December 29, 2021

How To Negotiate Remote Work - Ep. 25

How To Negotiate Remote Work And Have More Work Flexibility

Here's How To Successfully Negotiate A Remote Work Arrangement

One of the very few advantages of the pandemic is it opened up the world to remote work. So if you’re thinking of negotiating remote work with your employer, we made an episode just for you!
 
Welcome to Degree Free, where we explain what you can do instead of going to college, and how to teach yourself, get work, and make good money.
 
In this episode, we talk about:
  • How to negotiate a remote work arrangement.
  • How to present your case and make a remote work arrangement a win-win for you and the company. 
  • The downsides of remote work and how you can work around it.
 Ryan talks about his own story on how he negotiated remote work even before it’s common.

Enjoy the episode!

Desperate for an alternative to the college debt trap for your teen?

Overwhelmed by all the college alternative options?

Unlock the secrets that colleges don't want you to know about. In our FREE live event, we'll teach you how to bypass six-figure of debt, choose the path that makes sense for your child, and create an actionable plan for you to get there!

Register for our FREE live event now and Help Your Teenager Save $100,000, Stop Feeling Overwhelmed, and Start Getting Excited About Their Future.

Like, subscribe, write us a review, and if you have a question or want some advice email us at [email protected]

Join the Degree Free! Receive our weekly newsletter and get exclusive tips and tricks to get hired and make money without a degree!

Newsletter Sign Up - Email Only

Listen to the episode on: Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsSpotifyAmazon MusiciHeartRadio, or on your favorite podcast platform.

KEEP SCROLLING FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES...

If you're interested in learning how to get a sales job without sales experience, check out our previous episode!

Links and Notes from the Episode

Episode Transcript
Please enjoy this transcript or our episode!

Please note the transcript may have a few errors. We're human. It can be hard to catch all the errors from a full length conversation. Enjoy!

Ryan: Aloha guys, and welcome back to Degree Free. We are your hosts, Ryan, and Hannah Maruyama. On this podcast, we share fundamentals we've discovered and the mistakes we've made while self-educating, getting work, building businesses and making money. We'll tell you how to make it happen. No degree needed.

Hannah: Welcome back. Welcome back. If you are new here and you want to take action on how to get a job without a college degree. Or you are old here, you have been listening for quite some time. And at the last episode you found to be really useful. And you're just wondering how to go ahead and take action on that.

Please check out our website at degreefreenetwork.com. We do have a guide on there that will teach you how to get a job without a college degree. And then if you have not already please and subscribe to support the podcast, we really appreciate it.

Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. And let's just get into today's episode today.

We are going to be talking about. How to negotiate remote work with your job.

Hannah: It seems like a lot of people are kind of coming to coming to grips with this now because quite a few people do not want to go back into the office. And there does seem to be a bit of a, a bit of a stalemate between some offices and their employees.

So they're uniquely positioned to negotiate now, before they go back in or to negotiate themselves out of the office, if they are unhappy after they've gone back in. And I think that the reason we're doing today's episode is because Ryan actually did this and he did it years ago and he did it with a boss who was not open to remote work. So he has some really good views and experience on this. So I think we're just going to ask him about that today and I'm going to have him tell you all how he did that and what tactics he used so that you can do the same thing, hopefully.

Ryan: Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, I it's funny is life is crazy in that.

Everybody does so many things in life and I forgot that I had done this until I think I was just talking to somebody recently and they've all. Yeah. I negotiated a remote worker work from home or whatever you want to call it years ago and looking back on it, I think it was like 2015, 2016.

So now. That long ago.

Hannah: It was a while ago, though.

Ryan: And working from home wasn't as prevalent back then as it, as it is now. Definitely. The technology was pretty much there for every, for everything, but Yeah, definitely not as we didn't have zoom back then, or at least I didn't, I wasn't aware that zoom existed back then.

Zoom, no teams. Yeah. But so just to give you a little backstory in 2015, 2016, I was working as an accountant in California at a place that had about 50 employees or so it was all, it was all. People that work in office, there was no remote work or work from home employees. In fact, my boss at the time we'll call him Bob.

