Rant: The whole 'work from a beach in Thailand' dream is overrated

I spent three months in Chiang Mai last year and watched half the people in my coworking space burn out because they couldn't handle the time zone chaos with clients back home. Has anyone else found that the constant 12-hour gap just kills your productivity no matter how good the view is?

3 comments

3 Comments

rivershah25d ago

So what was the actual plan for handling clients? Like, were you literally waking up at 2am for calls or just sending emails and hoping they answered during your local daytime? The time zone thing is real but it sounds like people didn't figure out a real system before they left.

finleythomas24d ago

Had a buddy who moved to Thailand thinking he'd just shift his hours a bit. First week he was getting up at 3am for calls, second week he started missing them, by the third week he was just sending voice messages and hoping. His clients got annoyed, he got stressed, and he ended up coming back after 4 months. The whole "I'll figure it out when I get there" approach never works. You gotta have a real schedule locked in before you leave, not just wing it.

thea69224d ago

Right, because nothing says "productive work day" like doing your morning standup by moonlight and trying to explain to your boss why you're drinking a beer at 7am local time. I knew a guy who set his alarm for 4am calls and just started sending increasingly unhinged Slack messages full of typos by week two. The view is great but it doesn't fix that your brain is basically running on a permanent jet lag schedule.