Thursday, May 1

Digital Nomad in Ukraine

Recently the Economist posted a story on digital nomads, - those knowledge workers who work from anywhere with Internet connection. I can eagerly associate myself with these species. The last 8 years I have spent away from Ukraine have transformed, - and should I have spent them in Ukraine, the time would inevitably transformed me too, - I embraced the nomad lifestyle, I could see that I am attached to goals and objectives and hate the routine of office lifestyle. If I am not that productive in the morning, what is the point of sitting in the office at 8am half-dead? I cannot stay in one place geographically for longer than 2 weeks, getting restless. It is totally fine working from a cafe, or a park, or even from a dodgy Warszawa Zachodnia bus station. But there are two issues.
Firstly, as I am now a manager, would I be able to transmit the benefits of the nomad lifestyle to my teammates, without catching them in the vicious cycle of pressumed freedom from responsibility which is so easily attached to being a nomad? Work is there to be done, - no mater how nomadic one is. And do I have the right to impose my lifestyle on someone? Is it my responsibility to adapt to the habbits of the team or to lead by example?
Secondly, nomads are not always welcomed in the "digital countryside" that Lviv certainly is. Despite having thousands of labourers in outsourcing companies, there is still stigma attached for a digital nomad lifestyle, - stigma of not being serious enough. It takes strength of the character to ignore stereotypes (after all, I do not need to prove anything to anyone over here). However, it is slightly more complicated with friends and family, - after all, my mom still believes that my work is "to stare in the empty screen all day long".
Resume - with a right to lead a nomadic lifestyle comes a responsibility to educate, preach and convert, responsibiltiy to be humble and responsibility not to loose your cultural roots in the cyberspace.

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