The Importance of a Flexible Job

This post has been updated at 16/05/2013.

One of the best changes in my life recently is that I finally have a flexible job: I work when I want to on what I want to. I got used to it to this point that I can't even imagine to work in the traditional way anymore.

So how do I work?

I'm a contractor and at the moment I work for the RabbitMQ team of VMware. I work usually about 3 days per week, quite often from home. What matter are the results.

Even more interesting and even harder to have is that I can work on anything I want, as longs as it's related to what I'm supposed to do or what is useful for RabbitMQ. The first day I came to the VMware's office, at the beginning no one even asked me if I know what to do: I was expected to figure it out. And I did!

Worth noticing is that this is the only way how to manage me, to let me to manage myself. I absolutely hate when someone checks if I'm working and it can even piss me off to the point when I won't work much. For me, trust is very important and constant checking is the best way how you can tell me that you don't trust me enough. However if I do feel that I'm trusted, I'll do my best and I'll do much more than I'd do otherwise, because in this trust model, I feel and I am personally responsible for the project. Which is a challenge and I just love challenges :)

The best things about a flexible job

Travelling

I travel a lot, I love travelling. Since I don't have to work all the time, I don't have to buy expensive weekend air tickets and travel when most of the people do, so I visit interesting places when there is relatively reasonable number of the people. And I can go for a longer time :)

Personal crisis

At the end of the last year I had my very worst personal crisis ever. If I wouldn't have a flexible job, I'd certainly loose it, because for about two weeks I did nothing, I just couldn't think, concentrate or couldn't do anything. To loose job in such situation can sink you down completely.

If you wake up at the morning, you realise that you're still alive and you just (want to) cry, then you simply can deliver nothing. You can't even go to the office unless you want to scare the other people. It's sad, but it's true, believe me, I've been there.

How to solve it, I mean the job-related part? In my case it was simple: I invoice only the days I work, so in the end I had less money, but I still had my job.

Freedom

You feel much more free. You make decisions how you want, you can go to a pub during the week, you can skip work when there's a great weather outside ... this feeling is worth anything!

By this post I want to say a HUGE thanks to VMware and the RabbitMQ team that they let me to work this way. I want to specially thanks to Alexis Richardson and Matthias Radestock, but also all the people working in the RabbitMQ team that they took it responsibly and showed that a company can be built on trust rather than on constant spying of employees. Thank you guys!