The Remote Worker’s Dream

Sometimes, I struggle with the contradiction of remote work. The pros and cons. Am I the problem? Are we all?

One of the things I, and most other people desire is a sense of community. I've written about it before. I don’t want to be cast off into a corner of my world, though I often daydream about what it would be like to live in a quiet spot out in the county. With whatever way a person chooses to find their community, be it through cycle sport, DND or game nights, school programs, family activities, pickleball, or playing at the local stand-up mic, our work obligation has a way of dwarfing fun occupations. Being a remote worker has a unique and strong way of dismissing the sense of community you might get from other jobs. And though I hate to make this a job blog, I think it’s time I revisit the topic of something I and many others spend 1/3rd of our weekdays doing.

I can genuinely say that I (and Crystal) moved here for a job that paid me to be on the West Coast. And though that job didn’t force me to relocate to a spot within 30 miles of their headquarters, there was a strong suggestion that I should be close enough to be comfortable enough to commute when the time comes. What I did instead was move 81 miles north of headquarters, with no intention of going into the office. I don’t regret it, but I want to take the time to recognize the difficulties the move caused, and some of the misgivings and internal battles I had with myself because of the move.

I’m painfully aware a job in which we do not have ownership in can replace us instantly. And as much rah-rah as there is about standing up to your employer and having a ‘they-need-us’ mentality, as a professional content writer for corporate America, I don’t feel that. I feel very replaceable, with a mostly useless set of skills best used when it comes to selling oneself for a new position, and less so for exceeding with whatever circumstances are presented afterward. However, pity party aside, I don’t regret taking full advantage of the relocation stipend and, shortly thereafter, the severance package offered by my past employer (rhymes with Betty Flour). Nor do I regret waiting out a local in-person job offer for a position that pays almost twice as much and still allows us to stay in Bellingham.

When I compare what could have been and what is, I can see a distinct difference. I compare myself with people commuting to work, engaging with coworkers and sometimes customers, and collaborating on projects. To be fair, I’ve worked full-time in person before and did not feel a profound sense of community. At one job, I felt like an office drone and hated every second. At the other, although entertaining at times, it was physically draining and paid very poorly, but did allow great access to the community. I look at what Crystal is doing full-time, and though she has rough days where she can’t hide from work like I can, she seems overall happy and has a greater sense of self-worth when it comes to her relationship with work. She helps people in her community, not a bunch of shareholders abroad (even though Peace Health has those, too). I find more dedication to my job comes from knowing that I’m extremely lucky, and I’m committed to putting out passable work so that my coworkers and I can continue leading these remote-first lifestyles.

Because even a remote job takes up so much of my time, it means time spent away from work is doubly more important. When in a remote environment, we are uniquely and completely severed from the outside world. You don’t ‘run in’ to people you might know from real life in your Teams meeting or Slack huddle, and you certainly aren’t building any local connections. Remote work doesn’t just isolate you from the office and all the pains that come with it, it separates you from the entire world. It allows us to continue to live inside a bubble. Making sure my availability bubble is ‘green’ and I’m producing appreciable content for 40hrs a week makes it feel like I’m not even here.

My old "office"... It's not as depressing anymore.

But would I give it up? No. The cons of remote work are real, the rose-colored glasses have come off, and every day I learn a little bit more about how I can healthily balance the two sides. Every pro has a directly correlated con, and learning what is more important to you between the two will greatly impact your relationship with the community and work.

Anyway, if I ever flesh out this blog post and get my thoughts organized it could be a self-help-esque book.

Life Stuff

Bike racing!

Gosh. What a weekend or two. Since it’s been 14 days since my last blog, there’s a lot of content to wrap up here. Thankfully, as most of my lovely subscribers also follow me on other social media, they know most of what will come below.

Last week Saturday, Crystal and I met up with the local faithful of the Bellingham cyclocross community for a race at Hannigan Speedway. It was rough, and even though I constantly sell cyclocross on how fun and community-focused it is, I would never want to introduce someone to the sport with that event. I’m almost positive that the event has driven more people from the sport than it will ever introduce. Why? The course is terrible. Not only is Hannigan Speedway located in a swamp, but the organizers throw racers into rutted-out motocross singletrack with knee-deep puddles and thick mud. The laps take 15-25 minutes (read: 3x too long) for most riders, and by the end, good bikes have turned into your average cross bike (read: clapped and absolutely destroyed.)

