Working without pants is an expression, coined by Scott Berkun, who wrote a book about remote working at WordPress.com. A super successful company where everyone can work from home, or wherever he or she wants. In this blog post I will chronicle my remote working experiences.

Over a decade ago, I was hired by a company that did not have an office. We were with four people, spread out over the Netherlands and Belgium. An office was not practical, so we all worked from home. This was a bad idea. We were disorganized and we didn’t communicate well. Working from home was one of the reasons why the company only lasted a year.

Years later, I set up a company in Australia. We arrived at Sydney Airport with two suitcases and two backpacks. Since we didn’t have anything but ourselves, a separate office space was a ridiculous thought. We worked from home. And so did the first employees we hired. This worked reasonably well. We were all the time confronted with our work, making us work 24×7. And going on vacation was a bit weird, knowing that other people work from our house during our absence. After a year the timing was right to rent a proper office.

Coming back from Australia, I started my freelance career. Again without an office. I worked from home, in a room specifically setup to be my office area. That worked well, although I mostly worked from my clients’ offices. Being with my clients gave me the opportunity to scout new projects. And working from home was lonely. It did not take long, for me to join a company that had a proper office, so I moved my desk once again.

A year ago, I joined the ranks of the remote workers for the fourth time. Inspired by my girlfriend and brutally aware of office costs, I decided that my new company would be a remote company. That means that everyone can work wherever he or she wants.

Working remote has many practical advantages. There is less travel time, more flexible hours, less costs and it is possible to tailor work conditions to the individual needs. There are practical hurdles to overcome. For example, since the office is virtual, it has to be paperless. Luckily that’s not a big challenge with today’s technology.

The real challenge of a distributed team, lies in the remoteness itself: being distanced from your colleagues and not being able to see each other makes it easy to get out of touch. We have found that we regularly need to meet, and work together. These meetings create a bond, which allows us to be a real team.

Being together is not that hard to do. We literally live 15 kilometers away from each other. In the current market, we could easily rent a cheap office in a dull industrial zone. But the truth is, we don’t want that. We like to work when we want, how we want, and where we want.

Working remote is a great idea, as long as you are aware of the challenges and committed to each other as a team.

p.s. For those who are curious… I do wear pants when working remote. 😉