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

Hard to Collaborate Over Distances

[humblecoder]

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!

I highly recommend it

[MarkusQ]

I highly recommend it. A few thoughts:

• If you presently work in IT, especially in a small shop, talk to your employer. You may be surprised at how receptive they are to the idea.
  • Don't mention (or at least, don't get specific) about the pay cut right up front
  • Point out that you'd be glad to have visitors
  • Look for (and point out) other advantages, such as you providing swing-shift support or...?
• Broadband is available in surprising places. It's also unavailable in surprising places. Do your homework.
• VOIP
• Research the climate for a whole year. Quantify things like "the rainy season" and make sure you know what you are getting into. Some places are really nice for six months out of the year, and...interesting...for the rest
• Make sure you like the local food.
• If there is a local language other than English, try to learn as much of it as you can.
• It takes more discipline to work this way. Lots more.
• Explore the tax consequences, work permits, etc. Many places can be sold on the notion that you are a "tourist" who happens to be being paid by your company back home--the idea being that you really are commuting, and aren't "working" in the country--just spending your money there.

--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.

One other thing I forgot

[MarkusQ]

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

Re:80% pay cut?

[NanoGator]

"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."

I really don't know much about Bali, but I assumed he used that wording intentionally. I went to Brazil a couple of times and the cost of living is much much lower than it is here in L.A. I'm paying roughly $1,000 a month for a 1bd apartment. In Brazil, a much much larger apt was roughly $200USD a month. I've actually thought about relocating down there and doing freelance work for the US. Living is cheap and man it's nice down there. The people there are so nice. I mean... wow I still fantasize about it from time to time.

So what stopped me? Even when I found places where I could get 'broadband' internet access, I couldn't get US websites to load very fast. (It's worth mentioning that this was a few years ago.) Since I'm a 3D artist that often works with footage, the practicality of doing something like that was quite questionable. I gave up on that idea.

I have a couple of reasons for posting here. One is that I'm hoping somebody will chime in and say if Bali is like Brazil in the ways I've mentioned. The other is that I'm curious if the internet access in either place today is strong enough to support that type of work. Comments?

Telecommuting from Phuket, Thailand

[aaarrrgggh]

I am currently telecommuting from Thailand. MarcusQ brings up a good point, don't talk salary! I am currently at 100% of my US salary, although a different arrangement will eventually be required.

Some pitfalls for you to understand:

• Internet access can be spotty in availability and reliability. You always need a backup plan. It can sometimes take months to get ADSL, and without a proper residence and sometimes a work permit it can be hard to get at all.
• Much of my job is on the phone. My US phone had a bill for the first month roughly approaching half my take-home pay. Fortunately, it was paid by the company. I had good intentions of using Skype, but 24-hour internet cafes aren't available anywhere near me.
• Can you do your job via dial-up? Often that is the best speed you will find! Make sure you have contingencies; I end up using GPRS for transferring large files. It hurts!
• You will be working odd hours. I start at 6am so I have a few PST hours, end at about 11am, take a break, and start working from about 8pm to midnight for time with EST hours. I feel sorry for my wife and neighbors when I am on a 3am conference call and having a heated discussion. The time difference can turn something you thought could be done overnight in the US into a 3-day activity if you end up needing help from someone else.
• There is no such thing working for a US company as part-time. If you are worth enough to them to let you telecommute, you will be putting in roughly the same hours, but likely working harder. The logical extension to this is that to succeed in the long-run, you need to start a business and have local people (and gullible travelling experts)working for you and billing them out at 10x their salaries. I hate to admit it, but that is the only way.
• The exception to the above rule is that if you happen to have irreplaceable experise, and a fantastic relation with your boss, and much of your work involves being remote from co-workers and clients, you might be able to pull something mutually beneficial for 6 months.
• Relationships with co-workers will degrade over time, especially if you used to be in the same office. Think in advance about how that might impact you.
• Finding just the right place to live could take a lot of time. Factor this in when you make your business plan.You also might need to move around seasonally. Under stand your need for access to an airport!

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.

Re:80% pay cut?

[acidblood]

Since I'm Brazilian I'm going to chime in. I live in a medium-sized town (500k inhabitants, give or take) in the north of Paraná state. Right now I'm using 600/300 kbps ADSL which costs about US$ 50/month all told (including the phone line). Grab a free-for-all VoIP plan like BroadVoice's and you get free calling to Brazil, the US and other countries for US$ 28/month. This is absolutely imperative if you plan on using the phone a lot, as Brazilian rates are outrageously expensive. Cell phones are pretty expensive as well -- you'll hardly find people with 100+ minutes monthly plans (that's roughly 3 minutes a day). Also, be prepared to pay ridiculous markups on your hardware: the US$ 500 Mac mini costs upwards of US$ 1000 here, and a VoIP ATA/router I was looking at which sells for US$ 90 in the US costs US$ 200+ here.

In my town the best connection you can get from ADSL is 1 Mbit/512 kbps, paying I believe something from US$ 80 to 90, all told. No cable connection either. I don't think the situation in the big towns is much better -- I've never heard of anything faster than 1 Mbit/512 kbps. If you really need more than that, you're either going to have to get multiple phone lines with multiple ADSLs, or get a pipe directly from the local tier 1 providers like Embratel (which is going to cost a fortune even by US standards, probably not worth it).

Something you have to pay attention to is the capped plans. The main ADSL provider in São Paulo has monthly caps in place of (I believe) 10 to 40 GB/month, depending on which plan you get. You'll have to look around for uncapped plans or stay away from São Paulo (which is, as far as I know, the only place where caps are implemented -- plus it's not a good town to live in anyway).

Out of curiosity, where were you staying in Brazil?

Short Term Existence in a Tropical Environment

[Ropati]

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.