Cleverly Working Remotely

readme.md

My name is Roger, I've worked remote for the past 3 years and for the past year I've worked remote as a senior DevOps Engineer with a company called Clevertech.

As a DevOps Engineer, it's my job to monitor and manage nearly 200 web servers for various clients, and to work with developers and clients to make sure they all have what they need.

Clevertech is a web and mobile app development company out of New York that has been around for 15 years. But that's not what makes us great.

What makes us great is that we have over 100 employees located all over the world.

Everyone works from wherever they feel they’re most productive from. That’s the beauty of working remotely. Some people like offices or shared spaces, others prefer home offices or a coffee shop.

We have some coworkers who are what are described as "digital nomads" and live in a different city every month, and we have coworkers who stay where they are.

So there are always a few questions that accompany people learning you work from home.

Doesn't it get lonely? How do you keep in touch with co-workers?

We use tools such as Slack, and Zoom to keep in touch with each other. Every morning when we start work, we say "good morning" to our coworkers and throughout the day we have various channels we can chat on, from team chat for the teams we are working with, to chatting with coworkers around the "water cooler".

When chat isn't enough, we also use a video chat system to talk to team members face to face.

Every second Friday, we also have CleverFridays, where everyone gets together over a video chat. This lets us talk about new developments, or listen to a guest speaker who has been brought in to talk to us about something new.

So where do you work?

I have a home office where I work most days, I turn on Spotify and listen to music as I take care of servers and handle any issues that crop up.

Other days, when I feel like getting out of the house, I work from anywhere I feel like it. I can be found working from coffee shops, restaurants or cowork locations.

Are there any disadvantages to being a remote worker?

The biggest disadvantage is finding a good work-life balance. This can be a tricky one but there are a few steps you can follow to master the balance:

1. Keep office hours. After a certain time has arrived, turn off your computer, if you can, leave it in another room (like your home office) or put it in your backpack.
2. DND is your friend. Most phones have a DND mode. I have this set to turn on automatically on my iPhone from 7pm until 7am, this means any emails, phone calls, etc can wait. I also have a few contacts set as "VIP" contacts, these are contacts that I want to know about any problems regardless of DND or not. But there are only a few on this list.
3. Set reminders to go for a walk. When you get involved in a project, its easy to lose track of time. Set a remnder to go off every hour or two so you remember to get up and walk, or if you wear a fitness band, set it to give you alerts when you've been sitting for too long. This lets you remember to do stuff, and actually smell the roses.