Bob specifically said that he had had a remote work set up before and while it wasn't terrible. He just didn't want to go back to it just because he liked the control of having people in, in house, especially my department. I was an accountant. I was junior to the CPA that we had in house.

So it was just the accounting department was just me and this lady. And. He just wanted to make sure that whenever he wanted, he could meet with us, ask us questions. Cause it's an important part of the business, right? The money. Where's it going? How was it? How how's it getting there? And so it was it was interesting the way that I had.

Come to asking for remote work. It was, I was actually leaving. I was actually moving my life and I was moving to New York and it was time for me to move. I was moving regardless of whether or not I could keep the job or not. And I remember talking to you at the time and I was just like I. Like I'll just quit.

And then in New York, I just I'll just go find something else.

Hannah: How much do you think that your willingness to quit really played into the power dynamic of this too? So it left you holding all the cards since you were willing to just leave.

Ryan: I think it was, I think it was a lot, I was holding all the cards. I'll go into it, I'll go into it. I felt like I had set the cards in my favor prior to ever asking. And I think that that's exactly what people need to do today and always, so I will say that I definitely prepared myself for the conversation. There was a book and I'm sure a lot of people have read it and I'm sure a lot of people haven't read it, so people have heard of it.

But there's a book the four hour work week. And by Tim Ferris. And I I read it years before that, but I specifically remember in the towards the end of the book, which was the middle of the book, there's a chapter on basically like removing yourself from the job or removing yourself from the location.

And so he specifically talks about how to negotiate a work from home or a work, a remote work. System or situation. Sure. Yeah. And so I definitely use that as a playbook. Like definitely, definitely, definitely. So I'm going to go over from memory. I haven't read it in awhile, but I'm gonna go over what I, what I told him and what he said to me.

So back then I had only been working for the company for about five months. So not very long, but what I did have going for me was that in that five months I was able to, along with my senior partner, we were able to take a very manual process that we were doing. We were able to automate it and now that automation still needed oversight and that oversight needed to be done by me because I was the only person that knew how to do it because I,

Hannah: You designed the automation.

Ryan: Right. So the thing that I automated, it didn't really move the company forward. It wasn't making us any money, but it saved us a lot of time. So I automated this thing. It was super important and I was the only person that had the time or the know how to do it because of my senior partner while she could have done it.

That's not what she has paid to do. And that's what I get paid to do. And so I knew that already, but because I had only been working there for five months or whatever, it was four to six, whatever it was, I. I didn't feel very confident about it, but I used, like I said, I used the playbook from the four-hour work week to go and talk to him about it.

And so the first thing, when I sat down with Bob, I said, look, I'm I lead with I'm leaving. And this is going to be different from everybody else, right? Because you might not be leaving the company. You might just want to work from home. But I said, I'm physically leaving this space because I'm moving to New York.

That being said, I love working for this company. I love working for you. And I like the problems that we solve every day. And then I came armed with the benefits that I can provide remotely and how much money. It's going to cost him to retrain somebody because I was the only person that did my job. And so they would have had to hire another accountant and train them up.

And I didn't have the time to train them because I was leaving and,

Hannah: that's a major, that's a major cost.

Ryan: And so I said, I said, look, there's nothing that I do in my day-to-day job. That. I can't do remotely,

Hannah: Which was true.

Ryan: It was very true.

Hannah: Cause you work on a computer.

Ryan: My job, my job was to stare at spreadsheets.

That was my job. My entire job. Look at the backend of our, of our point of sale system. Look at spreadsheets, do some analysis. I had meetings and stuff like that, but we'll be come to find out later in the story that obviously those meetings did not need to be held in person. And I said I created this system, look at everything that I've done.

And as of right now, my partner, Jill. She has her hands full doing whatever it is that she does. And I'm the only one that can take care of these five tasks. And I had every single task that I did that I solely did. Laid out. And I said, I know how long it takes, and I know how expensive it is to train somebody because I run the payroll I ran the payroll and I done.

It took me months to get trained. And then. I said, it's going to take months for this person to get trained and is going to cost you a lot of money because all the time you're going to have to probably do all of this stuff yourself, because Jill is busy or Jill will have to do it. And now Jill's, work's not getting done.

