The 20fifty team is an atypically connected collective. Remote working is a misnomer. Get comfortable as we buck the narrative and the norms there and remind you that company culture is not your cubicle. At 20fifty, we’re not about that cubicle ‘culture’ and free pizza Fridays. To us, culture has become a misused and misaligned term in the world of work. We believe in things far more important than a foosball table and getting an hour off for reaching some inane target. That’s why we don’t call it remote working at 20fifty. Instead, we’re a connected collective. Our atypically connected collective boasts proven agility, true flexibility and we enable exceptional on-time delivery of all our innovative clients’ requirements.
We believe in connected working. But it’s all very well that we share this from our fancy website. If you’re interested in working with 20fifty, however, you may be curious about how connected working truly works. Our Front-End Lead shared his journey of moving towards our connected working environment. We’re proud to highlight his experience, and share it with you today:
Connected Working
Everybody’s said it, so I’ll just reiterate it: the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything. While most of us shuffled out of the office, and into our homes, for far more months than we expected…it’s not always the ideal solution for everyone. That said, it sure is for me, and it sure is for 20fifty.
Work and Life
Not everyone can, or even enjoys working from home. Either there are too many distractions, or they are unable to set aside a space to work, and they may even have trouble maintaining their previous work/life balance.
Boo to Office Banter
For me, it was actually quite easy to make the great migration into working from home. While I did enjoy the banter and occasional distractions that came from office life. It’s now several years later and I am finding I am still not missing it.
Leaving the Office
For me it started just before my country, South Africa, went into lockdown. The Sunday prior we received emails and messages informing us that the office is being closed for safety reasons. We needed to fetch anything we needed from the office and avoid it, unless it was essential. A few days later, Thursday, we went into our lockdown. That 21 day full lockdown sure ended up being a long 5 weeks. And it definitely took an incredible 2 years to come out of that 21-day lockdown.
Adjusting to Home Life
The first week or two was tough. It wasn’t so much a feeling of isolation; it was more just an adjustment. We already worked in a remote-type of setting, as we already had adopted a hybrid model. This just cemented the home side of the hybrid model. Pretty soon, however, I began to realise the big benefits of this connected working approach.
Buffering the Benefits
Of course, during the period of lockdown where we were not legally allowed to exercise beyond 9am in the morning (what was that!?)…most of us went a bit batty. I am a pretty active person. I walk my dog for an hour a day, and head out for a cycle at least 5 times a week. Keeping all that activity within my backyard began to take its toll on me…and my dog. Thankfully, once that silliness subsided, the benefits of this extra level of work flexibility soon started to buffer and build.
Big Time Benefits
For me, and pretty much every member of my team, the WFH model just worked. We had many ad-hoc calls and discussions throughout the days. From a work standpoint, we were all being more productive. Most certainly, during the initial 5 weeks, we put in probably an unhealthy amount of overtime. But when you practically have nothing else to do…
Stick to the Schedule
I put an end to that once our 5 weeks of full lockdown came to an end. Once we had regained some freedom of movement, and our ability to move around expanded, all of us within our team came to the same, comforting conclusion: the office, at least for the developers, was of no benefit and we had no intention of expecting any form of return to “normal”.
Adjusting the Setup
At that time, I was still working in my bedroom, a few hours each day. And, yes, sometimes even from bed. Although it did not affect my productivity, it became apparent that I need to make some adjustments and start sticking to a schedule. While I personally never got to a point where I felt I was unable to maintain a work/life balance, the structure of a loose schedule remained an imperative as working from home turned into a long-term aspect of my career.
Making a Move
In December 2021, I both realised and decided that this whole WFH thing was not going to change, our office was very optional. I went at most once a month and every recruiter who mailed me would receive an initial response of “Is it remote?” I had no plans on ever going back to an office and for this reason, I decided it was time to buy a house, purely for the 3rd room which would be set up for an office. I abandoned my plans to leave the country, realising that I do not need to be in another country to work for a company in that country, and the world was adopting a more remote working philosophy.
My New Home
Today I have that house and that office. My home is set up for living, and my office (the 3rd bedroom) is set up for work. Even though I never felt the need for the hard separation, I am pretty sure it would have eventually come to that, hence my decision to buy my home. The Mac pretty much never leaves the office, unless I head off to a coffee shop to work from there. It is set up specifically for how I like to work.
The Ideal Workspace
I have both a seated and standing desk to work that I alternate between. The seated desk has a high-back chair and the standing desk has a padded bar chair with a short back in case I actually need to sit while I am there. Having 2 desks also allowed for the option for one of my team members to work from my office. One has taken me up on it already and worked from here instead of the office too. I have a wireless charger and a mini cabled charging station with braided cables because they just look nicer and work better with my rubber cable holder. I have a desk-pad, for no other reason than it looks nice and I have 2 Echo Minis set up as a stereo pair for “working music.” There’s no reason to keep wearing my noise-cancelling headphones, which were never comfortable for long stretches anyway.
Achieving Excellence
I said it before, but working from home is not for everyone. If you are one of the lucky ones that not only has the option but also the ability and maybe even personality to enjoy it, then awesome. When it comes to development – I cannot speak for other industries – the job really is a passion one, for many of us, we are getting paid to do what we love and maybe that makes the WFH thing easier. Let’s be honest, many of us would probably be coding anyway. Unless I have a great idea, something important I want to do or learn, I avoid even opening the Mac when I am not working, as much as I enjoy coding, that is a balance boundary I set for myself many years ago and maybe that made it easier for me to maintain the work/life balance when work and life merged into the same building. If you are working from home, make the most of it, make it your own space, something that you feel comfortable and productive in, maybe toss in a Happy Sack for those long meetings where you won’t be talking and can leave your camera off, just try and not nap…
The era of remote working is now a global phenomenon, but the 20fifty approach to it is somewhat different. Our 20fifty environment bucks the narrative of typically remote working, by actively encouraging and enabling a truly connected team. By countering the norms and the narratives, the 20fifty environment is not your typical remote team. We are an atypically connected team, with proven agility, true flexibility and we enable exceptional on-time delivery of client requirements. Keen to connect? Chat to our 20fifty team.
