Two summers ago, I interned at Cisco. I worked in the office from 9 to 5 every day — no exceptions. I couldn’t stay late, come in early, or work from home. They were very particular about my hours. I didn’t like that very much. I’m much happier with my current arrangement at Famigo. Working for a startup offers a lot of perks, and one of my favorites is working remotely.

Being able to get out of the office occasionally is important to me. My girlfriend lives about 200 miles away in Dallas. Traveling to see her is a piece of cake since I can just work from her apartment. I set up a desk on one end of her loft so I can do my thing while she does hers.

Sometimes the weather is just amazing and I want to go for a bike ride while it’s nice out. I can take an hour or two off in the middle of the day to head down to the lake and tool around on my bike. When I’m done with my ride, I head back home and finish my work for the day.

I’m not the only one at Famigo that works remotely. Cody has a baby to look after, Matt just got married and moved from Chicago, Q flies around for business, and Shaun helps his fiancée with her research projects. We all have lives outside of work, and it’s nice to be able to live them during “work hours”.

We use a handful of tools to make working from home just as efficient as working from the office. Of course we use email and phones to stay in touch, but we also use Campfire to chat with the whole group. Skype lets us do our stand-ups even if we’re all standing in different cities. Laptops and a remote development environment mean we’re not tied to our desks.