Tofugu is a “remote first” company. We do not have an office that we go to as a group and have colleagues all over the world. When one team member is awake, another is asleep. We’re anywhere with an internet connection, and we’re all over the place.

Taking “Office Culture” and layering on top of “remote work” doesn’t work, and that’s now how we define “remote work.”

Remote work is its own, very different way of doing things. As a technology, “remote work” encourages and naturally pushes for very different things from “office work.”

Remote isn’t perfect, and we can’t expect it to be. But neither was working in an office. Where in-person work shines, remote work tends to have problems, with the opposite being true, too.

Hot take: remote work isn’t fun.

As a technology, at least, remote work just doesn’t encourage fun and social interaction. That doesn’t mean we can’t try to make it fun and social. It only means the medium / technology itself naturally flows against social fun, so we have to work harder and put more effort into making remote work fun or social.

In remote work, you can’t “go grab drinks” after work with your colleagues (at least, it’s harder, or it’s virtual). You can’t hang around the water cooler. You can’t go out to lunch together. It’s harder to gossip. And, it’s harder to spontaneously complain about your boss with a coworker 😱. Again, these are all things you can do in remote work. But, you have to push even harder than normal to make those things happen. All that extra effort makes fun things less fun.

And that’s okay.

Remote work does bring other, new positives to the table. Things that are worth valuing at the expense of losing some of the things that office work was good at.

A big one: Remote work encourages freedom.

How you work, where you work, and when you work are all up to you. It removes the commute. It gives you opportunity to focus more, so long as you communicate in such a way that doesn’t create distraction. If you need to go to a doctor’s appointment, meet a friend who’s in town for the day, or just take a day for yourself—you can! And, if we do it right, nobody will notice or care that you took a day off, even the boss. You can just do it. All this adds up to spending less time working, getting more done, and having more time outside of work.

Although the social side of work is more difficult when you’re remote, all the extra time you’re spending not working can then be spent with friends, family, hobbies, and all the other things that bring you meaning and satisfaction in life. You can engage with the groups, cultures, and organizations you want to. You have the time and mental capacity to go be politically active, versus doomscrolling Twitter, or the news. You can go volunteer. You can visit family, and stay with family for extended periods, because nobody cares where you work from or what hours you work, so long as you get your work done.

We lean into what makes Remote Work good, but that doesn’t mean it can do everything well. But, we think the tradeoffs are worth it.

That said, we can still have fun and make work friends. Company Retreats help with that. So does Informal Communication. But, don’t let work be your social life, and definitely don’t let it become your family.

<aside> 📖 Related Reading: Remote Work Principles, Asynchronous Work Principles, Informal Communication, ‣, ‣

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