A new term to encapsulate the true power of remote work
Synarchy comes to the remote workplace.
By identifying your value proposition and gaining and understanding of how the future of work is evolving, a worker can take back the power from greedy companies and optimize their lifestyle for financial and personal success.
Hey reader,
Many of the topics I discuss here are inspired by things I watch or read. As such, this week marks the launch of a new resource here at Mountain Remote. In each dispatch going forward, I’ll share a resource in the Community shoutouts section to serve as further inspiration and/or as a tool to help you optimize your remote-first lifestyle.
This week’s essay is all about that optimization.
Community shoutouts
Welcome to the new subscribers since last week’s dispatch! I hope you find value in this week’s essay and encourage you to check out the back catalog.
My buddy Mitko Karshovski publishes an excellent weekly newsletter called Remote Insider. He runs down weekly news in the remote space, covers digital nomad visas and logistics around the world, and shares remote jobs across a variety of fields. I highly recommend it and admit to resharing links from his newsletter here from time to time.
Thanks to the few of you that responded to last week’s essay about e-bikes. Good to hear from others who have found e-bikes to be as much of a game changer as I have.
Now, let’s get in sync.
A new term to encapsulate the true power of remote work
Viewed objectively, remote work is a great equalizer. It widens the job pool for available positions, allowing workers outside of big cities, and even outside traditional tech-heavy regions like the US and Europe, the chance to compete for high-paying knowledge work.
Companies gain a wider web of talent to choose from, and workers regain the autonomy of being able to choose where they live, and with the rise of async work, even when they work.
As I’ve noted in earlier dispatches here on Mountain Remote, I first worked remotely in the fall of 2010, writing a weekly music column for a media website for $50 a pop. As I’ve progressed my career over the past 12 years, the benefits of remote work, such as location independence and the ability to run my workload as I see fit, have hatched a new way to frame my worldview.
Here I attempt to break down how my outlook on the world and my place in it has shifted over the past 25 years, beginning when I was in junior high.
Order is necessary
I came of age in Denver’s punk rock scene of the mid- to late-’90s (yes, I remember the band Pinhead Circus). As a teenager, my outlook was largely framed by going to shows and ingesting the lyrics of often radically-minded bands.
Anarchy, as described by Matthew Lillard’s character Steve-O in the movie “SLC Punk!” is often associated with punk rock, and rightfully so. I wasn’t around for the violence of the LA scene in the ‘70s or the ‘80s, or the heyday of CBGB in New York. The Sex Pistols belligerently trailing Queen Elizabeth’s boat down the Thames was something I wouldn’t read about until 20 years after it happened.
The punk scene by my time wasn’t all about anarchy and destruction. There were far more bands singing about personal relationship issues and suburban isolation than there were singing about tearing down the central state. Still, the scene remained progressive and often politically charged.
I adopted those views, at one point telling a roommate I believed in “communal anarchy.” When asked to elaborate, I described something along the lines of “a bunch of people coming together to help each other, sharing power and responsibilities, and assigning roles to individuals based on their strengths and passions.”
Sounds a lot like an organized society.
In my current middle age, I wouldn’t say I’ve abandoned that outlook. But recently I adopted a new name for it: remote-work-powered Synarchy.
Modern times allow individuals to optimize that order for themselves
The Oxford dictionary defines synarchy as “joint rule or government by two or more individuals or parties.”
Synarchy has been used to describe socio-politcial movements and structures ranging from the internationalization of communist China to the world order of elite governments.
I’m not talking about that at all.
What I’m referring to is a synarchistic approach to doing business, one that gives authority both to the person writing the check and to the person burning the calories/creating the value to earn it.
I believe that remote work is a giant step forward in this area.
Here are a few examples of why:
Because of remote work, people in disadvantaged areas, with disabilities, or from disadvantaged populations now have greater access to jobs or contracts that have historically required a college degree, a smooth resume, and that have been unequivocally easier to gain — in many places including the US — for people with light skin and a penis. Forbes explains more. And, Bloomberg goes further.
This is a result of an ongoing fundamental shift in how companies view the process of fulfilling their needs. This article from Fast Company scratches the surface of this.
The crux of my argument is this: by identifying your value proposition and gaining and understanding of how the future of work is evolving, a worker — be that a freelancer, small-scale entrepreneur, or employee — can take back the power from greedy companies and optimize their lifestyle for financial and personal success.
Synarchy for remote workers
A few notes specifically on contract- and client-based work. The argument could certainly be put forth that companies outsourcing their labor to third-parties and freelancers erases hundreds of years of workers’ rights progress in America. That’s because freelancers generally aren’t entitled to benefits, and many costs traditionally covered by employers — office space, computers, WiFi, software, etc. — are now passed on to workers.
This is true.
However, the traditional work system has long needed a significant overhaul. 89 percent of workers admitted to wasting time at work every day in a recent poll, and said they spend 2.9 hours per day doing non-work related tasks while at work.
Simply adding new strategies or perks to an already burdensome work experience — and wooing employees with lavish holiday parties and social events when they’d rather have a larger bonus or raise — is a practice that needs to die.
Freelancing remotely removes the hierarchy in the traditional work structure. Gone is the need to commute in rush hour to a set place at a set time. Gone is the need to worry about whether your boss is looking over your shoulder. A worker’s performance is judged on results, and pay can be negotiated in kind, without dealing with pre-determined company raise structures.
Case in point: Last winter, I wrote a new scope of work and submitted it for pay negotiations with my largest contract, used this scope of work to negotiate a 30 percent pay increase into my contract for 2022, and then cracked a beer.
Freelancers/contractors gain the ability to add another contract or drop a client that isn’t right for them. This allows for greater control over workload and income.
Working remotely on a contract eliminates the inefficiencies of office work and structure. Most notably, there are fewer meetings and no need to remain in an office until 5 pm even when a worker’s tasks for the day are completed. Work’s done = time to close the laptop.
The contractor gains more autonomy over their life and can more easily change their situation as they see fit.
I completely understand friends who prefer a secure 9-5 job over going it alone. For decades, that was the best way to ensure one is able to provide for their family. In the current day and age, however, this is no longer the case in many industries. The synarchy I describe above allows workers today to retain more control over their professional and financial futures.
For me, given my industry as an editor and writer, I see it as more than worth the sacrifice to forgo traditional benefits in favor of location and schedule freedom, and the ability to alter my workload as I see fit. I make more money this way, while eliminating unnecessary tasks and meetings, and not having to deal with a “boss” or micromanagement.
This means more time with my family, more travel, and more days of snowboarding.
And, because I’m not tied to a set salary from one employer, I can make more money, invest it in companies/indexes and causes I care about, and speed up the trajectory to full financial independence for my family.
Punk rock? In my book.
Mountain Remote news and further reading
EasyMetrics discusses synarchy as it relates to work and leadership, much along the lines as I’ve discussed here, if you want to learn more.
One more angle on today’s topic. Harvard Business Review furthers the argument in this piece titled, “Don’t Lose The Democratizing Effect of Remote Work.”
We close today with a letter to the editor. I wrote this short submission for the Grand Junction Sentinel about the power of solar power to power rural areas and economies.
Thanks for reading! See you next week.