There are tons of places you can look for remote work. But my story started with full time in a dark cubical.
I initially was a subcontractor for a government contractor. So a contractor to the contractor working hourly in the client’s office. This was a dull 8 hour grind burning my life away in a tiny cubicle.
The contractor I was working for lost the contract so the new contractor ended up hiring everyone working on the project. Initially I rejected but after a few months they reached back out with an offer that nearly doubled my salary and I could work from home two days a week.
This was fantastic, not being in the office AND more money?!
After a few weeks of working from home my eyes were open.
Why was I going in? I was being as productive if not more at home.
During heavy winters in DC it would cause the office to close but if you could work from home you had to.
I thought surely this didn’t count as one of my two days.
And after a couple of weeks I just stopped going in entirely between snow days, the cold, and my “two” days a week.
After about a month of not being in the office my manager called me and said I HAD to come in.
I was dreading being told that I’d have to start coming to the office again. The freedom to throw a pile of laundry in or just make a cup of coffee in your own kitchen is infinitely valuable.
My manager met with me in a conference room and said “look if you don’t start coming in the client is going to remove your desk and badge”
and my response…
“Ok, sounds good!”
and to my surprise my manager said okay! and I was only in the office an hour that day and felt completely liberated after that point.
The feeling that you know your work just trusts you to get your work done without someone standing over your shoulder is liberating.
That was 5 years ago and I have been to the DC office a handful of times since that meeting and I couldn’t be happier.
I may have fallen backwards into being a remote worker but now I advocate anyone to push for being remote.
