Working from…

This Thailand trip has been a working trip. I’m learning scuba and exploring my surroundings a little, but mostly I’m working like I might if I lived here, wake up and check in, my mind on the work most of every day. I like travel that consumes you fully and pulls you into a separate world — trekking, farm stays — but I like this kind of travel too.

It’s a no-pressure travel; you don’t feel like you have to see the sights. You find a good place, and you stay. You have small adventures, finding food, getting around. You go to the corner store, find a good breakfast spot. You take your evenings and your weekends, but you don’t activity-pack your time.

For this trip, I’ve been letting a backlog of reading build up. Now, I can pick a new town every day if I want, walk, work from e-reader. My Kobo has a highlight function; I can take notes back at the hotel.

An active mind is more critical to the work than a stable internet connection, at least for a short phase. I’m missing a few meetings, but gaining a lot of contemplation time. At home I would be sitting at the kitchen table, toggling between Slack and other pages; here, I wake up to 15–20 Slack notifications, contribute asynchronously, then delve into my work of the day while my teammates sleep.

My 10pm is EST 8am, with more favorable overlap across the further west US time zones. If someone really needs to chat, we can. But my workplace has a strong culture of respecting boundaries, and I asked to be async these two weeks.

Standing in the shallow sea at Katu beach, I’m reading about the data mechanisms that supported disaster response in Haiti, and their critiques. On the speedboat from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi to Koh Lanta, I would get seasick trying to read as we skim across the light chop. Instead, I’m thinking about appropriate authorship order for an upcoming blog post, correct framing for presentation of the federal open datasets I’ve been collecting. The tug-like working boats have numerous short downriggers, the cliffs on these islands look like climbing grade 13+ in what I’m guessing is karst, and: what communities should I be engaging better as I start to think about environmental governance data the federal government might overlook?

I like my work a lot. It’s an honor and a pleasure to work with my colleagues, on self-directed projects that have meaningful impact. I don’t really want time off, just occasional phase changes like this one.

I’m back next week. Two weeks is good for a working trip: shorter would feel like a waste; longer, a hassle. This timing is just right to remember that it’s okay to step back, important tasks and conversations still happen without me.

This cafe has wifi, a sea view, and 50-baht mango smoothies. I’ll be glad to return to the faces and voices of my meetings with teammates, and a faster message-exchange efficiency helps the work run smoothly, but I’m also grateful to be here today.

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