in my list:
You'll need to get serious about UPS/battery backup (or just do everything on laptops) and making backups, etc. You probably think electricity 24/7/52 is normal. My power is up a good 99% of the time--meaning I average about 24*60/100 = 15 minutes of no-electricity a day, with outages lasting from 5 seconds to 5 hours. Not unsupportable, once you accept and plan to deal with it, but a pain in the butt if you don't.
--MarkusQ
If you're a coder, you can use rentacoder.com. I've used it as both a buyer and coder.
One thing to keep in mind though, are Tsunami's and the cost of shipping to an island. You'll probably pay much more for internet goods (not services - ahem).
Have fun, and send some postcards!
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
Working is probably not the problem... There are many jobs you can do from home (computer tech support, programming, administration, etc.) and VO-IP is a godsend.
Although, you migth need to worry more about desieases and healthcare. Most tropical islands have bugs and other conditions where your body is not used to. And making it worse, they don't have expertise doctors on hand so it may be quite a pain.
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I volunteered for AntiChildPorn.Org for seven or eight years, and while I lived literally down the street from the founder, most of the volunteers live all over north america and europe. Most of the time it worked out very well. We've put together complete software packages and organized numerous other projects this way.
Recently the founder has passed away, and this is an issue because she was the one holding the org together. We're all scrambling to pick up the slack and getting things going again. (RIP Natasha)
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Social insects comprise up to 80% of the animal biomass in many parts of the world. This is not a problem, per se, but something you want to be aware of. If you are especially squeamish about bugs! you might want to stay closer to one of the poles.
--MarkusQ
I'm putting together a web service type business, and I figure I can outsource myself to the Philippines and save a lot of money thanks to the low cost of living. It might make totally new business models possible, such actually, seriously, being able to make a living of blogging, even if you're not in the top 1% of it, through a combination of the generosity of Google ads and the incredibly low cost of living. Most bloggers who try this are in the high-cost SF Bay Area and bleed money like crazy, but you're just one person and don't have to do that.
It also brings new social opportunities. Third-world chicks dig American guys. You're a millionaire in their eyes, even if you make $1,000 a month. You are also exotic and curious and odd, and that uniqueness is attractive in ways money doesn't completely explain. True, they love you for your money, as well as being you, but that's really no different from how American girls work. The only difference is that you're at the top of the food chain instead of the middle.
The biggest problem, of course, is that your options in getting customers don't include the schmoozing that is so necessary in cases like this. In my case, I have a business partner who's staying in the US and dealing with those things. At the very least, you would need a US bank account to accept money and someone in the US to deposit checks. Most affiliate programs and Google Adwords require US addresses and banks.
In the Philippines, you come in on a tourist visa and can renew it for up to 12 months. At that point you have to leave the country for 24 hours. Most people doing this take one day vacations in nearby Hong Kong, Singapore or Taiwan.
Make sure you have very carefully researched the cost of living in your chosen area. You can usually bring in your laptop computer, but parts and service for it may be scarce. Computers and other electronics can cost double or triple what they do in the US thanks to stiff tariffs and corruption. On the other hand if you're stopped by a cop, you pay PHP500 ($10) and you can go on your merry way without the slightest stain on your driving record.
Bear in mind that costs are lower, but not evenly so. Used cars in the Philippines cost maybe 40% more than they do in the US, because there are a lot of import duties. You can get cheap native made cars but you probably won't like them. Gas in the Philippines cost slightly less than the US, thanks to lower taxes, but it's still expensive. On the other hand, a high-rise apartment in Manila's most expensive elite area goes for about PHP60,000 ($1,000) a month. You can get housing in major cities for PHP7000 (about $125). True, it lacks a bath tub or hot water, but the water's lukewarm anyway.
DSL Internet, in areas that support it, is about $50 a month. Everyone uses cellphones and they're all on prepaid plans which are very cheap. Despite this, most people in the Philippines use text messaging because it's even cheaper.
So why did I choose the Philippines? Amazingly low cost of living, for one thing. Most people speak a bastardized version of English, so the language isn't a big problem. And of course it's a tropical island which means I can enjoy going swimming and boating.
So if you've always wanted to be your own boss, and have a good business plan you can execute, going to a third world country might just be the way to do it.
But beware: You won't be able to make money there yourself. Skilled workers go begging at P200 ($4) a day. And even technical workers don't fare much better, from what I've been told. The key in going to a third-world country is to keep some reasonable fraction of your first-world income.
I'm in the final phases of my research and will be visiting the Philippines in February. (All of this information is from my pre-trip research.) I plan to blog during my trip showing my reactions to real life there. Watch amazing.com (which will be changing radically soon) for details.
D
http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/69/Living_In_Bali .html
While Bali is fairly idyllic, apparently there are problems with foreigners being cheated in land sales and with becoming a resident.
