Thoughts After One Month Working On-site

Two months ago I announced I was leaving my previous job, a completely remote position, for a on-site position. This is my first on-site position, since my previous job was also my first and only job until now. It’s been now a bit more than a month, and I have some thoughts I would like to share.

Just like with anything else in life, there are things that are more positive, and things that are more negative. I will share them later on this post. First, I want to mention the things that have remained the same in terms of what I feel, or sense.

One of the things that made me leave my previous job was the team size and losing team members. However, that did not play a big role when deciding for the new job. The newer team is, in fact, smaller. In addition, the company is also a startup, so all the uncertainties related to a startup are also something that is mostly unchanged.

💡 The Positives

On the positive side, I’m quite happy I have coworkers that I see on a regular basis. It is always nice to meet new people. It also helps that everyone is quite friendly. It’s refreshing to be in an office and experience the working culture of a different company.

I’ve come to realize that on my ideal job, I will not need to go to the office every day. The happiness comes from seeing coworkers regularly, but that doesn’t mean it’s every week, or even month, I think. But certainly not just one time a year!

The technology is also completely different, and despite having my own opinions about TypeScript - and JavaScript - tooling in general, it is great to work with something new to break the rhythm. It becomes challenging, not necessarily because it’s hard or complicated, but because I’m learning something new.

😢 The Negatives

On the negative side, I find the time and place flexibility a bit constraining. I don’t think this was something I’ve ever thought about before. Well, I did certainly think about it, but I did not think it would be a problem. I now realize that the flexibility of working from a different place - wherever it may be -, as well as flexible time, is invaluable.

The other negative point I want to mention is vacation days. My previous vacations days were rather flexible. Now, not so much. And as someone that doesn’t live on their native country, vacation days just “disappear”. If you just go visit family and friends, then you suddenly realize you barely have any days left for your “actual” vacation. This is something that is likely shared by migrants in general, but that others wouldn’t that easily recognize.

This one is more neutral, so I will keep it here: I realized that working on open source brings a different kind of joy I did not expect missing. Maybe it doesn’t always feel impactful, but it’s there, anyone can use it. Yes, I can always contribute to open source projects, but doing it for a living is something else.

It’s a mixed bag. I don’t know exactly how I feel yet, but I will certainly do my best at this company, for however long I am here. It was an important decision to learn what I actually value and see how things work on the other side, touch the 🌱 grass and check it out. It’s important to know.

I will see what the future brings and how my feelings will develop. Maybe I will write more about this in the future. If you’ve worked on both situations before: remote/hybrid and on-site, what do you think about this?