An extrovert's response to the nightmare of remote work

March of 2020 seems a very long time ago. The coronavirus pandemic was roaring to life in the US, and it had arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts where I lived and worked. I was leading an international team of editors, half of whom worked in the Cell Press office in Cambridge near the MIT campus. That month, the goal was to flatten the curve, so that our great hospitals and their heroic staffs would not be overwhelmed by COVID patients. There were no vaccines, and we were still wiping down grocery bags because we knew so little about the transmission of the virus. What we knew was that if we stayed away from each other, we would give the virus fewer opportunities to spread. So, early that month, I asked the team to start working from home. About a week later, the whole company moved to working from home.

My bike at Deer Island in Boston

Long before March 2020, I knew I was something of a unicorn in the world of professional editorial work. My colleagues were (and are) generous and committed and brilliant. I think we all had those things in common. But one thing I didn't share with them was my extroversion. I'm a true extrovert, and as near as I can tell I am one of less than a dozen extroverts in the world who work as a journal editor. I'm joking, but I'm serious when I say that when I became a journal editor more than 10 years ago, I stood out immediately among scores of serious introverts. (True story: our open-concept office had "zones" based on noise level, and I was banned from the quiet area. Not just discouraged. Banned.) And so in March 2020, when there were cute jokes going around about how we could be "heroes" by working from the sofa (Google "couch potatriotism"), I was unamused. Working from home meant that I lost my daily bike ride through Cambridge to a bustling workplace full of my friends and colleagues.

Later that year, we moved to Tucson, Arizona partly to have more space for what had become a seemingly permanent installation of my office in our home. This solved the space problem (my wife is also a professional and also needs a workspace) but it didn't solve the extroversion problem. I realized over the last three years that I don't just prefer to have other people around. I need it to be at my best. It's not that I want or need someone looking over my shoulder. While it is natural and normal for people to be more effective when they are accountable in a group setting, that wasn't the thing I was missing. I was missing the presence of people, from whom I derive joy and energy. And I was missing the benefits of that bike ride, which is not just good for the heart and muscles—it's a buffer, a separation between work and home and a dedicated time for thought.

Several months ago, I started in an exciting new job with a great organization that is fully remote, and my closest colleagues are all in the UK. So, not only am I limited to seeing my colleagues on Zoom, I'm 8 hours behind them. After about noon, it gets really quiet. I guess introverts live for that. I don't. What to do?

Bike at streetcar stop,
temp 110F/43C

Our solution is somewhat radical, at least it seems to sound that way to others. I basically recreated the "commute by bike to the office" world that worked so well for me. Every day, I commute to a great coworking space in downtown Tucson. The space is in a pleasant building that was once a tortilla factory, and bears the name of that tortilla brand: La Suprema. My bike sits safely in a courtyard while I work from a reserved desk. There's coffee and snacks and "huddle rooms" for Zoom calls and there are smart, interesting, energetic professionals sitting nearby. Just like the Cell Press offices in Cambridge. The bike ride is a bit longer, and in the afternoon it's 30 degrees hotter, but it takes me through the campus of my beloved alma mater. When the temps reach furnace levels (as they have for the past 2 weeks), I can cut the ride home in half by taking my bike on the streetcar.

To me, this all feels natural and normal. I'm an extrovert and I love my bike commute and I'm much happier now that my work schedule and environment are more tailored to who I am and how I think and work. The 10.5 mile round trip each day is keeping me young, and the coffee at La Suprema is great. The lesson, I think, is that remote work creates opportunities of various kinds for millions of people. It also creates challenges that we're all still trying to work out.