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by azinman2 2048 days ago
So right now it's 5pm PST, end of the work day for many. It's 8AM in Saigon.

You really think people are going to work from midnight to 8am? And sometimes later in the morning depending on the situation? And this is going to be a massive trend?
3 comments
dentemple 2048 days ago
Maybe not Saigon, but as a night owl, it's been a dream of mine to be able to slide my 9-5 EST jobs to being 2nd shift jobs, like say in Central or Eastern Europe.

People have different biological clocks, and being able to detach from geography and perfectly tailor your clock to the company's clock, frankly, sounds like good efficiency to me.

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ShinTakuya 2048 days ago
Lots of companies operate across two or more time zones. Yes, it has problems, but as long as you group them together in no more than three groups it generally doesn't get too complicated, and even allows you to not have to have people on call at odd hours.
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kenhwang 2048 days ago
If your company can operate on EST, yeah, the hours almost work out. Lines up even better on India Standard Time.

For PST, central Europe is perfect. 6pm-2am workday is pretty doable.

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azinman2 2048 days ago
The GP said "Especially in Southeast Asia," not Europe.

6pm-2am is doable if you're a) a very late night person, and b) without kids. I don't think this generalizes to a large percentage of people, and it can easily go well past 2am. It's less unreasonable to think people may still be working or responding to something at 8/9 or even 10pm PST, but if that's now 4/5/6am for someone in Europe, that's pretty rough. You'll also not be able to line up your meals very easily.

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kenhwang 2048 days ago
Definitely not for a large percentage of people. Just a significant percentage of the IC engineering workforce. Especially the digital nomad types.

People with kids aren't going to relocate their family internationally unless they already had family roots there.

Anecdotally, the people I personally know that love SE Asia and would seriously consider or already did WFH from there were all in the 20-30s age group and had no problem maintaining US working times. The biggest draw of SE Asia other than the super low COL is that its beautiful outside. The outdoors is best enjoyed during daylight, so the timezone offset is a plus for them.

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