Hannah: And that's, you're showing your, your value proposition.

Ryan: I was showing him I was laying out. Here's the things that I do. And here's why we're important. And here's why you should keep me on here's how much money you will save.

Hannah: You basically give them a math problem that you'd already solved.

Ryan: And I'm just slowly building my case and he's listening.

At that time, he, he's not super drilled that I'm leaving, but I will say he's in his defense. Bob was very nice.

Hannah: He was a very good, good guy.

Ryan: Yep. He's a great guy.

Hannah: Good dude.

Ryan: Yeah, he was a, he was a great guy and he was excited for my next step in my life and in our life and all that stuff. And but in the end he runs a business and I work for him, so we need to figure it out.

So after. The 15 minutes or so of me laying it out, saying here are the five tasks that I do that nobody else does. Here's how long it took me to learn this job. Here's how long it's probably going to take somebody else on this job and look at all that money. I can do this job from afar, and then he sat back and he said, he thought about it.

And he's just, okay. What is that going to look like? And I said, oh, okay. Luckily I had prepared, I had prepared what it should look like. And I think that that's what everybody should do, is when they're asked that or when they come, when they come to their boss with it, they have an idea of what it could look like.

And like I said, Bob liked to have. Me and Jill in the office, because he liked to be able to have. Control over whether or not, if something went wrong with the money, he would like to be able to just get on the phone, call us up to the office and then we go and we figure it out. There's something wrong with the numbers.

Let's let's, let's figure this out. And so routinely he would call us. He call us up, drop everything you're doing. And we go up there for a two hour meeting and it was just the guy, he was,

Hannah: He was an interesting, interesting man.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think it was

Hannah: He like things done the way he liked them done.

Ryan: Yeah. And I think it was like super this is a little bit, I think it was super inefficient. I think it was like really ridiculous. Cause sometimes I do this too, now that I own a, that I own a business myself, but like we're talking like in error of sometimes. I don't man. I don't know if it was like to the penny or what if it was like sometimes yeah, I was like 49 cents were missing or something like that.

And then we should be able to account for it.

Hannah: Sure, sure.

Ryan: That being said this,

Hannah: It's the man's money, but

Ryan: Yeah. That being said,

Hannah: But it's time is worth more than 49 cents.

Ryan: Right. This business did millions of dollars in revenue a year. We had hundreds of thousands of dollars of expenses a month.

And here we are having a two meeting to find 49 cents. You know what I mean? I'm just like,Bob, this is a rounding error. What are we doing? And anyway, so with that being said, I was like, okay, the way that we run it now, he would like to have us. I acknowledge it. You'd like to have us hear you. You want to have control over that.

I propose in order to save all of us a lot of time on to make it more regimented. I say that we do a meeting every Tuesday and Thursday. We just have a standing meeting and everybody's schedule. Tuesday, Thursday, we have a one hour meeting and we, and we go over whatever it is that we have to go over for the week and then for that next, for the next day, too.

And, and then Monday, Wednesday, Friday Mo every other day or every other time, I don't need to coordinate with him because my senior counterpart is still on property. Still on property, still on campus. And my see, I will just have, I would just be in contact with my senior every day. And he's okay. What was different about what had to happen, which is what amazes me more, why this, why you said yes to this? Was that the hierarchy changed when, when I became a remote worker, because it was, although Jill was my senior, she got paid more money than me. It was very flat.

Hannah: You are equals.

Ryan: We were equals.

Yes, we were equals. So, Although we collaborated on certain things. We had different jobs, but we all went to Bob. We both went to Bob to ask for approvals and get things done and whatever,

Hannah: which is interesting because what you did actually was you forced him to delegate. Authority. So really she became your manager.

Ryan: Yes. With what happened in my, in my remote work you

Hannah: You mean the accounting department more efficient?

Ryan: Yeah. What happened with my remote work set up was that actually Jill got a promotion in title, in title. She got a promotion. She did. She did to skip ahead to the end of the story. She did end up getting a promotion promotion promotion, and she ended up becoming the CIO.

