The remote worker’s angst
For the last 6 years I’ve had the privilege to work remotely. While not quite a walk in the park, it’s been an experience that I am grateful to have.
I have, at times, thought about the various states and transitions I had to go through to make peace with remote work. In this article, I make an effort to elaborate on them, and explain how everything, when put together, works out.
Guilt
I was already working for this small startup for almost 2 years, had proven my abilities and earned the credentials to “qualify” for remote work.
And there I was feeling guilty. I was away, they couldn’t see me and probably couldn’t figure out whether I actually was productive or not.
It was a combination of guilt, humility and sense of responsibility. I knew that my employers trusted me. I knew that nothing was given to me for free. But I still felt that I had to prove myself again. So I worked more. And more. At times, an unhealthy level of more. It was an overwhelming period, and it wasn’t pretty. Neil Young sings it’s better to burn out than to fade away. I don’t know about that.
Rehabilitation
I eventually reached a point where I had enough. This could not be sustained for much longer. I had to slow down, take a step back and invent the concept of normal working day. Except it was already invented. It’s called 9 to 5.
For a short period I stuck to a 9 to 5 schedule. And as uncool as it may be, it worked out. It got me out of the bad habits of a never ending working day. It made me realize that although work and life share the same physical space, they are and should remain separate and respectful of one another.
It felt robotic at first but was a good practice over a transitional period and definitely made me, in a way, more professional.
Equilibrium
The equilibrium is all about the work to life ratio. Getting a good balance of work and life is tough work. One needs to know when to start, stop and resume. Know and assess what’s urgent and precious and prioritize that over others.
Once the guilt and rehabilitation were over, I could think through these two states and re-engineer my work habits. Since there is no physical separation of work and life, an artificial, mental separation needs to be built. There’s no reason to over-engineer it and make it perfect. It needs to be good enough to leave space for most things in the scope.
In the philosophical theory of Existentialism, the existential angst is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility.
It’s the realisation of one’s individual responsibility. How it affects them, and the environment around. It’s the realisation that without them fulfilling their responsibility, everything falls apart.
The remote worker’s angst is the battle to reach the state of realising their responsibility while retaining sanity. The way to prioritize the things that matter, at any given time. The way to manage the guilt, all the way to the equilibrium.
This probably goes for everyone, not just remote workers. It’s just that remote working has the extra property of a very unclear, if at all existent, physical boundary of the work and life environment.
The guilt comes and goes. It’s especially evident in periods that I haven’t had the pace or results I wished for. But it’s manageable now.
Work never runs out. Life does.