General note: If you wish to work and/or live elsewhere, The EscapeArtist is a good resource to plan with.
Step 1: US companies send work out overseas where it's cheaper
Step 2: US workers send themselves overseas where it's cheaper
Step 3: Profit???
I don't get it. What's going to be left in the US? Is this a form of deflation in which workers cost less and (theoretically) goods cost less due to lower costs of doing business?
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
But for me it sucks.
I'm a tech writer, which means I spend a lot of time milking information from development engineers. Last time I worked for this company, I seldom could get engineers to answer my email -- they had too much shit in the fire, and responding to a tech writer didn't have any priority. No problem: I just wandered by their offices, asked them a few questions, and left. Much less time consuming for both of us than compusing a lot of emails.
Can't do that any more. Half the engineers I need to communicate with don't work on site. Some I can telephone. But not the ones that live on the other side of the planet! And the ones who do work on site seem to spend all day in teleconferences with the ones who don't, so I can't corner them either.
My own team is just as bad. My manager telecomutes from across the country, as do two of the writers I work most closely with. We have weekly staff meeting by teleconference, which have to occur early in the morning to accomodate a couple of folks in Europe. There are a couple of new hires that don't attend at all because they live even further east.
We have technical and planning screwups because it's so difficult to communicate. Plus communicating up and down the food chain is damned difficult, since my boss never has face time with me or her boss. I could go around my manager, but that's not smart unless your boss happens to be a total idiot. And for once, I have a boss who's actually pretty sharp.
I shouldn't complain. I get paid well, and people respect my work and my concerns. It's just that all these low-bandwidth channels degrade the quality of my work, and that hurts my professional pride.
Oh yeah, here's the ironic part. I'd like to move closer to my family, help my sisters look after our aging mother. And I might have a chance to go permanent with this company. Which would give me a chance to work from home...
The post is constructive.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Yes. I knew a guy telecommutted from newfoundland to gigs in Canada...
I've heard that Richard Branson (Virgin Group Founder), operates everything from a high tech hammock on his private island in the Carribean. He probably is able to do it without a pay cut..
I'm in a place with weather in the 70s when its winter, beaches everywhere you look, etc. And it sucks.
I'd trade this "tropical paradise" for London any day - give me a place with art, culture, hustle and bustle, architecture, history...
Sitting on the beach gets boring FAST.
This space available.
Some pitfalls for you to understand:
One last tip, find an expat website for the area you think you want to go and hang out there for a while to understand the pitfalls and work-arounds before you encounter them yourself! For Thailand, I suggest ThaiVisa.
I think the overall *good* thing I find about my new work (I just resigned, grin) is that *I* choose where I work from because everything I run is remote control. We (new company) have companies all over the place so I can pretty much choose what I like ;-).
;-)
;-)
Couple of points, though:
(1) You have a life outside work. Make sure you mark that territory very carefully because you will have colleagues/bosses/companies that would like you 100% available - not possible for a human.
(2) Some things require physical presence. Plan on the occasional (usually hasty) trip unless you have local coverage.
(3) Distance means comms costs. Make sure you have good comms available, and make sure you have a backup for it. I use the Net a lot, but also have two mobile phones which are both data enabled and can act as SSH and (limited) Web terminals which is all I need
Other than that, good luck. Just don't think beaches are the end-all - you may get very bored in a couple of month
Insert
I don't get it. What's going to be left in the US?
If I had to guess, a bunch of fundamentalist christians who are willing to give up all their civil rights for the assurance that no married gay people ever get an abortion. Oh yeah, and to fight terrorists.
--MarkusQ
Wow, Bali, that sounds great - great to visit. Living there is an entirely different story.
I've lived on a tropical island for twelve years and returned to the US. From experience:
1. The natives won't make your life easy. If you want to live there, you want to live there with all the rights and privileges you had in Britain. Fat chance. Will you get to vote? Can you own land? Do you speak the language of your local representative. If some local thug takes an interest in you or your business, do you have any recourse?
2. Life changes. I went to paradise with my wife and returned with three children. The educational opportunities are limited. When my oldest child took a first grade standardized US test and failed after graduating highest in her class, it was time to leave.
3. All thing rot in paradise. Bali, Thailand or anywhere in the tropics is fecund, incredibly fecund. Things grow. Fungus grows - everywhere. Bugs grow everywhere. Everything is green. Computers are not green. Modern appliances are not green. All the conveniences we enjoy in the middle latitudes rust or fail in the tropics. Expect many difficulties maintaining your equipment and lifestyle.
If you want to go to Bali and telecommute, do it. Save up enough money. Start your own business doing contract coding over the internet and go.
Keep enough money to come back.
machinator omnis sine licentia
To give another story on working from home:
At my company, we have two groups working on different products (software). For one group development was split between two locations, to make commute easier. But in that group that lead to immense problems. People didn't communicate with the other location, rivalries (the bad kind) crept into the relationship and the product suffered as as result. Now they are in one location, and things are going much better.