Yeah. But anyway, The I digress. What I said was that I had already talked to Jill. I had of time and I, and I asked you, I said, look, I think the only way that this is going to work is that if, if I do, if I am under you. And I, what is it called? Directed or I am, you are, yeah, you supervise me, I'm directly.

Hannah: She's your supervisor.

Ryan: Yeah. She's my supervisor. And we're like the only way this is going to work because Bob doesn't have the time of day, not like how not, like I can't run to Bob for all these approvals, like how I do 10 times up and down, up and down, up and down to cause we, we, we were on different floors.

Hannah: He had a lot of other stuff to do. I'm sure it actually ended up helping him out a lot.

Ryan: Right. But I was always like, I need your like, I need your approval on this. I need your approval on that. And I, he,

Hannah: He would have approved

Ryan: He didn't.

Hannah: He just needed to let somebody else

Ryan: He didn't need to be involved with those things.

And I knew that she knew that. And so she said, yeah, that's no problem. I think that that's the way that it should be anyway. And so I said, okay, so with Jill on board, I was able to talk to Bob. And say while I've spoken to Jill already. And I think the way that it's going to work is three of us have a standing meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays at two o'clock or whatever it was.

And the rest of the days I report directly to Jill. And her and I, we already have a good flow. We've been working together for five months, every day, sitting back to back,

Hannah: I needed to get along well.

Ryan: Yeah, we already have a good rapport and we will get all the work done, just like how we normally do.

And he sat back and he thought about it. And long story short, he, he said, okay, He said, okay. With the caveat that we can fit, we can finish this at any time. And I wish

Hannah: If I fire you. It's fine.

Ryan: Exactly. And I wish that I had thought of that. I think Tim Ferriss talks about it in his book in the four hour work week that you can just, if you're willing to suggest a trial period, then suggest it.

But I think I just, in the moment I just blanked on a bunch of things.

Hannah: It was impressive that you pulled this off. It was the first time you ever did it. So it was very impressive and it was way before remote work was common. So this was like a trail blazing thing that you did, you know,

Ryan: Atleast for us. For me, it definitely was.

Hannah: I think for a lot of people, especially at that time, it was very uncommon.

Ryan: Definitely. And but yeah, so then he said, okay, okay, Ryan honestly, that sounds good. You're right. He agreed with me because all my points were true. And so he sat on a trial period. We can do it.

And so he bought me a laptop. The loaded it with whatever I needed to load it with a few weeks later, I was, I was in New York and fast forward to them, the story I ended up working for that company for another year and a half

Hannah: You more than doubled the employment time, your, your longevity with that company because of your ask.

Ryan: Yeah, I ended up working for that company for a while.

And the only the reason why I stopped working for that company is because I worked myself out of a job.

Hannah: And you told them that

Ryan: Yeah, it was to do a little side story just to give closure for everybody. I, towards the end of it, I had automated, this is I had improved the system more and more to the point where I wasn't necessary, where it was almost, it was.

Very easy to train other people on. It was very easy to train other people on the couple of other things that I did that only I did in the company.

Hannah: Well you simplified it to the point where an admin assistant took over your responsibilities.

Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was, it was easy. It was that easy at the time that I left.

And so it was amicable.

Hannah: Yeah, it was very good. It was very good partying.

Ryan: It was very good because I, I told you, you don't need me. And he was like, yeah, I don't. I was like,

Hannah: All right.

Ryan: All right. So that felt good. It felt good. Mean. It felt good to work myself out of a job.

Hannah: He got what he needed and you got what you needed, Yeah. And I support that nowadays too.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely, definitely. But so to bring it, to bring it back to negotiating the remote work we're going to want to, this is all with the caveat that you have to have your ducks in a row.

Hannah: Yeah. Definitely. Just to start, you have to not be a shitty employee. You have to be a good employee. You can't be crappy.

You have to be good. You have to atleast be a good employee so that you can even make this case.

Ryan: Yeah. You have to, you have to be a good employee, otherwise not have to, but it's going to be, you're fighting an uphill battle if you're not right. Cause you have to convince this person that

Hannah: Already doesn't really think you're doing that great of a job.

Ryan: Exactly.

