Yesterday was Independence Day in Israel, so I was not working. One of the costs of working with international suppliers; random holidays. Other drawbacks: time zone differences, and in the case of Israel, a weekend that does not overlap (Friday Saturday here). By the time a west coast client gets in her office by 09:00 on Monday morning, I clocked already two full working days, and will be heading into the weekend 08:00 AM PST Thursday (3 days later).
But the set up has its advantages:
- Overnight turnarounds, send of input, and you will see it all done the next morning you come into the office
- A less stressful workflow, once time zones dictate that you need to organise yourself: I have focussed calls with US clients in my afternoon, and have the mornings to do productive work. There is no opportunity for disruptive, live, last minute changes
- Building on that, an end to time consuming meetings. Input gets collected much more efficiently than in calendar disrupting meetings (maker schedule versus manager schedule).
It turns out that there is virtually no difference in the way I interact with a Tel Aviv or a San Francisco client, apart maybe from that first get-to-know-you meeting.
But: clients self select, people that do not like to work remotely with their suppliers probably do not turn out to be my clients. But hey, the world is a big place.