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?"

Comments

My suggestion:

[TeleoMan]

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!).

Telecommuting is Evil

[fm6]

I just started a contract for a company that I previously contracted for eight years ago. They're seeing hard times, and they're leaning heavily on telecommuting to cut costs. This saves them money on facilities, plus there are a lot of people who will gladly take a cut in pay to live in Bali — or at least Bangor.

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...

Re:And another other thing

[MarkusQ]

You may well be correct. I know they've formed well over 80% of the animal biomass (and total biomass for that matter) located inside my house at various times, so I may be more inclined to err on the side of Insects! than otherwise.

The key point really being that no fish, very very few plants, almost no birds, few reptiles, and only a small fraction of the mammals will routinely think it's a good idea to explore your dwelling on the off chance that something they might want is inside. For social insects in some parts of the world, on the other hand, it's kind of a hobby.

--MarkusQ