Hannah: To give you something that you want slash need. Yeah.

Ryan: And the biggest thing after that. If you do have your ducks in a row, if you are a good employee, figure out what it is that you bring to the team that nobody else brings. I figured out, I figured out the benefits that would happen if you work remotely, Right.

Hannah: For the company first and, and your team.

Ryan: Obviously, obviously all for the company, not for yourself at all. They don't kill it.

Hannah: So it depends on the company. Like if, if it's something that would allow you to remain with the company longer, that is something that it's benefits you, but it also benefits them if they want to keep you.

Ryan: Yeah. But that's what, I'm, what I'm more talking about is like, Yeah, but then for example, one of the, exactly in the same thing in this job in California, I literally drove in traffic for three hours every day to get to work.

Hannah: It was crazy.

Ryan: I had two or maybe three and a half hours every day when I was working regular nine to five, I had to halfway through my five months of being there, two and a half months in, after I had solidified myself, I had to go to Bob and be like, Bob.

Can I start working at seven and work till three? Because instead of cause now that I miss traffic, I was able to shave an hour down on my commute. So I had to move my work schedule from seven three in order to improve my life. But that's not a benefit that I went and I brought to Bob when I was like, yeah, I can, if I work from home, if I work remotely, I can save two hours, three hours of my life.

That's not a benefit that doesn't benefit them. Yeah. And so that's what I'm talking about. Think company focus.

Hannah: Do you think that asking that before? Cause how long was it until you asked him that when you were, since you were working, you worked there five and a half months. When did you ask him?

Ryan: Yeah, I said two and a half.

Hannah: So two and a half months in. You asked for that?

Ryan: Yeah.

Hannah: Do you think that asking that and having him say yes to you also helped him say yes to you again the second time?

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. Probably. I don't see how I couldn't have. I'm glad that I thought about it so I could bring it up. I had already asked him to alter my schedule once and he obliged.

Hannah: And so you had one yes. Under your belt already. Do you think people should try to do that first, ask for it, literally just ask for them to shift their, their work schedule one hour, one way or the other?

Ryan: Yeah that, that could be something, I think, I think if you have a strong enough case. And so it's bringing, let's bring it to today.

If you do not have a work from home or work remotely set up now, then I don't think that you could ask for them either. You usually just go for the whole meat potatoes.

Hannah: Just do it.

Ryan: You should do it. If you have a, if you have. Good enough argument for why you should, you should just give it a try, but I understand why some people would want to maybe try to alter their schedule first,

Hannah: And just tip their foot out on the ice before the jump.

Ryan: Exactly. Because, especially if you don't plan on quitting, especially if you don't plan on quitting and you've never asked for something like that before, because even though, even though I had asked to move my schedule from seven to three, instead of nine to five, I was still scared when I went, when I went into Bob's office, I was still terrified.

But the alternative was that I moved without a job.

Hannah: So it was worth it at that point.

Ryan: Right. And so I think lining up and being able to list the few things that you do and only you do. And then the benefits of working from home, whether that's gonna save them money. Because they're giving you a, a, a lot of companies give transportation, stipends, and you're like, I don't, I'm not, I don't need that anymore.

Hannah: Sacrifice low things on the totem pole to get it. You have to,

Ryan: if you're a lot of people, a lot of people, like if you live in a city, a lot of places give you like the building parking. For free or they'll give you like $300 a month to pay for the prepay for the parking and be like, you can, here's the amount of money that you're saving on all these things.

Hannah: That's a good example.

Ryan: And that's the type of benefit that the company can get out of you. One of the other things, and I think Tim Ferriss talks about it as sick days and I can't.

Hannah: Oh, no. It's it's that it reduces sick days. Cause it does people, people don't use as many sick days when they work from home.

They just don't why, because a lot of times, if you're an adult, you can work when you're sick, if you're home, like you have a cough, but if you just get on a zoom meeting, you're not spreading it to anyone and you can, you can get yourself up enough to do a little bit of work. Most of the time.

Ryan: Definitely.

Hannah: Yeah. So it saves them, it saves them labor. Like they get more labor out of you really.

