WordPress Remote Work from Remote Places
March 8, 2017
Picking your favorite place in the world, just going and working from there sounds like a dream come true, doesn’t it?
Having a remote job that allows you to work from your favorite place in the world is possible. Today a few OTGS folks can prove that this is so.
Time back, IT work was related to a conventional office, which meant not only working from the same physical place everyday, but also commuting there every single day. Things changed and we started talking about digital nomads.
There is a plenty of remote work around WordPress. Benefiting from this kind of work is something many of us here, the people behind WPML and Toolset, enjoy.
Remote work means we can travel to be closer to our families and to stay longer for special occasions. We can even see the world and enjoy different cultural experiences while working, or, we can simply travel occasionally to visit a new city without having to rush back because our vacation days are over.
How people are making the most of remote work here at OnTheGoSystems
Curious to know where our CEO, Amir Helzer, has been working from?
“We were on a public bus from Ha-Long Bay back to Hanoi (in Vietnam) and I had to do some work, including needing to talk with someone. The bus was full of locals, including their chickens and other farm animals! I connected the laptop to the phone and worked as usual. Not very convenient, but it worked.
I can’t find any photos from that bus ride, so I uploaded a video that shows in what sort of traffic that bus was driving:
“One the nicest places I work from is Maui (Hawaii). I still work 8 hours / day, but the rest of the time I windsurf and hang out with friends. There’s zero TV time or other time wasters.”
Remote work is important for many reasons for Amir. It allows him to have quality time to spend with his family (which is not the same as being together), to see new places, to windsurf on tropical seas, to learn a new language, or at least a few words of one, and experience new cultures. A lot of the time, this starts with food!
Marine, from our marketing team, was able to get a foot massage while working and even edited a video on a train.
“Welcome to the “dream life” or “la vie en rose” as my French friends describe my lifestyle.
I was in Bali. It was almost the end of my day but I still had to send an email to an important partner and write my report too. I asked the massage shop next to my hotel if they had wifi. They did! So while I was finishing my working-day I also got a foot massage at the same time! It’s significant to me because this is definitively a great example of OTGS values: a great balance between work and personal life. I really liked this moment and I felt even more lucky to work with OTGS.
“I also worked on an antiquated night train from Georgia to Armenia. Although I love Georgia, I decided to take the night train (around 12 hours) to reach Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. I did some work on the train. I remember doing some video-editing because I did not need internet, only the software Camtasia. It was a great experience to be productive and while traveling on an old train. I really felt the contrast of the past and modern technology. It was significant to me because it was the first time I had crossed a border by train and because I met Eduard, one of my co-workers. As we all work remotely, it’s so nice to see people in person. He took me to a local restaurant with folkloric music where I tasted some local wine and cheese. Such a beautiful moment. I will never forget it.
“I don’t have photos of the foot massage or the train trip, but I’m sharing a photo working from Bangkok where I lived for 3 years. It’s an important place for me. And the second photo is where I am now, in the countryside in the “Forest Villa” near Amsterdam. The villa is in the middle of the forest, very peaceful.”
Przemysław (or “Shemek” as we call him) was visiting his girlfriend in Sweden and taking care of his grandma in hospital while working.
“To be honest, I worked from two places that showed me the power of remote work.
“The first was in Sweden. Five months after I joined the company, my girlfriend went for a students’ exchange to Sweden. It was not a problem for us, because I could visit her, stay at her place and work remotely from there. It was really important for us and I think it worked.
“The second one was around the same time. When I was staying with my parents they asked me if I could drive my grandmother home from the hospital (she had had surgery). So I said – yes, why not? I took a car and drove to the hospital. In Poland you do not really know what time a patient can be released from the hospital, so there was a possibility that I would have to sit and wait for my grandmother for few hours. I took advantage of that – I went to the canteen with my laptop and I started working from there. A lot of people looked at me as if I was crazy!
“These two situations showed me the greatest advantage of remote work – you have much more time for your family (or future family), you can split your shift, combine work with duties and make other people happy :)”
Shemek is part of the team that works on translation integrations.
Jan, one of our Toolset Senior Developers, keeps productivity high while enjoying changing surroundings.
“Usually, I keep moving between three places in my country: my home in the capital city Prague, my grandfather’s place in a little town in the eastern part of the country, and my cottage. But I’ve also worked in other places, for example in a coworking space in Cluj-Napoca, Romania while visiting a friend, or at Riccardo’s* place at carnival time in Ivrea. In general, having this possibility gives me a great sense of freedom and I am able to do meaningful work while enjoying the change in surroundings at the same time.
“I think that the most significant workplace for me would be the cottage – an old house located on top of a small hill, surrounded by a forest. It’s built from the ruins of a 14th century castle. I have only two neighbors and the nearest village is two kilometers away. The place has its limitations – it was a bit challenging to secure a reliable internet connection, but I managed eventually. There is no running water, and I have to fetch it from a well that is not very close – I accept it as a great lesson of thriftiness and don’t mind it very much. It’s still a very rare thing, to be able to spend a month or more in such a quiet place when we are in living in the “productive age”. And that’s extremely important for me because I often get overwhelmed by the business and chaos of the city, and I don’t enjoy its air pollution either. During spring and summer, I usually take my work outside into the garden – I call that “the best workplace in the world”. Last year I established a great balance there: I live there just by myself during work days and at weekends I have friends or family staying with me. They are always happy to visit, to relax in the beautiful surroundings, to go on trips or help me with some manual work around the house. This year I plan to spend two months in this way and next year perhaps even three.”
*Riccardo is one of our Toolset Team Leaders
Supporters also enjoy the possibilities that remote work offers. Bobby, from WPML Support Team, works from two different Continents: America and Europe.
“Last year I was lucky enough to have traveled from California to Greece, on to Cyprus and then London all the time while working.
“In my previous job I was in a fixed office building which made it difficult for me to travel and even more so be with my family 6,000 miles away from California all the way in Greece. It had been 4 years since I had been back home and even though time goes by fast this was still too long.
“Leaving the in-office structure and accepting my remote role with WPML was a dream come true, I finally had a chance to travel and work at the same time.
“The ability to work from anywhere in the world has been an incredible blessing and something that I definitely uphold.
“Working in a new environment is always a challenge by itself – getting used to a new setting, finding a quality connection to the internet and adjusting to a new time zone – but it also allows you to revitalize your mind and to tackle your work with a fresh approach and renewed focus.
“The nicest place I worked from was while I was in Greece during the summer. The outside temperature was hot, but not too humid, which made it a great choice that day to work outside. I ended up at the beach under an umbrella sipping an ice-cold coffee and taking on the WPML queue. Second to that experience was working in Athens from a cafe facing the Parthenon.”
You can read more about the big opportunity and the challenges that remote work presents in our previous post “Is working from home for you?”
If you want to be part of this WordPress Remote Experience, please check out for open positions.
Please, feel free to share your own remote work experience in the comments below.
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