Regardless, I signed up for the single-speed race and picked the old trusty 2:1 gear ratio. I didn’t feel amazing, but I don’t think anyone did considering the conditions. After a fast start and getting first into the singletrack, I forced Brent into making mistakes (I made mistakes, and he had to react to them) and got a decent gap by the end of the first lap. The gap grew to around 2 minutes, and after over an hour of “racing” I found myself winning the single-speed race by a comfortable enough margin. Crystal was able to borrow a bike from a friend (sorry!) and proceeded to almost quit the sport after her hour-plus in the woods. I don’t blame her, and her feelings were not unique among the crowd.

Smiling was optional.

After an afternoon spent cleaning bikes, we were ready to get on the road early Sunday morning and go south to the “biggest CX race in the world”. That was not an oversell. With 1070 participants, the MFG Woodland Park GP event had nearly double the participants of the second-largest race. Crystal had secured another bike for the day, a pretty little Redline Conquest that only weighs ~13 lbs. The only negative about the bike was that it had butyl tubes (read: normal) in the wheels. If you don’t know, butyl tends to be quite stiff, and on a cross bike that’s an issue since it's common to bottom out your tires and hit the rim. The normal remedy is to go tubeless, but since these wheels and tires were not set up for a quick swap, I opted to let Crystal use my tubeless wheels. Big mistake. I didn’t notice that the cassette on my wheels was taller than hers (more teeth), and when she went on her pre-ride the shifting quickly went afoul. I couldn’t find her in time for her race to swap the wheels back, and she unfortunately missed it. I think she would have done great, and it was a bummer to miss seeing her compete with nearly 40 other women in the 3/4s event! Still, we got her bike dialed for the single-speed race later that day and I put a little extra tire pressure in to alleviate any chances of pinch-flatting the butyl tubes.

It's really special to be racing on a course with so many spectators and friends mingling about. The energy of the day was unmatched by any race I’ve done, and I’ve done a lot of bike racing. Having people line the course, screaming and yelling while you’re dodging tandems, unicycles, and single-speeders in costumes is an experience I won’t soon forget. I tend to take the sport a little too seriously, but luckily so do a lot of other single speeders out there. Of the 125 race starters, I’d say about 20 of us were racing, and the rest were enjoying being part of the atmosphere. After a hard start I found myself moving up and getting to the front of the race by lap 3. I’ve never pushed so hard in an event, and it was easy to be taken aback by the atmosphere and keep going hard regardless of how the legs or body felt. The eventual winner and I were slicing through the race, easily passing 20-30 riders per lap as we lapped most of the field. Towards the end of the penultimate lap, I tried to attack after the run-up but the rider behind stuck on and passed me early into the bell lap. I stuck to his wheel for a while, but he got a couple of bike lengths gap on me after the run-up and sped away, taking the win. Personally, I’m stoked on a 2nd place finish when 125 of us toed the line to start. It keeps the motivation up to keep doing big dumb rides and intervals.

Thanksgiving weekend!

I’ll keep this brief. Want to know what it takes to go fast? I found out this weekend.

It takes 21 hours of riding in 4 days, mixed with endless potatoes. Did I do that? No. I managed about half of those hours with an equal if not greater number of potatoes. But good friend Cal Skilsky managed to ride an obscene amount over the holidays and showed me what level of fitness it takes to be that quick up and down the mountain. Maybe someday.

The holiday was great. Good friends. Good food. A little too much to drink… As holidays should be. I’m looking forward to not working over the next holiday break, and spending some much-needed time with friends and Crystal’s family in SLC.

The main squeeze squeezin' our other squeeze

Hot Take of The Week

Whenever I start thinking about this section of the blog, I always want to start off with “What’s the deal with all these hot takes?” and bring out my inner Seinfeld.

This week, I’ll be focusing on a very minor DND grievance. I’ve had a ton of fun playing as my own character, and despite some hiccups and misinformation spread by yours truly, the group seems to really be into it this year. However, what I don’t want to do is play a shit & piss campaign. Is the reference to bodily fluids funny, occasionally? Sure. Yes. But what I really don’t want is a game where every combat has somebody rolling for poison damage because of an excrement occurrence. It’s dumb, and the joke gets old very quickly.

I don’t even want to type about this anymore. It’s making me dry heave. No shit & piss campaigns, please. End of the hot take section.

Books Worth Reading

Nothing new since my last post. Still eating away at ‘As You Wish’.

Shows Worth Watching

Lessons in Chemistry, AppleTV – Originally an acclaimed book, the story follows a chemist turned television show host as she grapples with the throngs of her reality and desires. A good show, albeit a little preachy at times, so don’t go in thinking it’s all fluff. It’s meant to make us a little uncomfortable.

Until next time, friends

Edit: I didn't proof this blog as much as I usually do. Don't judge. It's a double-blog and if I spend too much time on it, I won't be able to pay my bills.