Ryan: And then after that, you're going to want to have an idea of what it's going to look like. So for me, I'm glad that I had done some thinking about it prior, because then I could. Tell him exactly.

Look, I've already asked Jill that this is how the company structure is going to look after I leave. After I work remotely, this is how it's going to look. And it looked completely different because before it was Bob and then. Jill. And I were right at the same level. And then when I left, I was underneath Jill.

And, but because I put that thought into it and because I had those dominos set up, I could show him and all I had to do was push them over into it and they fell. And so having an idea of what it's going to look like in execution, if that, especially if they don't have. Remote work team already.

Hannah: I think too. Another thing that you did that was key was getting the opt-in from your, the person who would be in charge of you. I'm just saying, Hey, if I were to ask this, would you be okay with doing this or changing your work in this way? And I could see that being high risk, high reward in that. I think that you're undermining them, but I think most people would perceive that as you're considerate enough to say you ask somebody else or inform somebody else your superior, as you're supposed to that, I'm going to take this action.

This is how it may impact you and got them to opt-in to,

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Hannah: Like a respected, trusted senior member of your team.

Ryan: It was the only way work.

Hannah: Yeah,

Ryan: It was the only way that he would have allowed it to work because. Like I said before, it was constant, constant constant. If it wasn't a meeting, it was just go up, go upstairs for for small approval, go upstairs for a small approval.

And when I negotiated work from home, that eliminated all of the approvals that I needed from him and delegated it to her. So huge monumental shift. Of how things were done,

Yeah, but we made it happen. What I didn't do, which I wish I did. It worked out either way, but suggesting a trial period is, could be huge, right.

Especially if you're gonna stay in the town. But I did it. And even though I moved. All the way across the country. And he brought it up we did it. I know it was just, I was okay. And I really was okay with, if he let me go, I'll be okay with it. It is what it is. But if you, if you are not going to leave and you just would rather work from home or work remotely, and you'd just be like, look, can we try out the month of January?

Can we, when the new year, when the new year arrives, can we try out the month of January? Where I, stay from when I stay at home and work from home that whole month. And if not, if they say no to that, maybe you try to negotiate down to a hybrid where you say Tuesdays and Thursdays, I work from home Monday, Wednesday, Friday, they come to the office and let's see how that works.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: And they might say yes to that. That's a little bit more of a reasonable ask alright. Yeah. Let's I don't see, I don't see a problem with that. Let's try that. I think. When it needs to be said, we need to be talking about it because of what's going on in the world right now with COVID. I think a lot of people have been working remotely for the past year and a half. A little older,

Hannah: People have gotten very used to it

Ryan: Over a year and a half. And now people are asking them to come back to the office.

Hannah: And they don't want to go

Ryan: And they don't want to go. I think it's going to be easier for you. To convince them to stay remote.

Hannah: I think that there's a very strong case to do so what, before you've gone back into the office, especially, especially if you know that your performance has not suffered or it has even in a incremental way gone up.

Cause you would just say I'm performing better because I'm working from home. I'd like to keep working from home. It's difficult for them to make the case that you should come back in when you've done the same or better as you were doing before. That's a hard case for them to make even, even if it's policy understand that a policy to a workplace policy is just a suggestion.

If you negotiate around it, you negotiate around it and don't feel bad doing so.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And I think. You, this is all it said that you did do a good job while working from home.

Hannah: If you were a crappy employee who has not been doing your work, do not ask this. They will fire you.

Ryan: Yeah, probably they will fire you.

But don't be surprised that they're like, no,

Hannah: They don't take that.

Ryan: No, you're coming back into the office. Why, really? Why? Pull up reports of your productivity,

Hannah: Because you needed that supervision

Ryan: Right, your productivity, and it's like way down. All right.

Hannah: That's fair enough.

Ryan: Yeah. But if, what if you can prove if, and I think, I think when it's time to have that discussion with your boss, I think you do exactly the same thing that I, that I said, which is you, you, you outline why the company benefits.

Here's what I do here are the company benefits. Here's what it could look like. And let's, let's try to keep doing it maybe for Q1 and Q2 of next year. To see what they say, if not negotiate down to a hybrid. And I think that it's as simple as that, it's that simple. It's not easy. But bill say, but it's simple.

