Life is a series of little journeys and sometimes those journeys, when put together, take us in some unexpected directions.
After four years working for DiUS I found myself in Clency’s office talking about my plan to leave the company. I’d enjoyed working with them. It had been a great place to grow my skills and work with some great people, but sometimes there are more important things in life. I was planning to move to Japan and moving countries naturally meant moving jobs.
Stand up in the Melbourne DiUS office, before the big move
At the end of our conversation, Clency said something like “Make sure you keep in touch. If you need some work after you get settled there, let us know and maybe we can find something for you.” I was happy to hear that sentiment. DiUS had always been very supportive of me throughout the time I’d worked for them and I would have been happy to keep working there had I been staying in Melbourne.
However, at the same time, I didn’t really think that working remotely for a consultancy would work. Why would our clients want a consultant that was based remotely? I didn’t believe that it would make good business sense for DiUS. Shoganai. I set out to find a job in Japan even though I didn’t really believe that I would be able to find a workplace that had provided as much as DiUS had.
Adventures in Japan
Fast forward six months and I was working for a small Tokyo based startup. A company without an office (we worked from home or coffee shops), but a company with a good ethos and a product I could endorse – health and fitness – an area I have a natural interest in. I was happy enough, but not ecstatic. The work itself was not overly interesting and I really missed the culture of shared learning I had become used to at DiUS. But, all in all, I was living in a different country where I hardly spoke the language and I was in a much better position than I had imagined I’d be in six months before.
It was at about this time that I was chatting to Clency again and he raised the possibility of working remotely. Actually, there was a project that they had in mind that they wanted me to join and thought it could work remotely.
It was a startup. The product sounded interesting, the tech sounded good and the team was set to be led by someone I had great respect for. It was pretty much the perfect combination of things that I look for in a project. But I still had my doubts. In a life that had become quite complicated outside of work, my working life was once again pretty stable. Plus, I still had doubts about remote work and consultancies. Should I throw all that up in the air again?
Remote working at DiUS
Undecided, I started chatting to some other people at DiUS. What did they think? Would it work? Everyone I talked to had pretty much the same response, ‘We know you. I think we can make it work.’ It was about this time that I had a revelation. Trust was key. DiUS knew me and were confident that whatever problems we came across could be overcome. I trusted DiUS that regardless of my personal circumstances they would back me and continue to support me.
Running the Mt Fuji marathon!
A company is made up of people and for DiUS, people are their business. Harbouring a community of mutual trust makes good business sense to DiUS. Not only is it essential to our internal operation, but it is also an invaluable message that we should pass onto and demonstrate to our clients.
It was with this awareness that I realised why Clency would want me to work with them again, even remotely.
I also realised that I wanted to work for DiUS again. A company that, for good business sense, puts their people first.