I’m in a fortunate position. I’m currently working as a remote (Ruby on Rails) developer for a client in San Francisco. There are definitely pluses and minuses to being remote. I like the flexibility and freedom of it. I like being able to sneak off for an early afternoon game of squash with my friend Warrick. I very much dislike being the main developer on the team and not having smarter people to go ask questions from. I dislike not having a team around me from the purely sociable aspect of things, being able to show someone the latest ridiculous cat video that you’ve come across on Twitter, that sort of thing. That said, being in quite a nice co-working space definitely makes a difference.
I have no idea how long this position will last, I hope a while, but who knows. So, I decided to take advantage of the situation and go and work remotely from Minneapolis where my sister lives. I mean, why not? It makes no difference where I am (within reason), so, great to be able to work 9-5 but enjoy their company in the evenings & weekends. Also, I’d never actually met the client, so, it was about time to actually meet as I’ve been working with them for about 4 years at this stage. Thanks to Maaike for being massively supportive and pushing me to head away for the three weeks.
So, I flew to Minneapolis and just spent a couple of weeks hanging out. It was super fun. Tim has a pinball machine, and I spent far too many hours playing the damn thing. Still didn’t come close to his high score, not even remotely. It was lovely to just spend some regular time, just hanging out. Meeting their chickens, playing pinball, going on nice walks through the countryside, playing more pinball, eating frozen yoghurt at The Yogurt Lab, playing more pinball, going to a country festival and corn maze, playing more pinball. It was just lovely. Never did beat Liz or Tim’s high score at pinball. I’ll be back ;)
I also took advantage of the network of remote offices that I’m allowed to use because of the NZ place I go to being a member of lexc, very handy. The grain exchange office in downtown Minneapolis was amazingly cool. The huge display you can see was somewhat programmable.. so much fun!
Also, it was Halloween time as you can see from the decorations around the house. We went to a specialised shop where you could buy your fake chainsaws ;) They really take it seriously.
The two weeks flew by, and then it was off to San Francisco… I’m super lucky to have had this opportunity, and I’m glad I made the most of it. Thanks very much to Liz & Tim (and the kids) for putting up with an interloper :)
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