The last thing that I wanted to talk about today is just it's, it's very commonplace to work from home now, but still a lot of people haven't done it. And a lot of people think that working from home is the dream. And in a lot of ways, it's way better. But in a lot of ways, It's also a lot crappier.

Hannah: It's hard. If you don't already have a good social fabric of people, like from your family or your church, or like a group of friends that you already have. Yeah. Make sure you're getting community from somewhere, join a gym, join a sport, do something.

Ryan: One of the biggest things that I struggled with with working from home or working remotely was that aspect of it.

I didn't have community around me and I didn't have. I didn't have friends or anything like that. And so my interactions with people were very, very limited. And so it was very easy to get depressed or

Hannah: You're kinda turn into a cave troll, like not you, but just people in general. Not you.

Ryan: Not wanting to go out, things like that.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: And I think it's one of those things that. If you've never worked from home before, and this is really, this is more for them, but just having things set up in your life outside of work. So after you're done with work, you get off at five or whatever you,

Hannah: Somewhere to go or something to do

Ryan: Something to do, friends to see, family to see, play with the kids, something, and that will help.

Keep you sane.

Hannah: Yeah.

Ryan: Ideally what would we have to learn the hard way and what I had to learn the hard way? Cause I was I was working remotely before you were working years before you were working remotely. And but at the time a lot now had an I, we live in a house. And we, we pretty much are going to live in houses, but.

At the time we had roommates

Hannah: We basically rented a room, so we just lived in a room .

Ryan: Exactly.

Hannah: That's very oppressive.

Ryan: So for me, working from home, you left, you left to go work. Every day and I stayed in that room. And so it was very, very, very not good. And because I had no friends, I had no activities to do.

I had no money. Cause we were living, we were living in an expensive place. And so I would spend eight hours sleeping, eight hours working 16 plus hours in that room every day. And I think it's super important if you can, to. Try to set up a separate room in your house or go to the library two or three times a week.

If you don't have money to go to a coworking or co you know yeah. Coworking space. I think even if it does cost a little bit of money, it could help you stay sane.

Hannah: Yeah. Very much so it's worth it.

Ryan: Get out of that. Get out of the house a little bit. Stretch those legs. Take a walk. And yeah, I just think that is one of the downsides of work from home.

One of the biggest downsides from work from home that exists. Yeah, for sure. And if you don't want to put on pants in the morning, you don't have to put on pants.

Hannah: Nope. And no, one's going to tell you too.

Ryan: And I highly suggest you do. Having, having not put on pants for three weeks straight.

And I highly suggest that you do, but if you don't want it, you don't have to. And that's the beauty and the downfall of it.

Hannah: Yeah, that was a good, that's a good point. That's a good point. People should know that,

Ryan: But yeah, I think that that's pretty much it for this episode.

Hannah: Yeah. If you are wanting to know how to get in on this action and get a job that will allow you to work from home or get a job that then you can negotiate how to work from home.

Then please do go to degreefreenetwork.com. Check out our guide. It's how to get a job without a college degree that will show you how to go about finding a job. Without a college degree and getting good work and getting paid and then make sure, like I said and subscribe to the podcast, it really helps us and we really appreciate it.

Ryan: Yeah, definitely. And as always guys, you guys liked this podcast, please consider leaving us a five star review or a thumbs up on a YouTube or a rumble or wherever it is that you get our podcasts. If you haven't already, please follow us on social media, Twitter, the following we'll leave everything in the links below.

But yeah, if you have any. Comments questions, concerns. Feel free to drop us an email contact, @degreefree.co. Let us know if you have any questions. Maybe we can make a podcast episode about it really helps us out. It helps us come up with content to do but until next time guys Aloha.

Join the Degree Free! Receive exclusive tips, tools, and resources so you can crush it no degree needed:
Newsletter Sign Up - Email Only

Teach Youself. Get Work. Make Money.

We'll show you how in our Degree Free Launch Program
Check out the program
Degree Free Logo White

Are You Ready to Join the Degree Free?

Yes! Sign Me Up!
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram