Here’s the thing: Before I started working with Stampede, I had never expected that I will be one of the fortunate ones to be able to work from home, or anywhere I want as long as there is an Internet connection. Considering the arising travel expenses for transportations and the hassle to wade through the traffic jams in good ol’ Kuala Lumpur, I am really glad to be given the opportunity to telework.

What is teleworking?

Allow me to do a little enlightenment here. In practice, “telework” is a work arrangement that allows an employee to perform work, during any part of regular, paid hours, at an approved alternative worksite. With the advancement of technology which allows every aspect of our work to be accessed via cloud, more and more digital companies opt to allow their employees to telework. In my case – aside from Star Wars-loving and quirky (and sometimes irritating) team members, teleworking is one of the perks working for Stampede which I really value.

The first impression.

My first few months were pretty tough for me to cope with the work arrangements. There are many aspects that I had to familiarize with without having a one-on-one interaction with my team members, for example – file sharing, time tracking, communications and so on.

Since we work EST, I also used to have problems adapting to the hours and my personal time. To solve this, I spend my daytime hanging out with my friends and working during the night.

Although we had been communicating through Skype, Google+ and emails as much as we could, I sometimes have trouble adapting to these means of virtual interactions. But once the guys started ‘mooning’ each other through Skype, I know we are in for a good virtual office bashing…

The personal transition

The flexible work hours for teleworking would either drive you to contemplation, or discipline you. During the transition while working in Stampede, I decided to set up some rules for myself. One of this is moving to another place just to get a bigger working space and better working environment for me.

The new place is closer to where my friends live as well, so I don’t have to travel far to go see them every day. Surprisingly, the new space also helps me to perform better at work. Since then, I’ve noticed a lot of changes on my mood, I got motivated and my performance increasing a little from the last time.

Time management

Like I said, teleworking is a good practice especially if you are not used to have constraints on yourself. The flexible work hours would either drive you to contemplation, or discipline you. I am really glad I opt for the latter, incidentally or not.

To be honest, used to be very lousy with time management and I used to get tired while working after spending the day out with my friends, which soon will affect work performance.

To solve this, I would make it a practice to sleep a few hours before work, soon after I come home from hanging out with my friends.

Working hours

Most of us in Stampede work EST hours since most of our clients are in the States and it is easier for us to interact with them during their business hours. However, it is not mandatory. For example, Iwan the front-end developer work from 4 am – 12 pm EST (4 pm – 12 am MYT). Shaza, Shaiful and Zana mostly work a lot later. This practice also makes sure that all of us have overlapping hours so that we will be able to discuss about the projects we share.

For now, I am working closely with Shaza, my (awesome yet sometimes scary) creative lead so she could guide me on my journey of becoming a lead designer in Stampede. In this learning process, it is very important for me to be prepared before I can work on my own. There is a plan for me to be able to work during MYT hours in the future, but for now I will stick to the EST work hours during this training process.

A few months later…

Teleworking is a wonderful thing.

After a few months working, I have come to realize that I’m in full control of my working environment and the time flexibility helps me to adjust my working hours to my needs whenever I need to run some errands on the day.

In a small group of team (there are 7 of us), we tend to keep things very personal and get involved and help each other as much as we can about our team. Also, from my experience from the previous company I have worked with, politics occur when there’s a big amount of staffs included. In here, we have no problem about it at all. Na da.

Apart from a few adjustments which I had to make, I have to say, (tele)working at Stampede has been a great experience so far and I look forward for something new every day.

Have I mentioned teleworking is a wonderful thing?