For the first time in over a year and a half at Automattic, I am taking full advantage of the fact that I can work from anywhere. This summer, my husband and I grappled with how to get our kids from Virginia to Georgia and Florida so they could spend time with their grandparents in each state.
We talked about meeting one set of grandparents halfway, then those grandparents meeting the other grandparents halfway again, then sending the kids home from Florida to Virginia unaccompanied on an airplane.
That would have worked, except that it would have cost us more money than we wanted to spend, and it would have created a lot of driving for the grandparents. Plus, my husband and I wanted the chance to see our parents, but neither of us could justify taking two weeks off to visit everyone, plus another week for our own family vacation in August.
Then one day it hit me. Duh. I can work from anywhere. As long as I have my laptop and wifi, I’m all set. I can be the ultimate mom taxi: drive the kids to the grandparents 7 and 15 hours away and get to hang out with everyone in the evenings when my workday is done
So this morning, I worked from my parents’ screened porch on the coast of Georgia. And as a bonus, I got to use my mom’s laptop to test software on a different operating system and browser configuration than I usually use.
I could get used to this.
Andrea Badgley 