83: Remote Work with Ash Rhodes

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode eighty-three of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is remote work, so stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Ash Rhodes. Ash, it's lovely to have you back again. The topic for this week is remote work in support. And I know you are a huge advocate of remote work, and I'm sure could fill many a podcast episode, but we're on a tight schedule here. So let's hit the basics.

Ash Rhodes: 0:54

Absolutely. And before we jump in, I also have every intention of talking about the pitfalls as well, because I don't want to brand remote work as the cure-all for anything. And remote work does not work for all uh organizations or for all people and personality types. With that said, uh I I actually pitched this topic to Charlotte, and I did so with the phrase that offices are germ-ridden disease factories, and I mean it. So I just had to uh get that out there immediately. I have been a remote worker for better part of a decade at this point. Um before that, I worked at one of those disease-ridden germ factor germ that one of those places.

Charlotte Ward: 1:47

Um germ-ridden disease factory.

Ash Rhodes: 1:50

That's it. That's it. Thank you. And I I was I was sick all the time. So when I got the opportunity to go remote, for one thing, I didn't get sick nearly as often. I made sure that I still did things like go outside regularly, saw friends. It improved my life and my health, but it also improved my output. I was able to work on my own schedule. I was I was lucky enough to work for Automatic, the people behind WordPress.com at an early stage in their growth. And so I was able to make my own schedule and do what I wanted. I've kept to remote and I now build departments doing so. Um, and so I'm, as you said, I'm a huge advocate.

Charlotte Ward: 2:36

That's a big advantage of remote work and particularly in certai