A Day in the Life of a Remote Working Nomad

People have asked me, "Aren't you basically on vacation every day?" Ummm...No!

I still work just as many hours as I ever did when going into an office, maybe even more. With my bank-issued laptop and dual monitors just a couple feet from my favorite recliner, it's common for me to return emails - or send emails - at any point of the day or night. If something pops into my head, I can address it right away.

And because I have insomnia, I often complete reports in the middle of the night, when sensible people are fast asleep. I wouldn't be able to do that if I had to drive 45 minutes to the office. If a client, 3 times zones different than whichever one I happen to be in at the time, has a question, I can usually answer it quickly, even if that means logging into a legacy system. Again, that can't happen if I'm working in an office environment.

The one problem with working from home - whether in bricks and sticks or as a gypsy - is that you never leave the office. For someone like me, that can be challenging. I like my job. I like my clients. I like Byline Bank. I have awesome colleagues and a dream team chain of command. I want to give each of them the best service and support possible.

For all of these reasons and many more, I am a more productive and efficient employee. If you can believe my performance reviews (and not just the self-review portion!), I maintain a high level of performance, even while working in remote places in every time zone in the country.

But I also need to think about my wife and her needs. Retired now, her background is in the sports and entertainment field. She was laser focused on client service and satisfaction. She knows what it's like to be out to dinner and get a phone call from the owner of a sports team. So she gets where I'm coming from. But that is no excuse to move her to second place in my life. I try to set boundaries between home and work. We all need to do that.

So...is every day a vacation? Absolutely not! But it sure beats driving 45 minutes each way to an office.

Comment below if you have any questions. Thanks for reading.