The second group (where I am) on the other hand, had its members split into all directions from the beginning. Half of it was working from home, and the other half is now as well. Some are on the road almost always, doing support or installations, sometimes assisting sales people. We meet each other rarely in person. But we work together without trouble, and are as efficient as ever. That is for two reasons: First, we stay in contact closely via all means possible: IM, VoIP, phone, EMail, discussion boards, aso. Second, we were friends and working together at other companies before the current one and know each other well.
So, to sum it up: As others have written, only being in contact electronically can be problematic, as you have trouble building up trust and the kind of relationship that is necessary for well-oiled development.
But if you have all of that already, you can make it work just fine.
Be nice to each other and do not forget that in electronic communications (of all kinds) a lot gets lost. Words alone make it difficult to get what the other wants to say, so it is better to assume the thing he just said was just a joke, not an insult. That the phrasing was just harsh out of not having much time, not because the other side disklikes you.
If you intend to do contract work, that makes it difficult, but if you've worked together for years, go for it.
Keep open minded - but not that open your brain falls out...
This is a typical case of working yourself out of a job. Offering to telecommute is like handing your boss a permission slip to outsource you - either to a lesser paid employee or to an overseas subcontractor. If you can do the job from the beach in Bali, so can the Indian working in a sweatshop of Bangalore. At that point, it's just training.
If you want to keep your job, get one where you directly support a customer and must show up or live on-site. The momentum required to replace you is even higher. Make your job something that requires semi-routine, hands-on access to hardware and you keep your job for a really long time. If your customer is always growing, your daily job is to deal with all the new work they have, not keeping existing equipment functioning.
But perhaps you are confusing the hubris of the Perl programmer which states that all Perl programmers are inherently lazy. Yes, but by requesting to telecommute, you are exhibiting laziness and an unwillingness to work with people. The Perl mantra refers to an unwillingness to repeat the same tasks day after day when the computer can be taught to perform the same work.
I don't really have sympathy for people who are too lazy to come to work. Yes, good employers will find ways to accomodate valued employees that have a strong urge to live somewhere else (e.g. a military spouse which gets restationed) in the hope they someday they will be able to come back. Beyond that, telecommuting is an excuse for terrible employers to make their existing employees work even more on their free-time at home.
A fellow indie game developer, initially from France, sold all he had and relocated to Thailand, where he now lives and works. Apparently it worked for him. The pictures are awesome!
I live in and work from Uruguay, South America; my situation is different to yours since I didn't move from the US, but yes, it's very possible to do first-world business from a third-world country. We've been doing it successfully since late 2002.
It depends on what do you want to do, of course. If you're a freelancer or independent software developer and can work from home in the US, you can probably work from home anywhere else. Thanks to Skype talking to your US contacts is free (512/128 ADSL costs ~USD 50 here - somewhat slow and somewhat expensive but does the job)
My website
You can actually do it without telling anybody. Vonage phone #, Internet proxy service to mask you IP, a snail-mail forwarding service that looks like a regular mailing address and you're good to go. Of course, it's only really an option for the self-employed, people who make their money as webmasters, freelance programmers, etc. And you should be prepared to travel frequently, since there is still no substitute for face-to-face when working with a team, setting up deals and building trust with clients, etc.
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I have also been considering this very same dilemma. Working in IT in London, my wife is Brazilian, and we would like to move to South America soon. I must admit I am a little unsure of how I will adapt in a new country, even with all the research and preperation I can do in advance, the only true way of knowing if it will all work out, is simply to try. I would hate to still be stuck on the tube (London Underground for those readers out of the UK) 10 years from now, face stuck in someone's armpit on the crush-hour ride home regretting never having given it a go. I would like to ask other slashdotters that already successfully telecommute or freelance remotely - what sources do you use for finding new clients/work? Do you rely on 100% overseas client work, or also do some local client work as well?
One thing to consider if the job will entail a significant pay cut is to what extent your expenses will be at the cheap local rates. In many third world countries local food and housing are very cheap, but imported items are very expensive. You'll almost certainly want to buy imported tech gear. Will you be able to afford it? Similarly, how expensive will it be to travel elsewhere if that is important to you? Do you like the local foods, or will you want to import a lot of expensive stuff? If you read a lot, to what extent will locally available materials satisfy you? Can you read the local language? And is a lot of what interests you published locally? If not, purchasing books from the US or other countries and importing them may be very expensive.
Same deal, but you live in Haiti.
IT IS BETTER TO BE A YOUNG JUNEBUG THAN AN OLD PEACOCK - Mark Twain
Do you mean the Caribbean?
It's called India.
getacoder.com - elance.com... just two places in what I'm sure must be a multitude of other places where you can find freelance jobs and sit on the beach in Bali while earning your pay... and you don't even need to take the paycut...