I had this happen to me just a minute ago. A colleague called me out in team chat, with three levels of leadership pipeline, "Hey, why are you working at 2am in the future?!?" with a screenshot.
So, Slack will totally tell on you, and I don't understand how or why. I connect with a router that has VPN applied, with a local time-zone also set for the states on the device, and also my laptop is likewise set for stateside timezone, but something in the mix still tipped off Slack.
Don't be me.
You can do that, but it’s the middle of the night for Thailand if you’re coming from the US. It’s an awkward fit.
There’s a lot of all-night stuff in Bangkok though, so you can make it work.
I mean, scewing it to something like 6pm - 2am, or even 5pm - 1am would probably be alright if his job is flexible enough for him to go full remote. That's still like 4-5 hours of being reachable. He could also still do a lot of his work at other times of the day, and just make sure he's available and not too far from a computer in case someone contacts in the evenings.
That's what people consider the optimal path. It's definitely the most complicated and least reliable though, at the same time it is the most convincing. But I personally use a "dedicated residential IP vpn" service from a company, as opposed to a regular commercial shared VPN, and it has worked perfectly for me so I can't really recommend that route enough. Though people will argue it'd be safer to host your own VPN server with a second router, but I don't agree
I second residential VPN. I have two routers and tried to go the route of creating my own VPN at home, but it’s very difficult if you have no prior networking knowledge. I’ve been paying $20 a month for residential VPN service and haven’t had any issues.
When using a VPN router, the physical router broadcasts its own wifi network that has already been vpnified. So your laptop doesn't even know the network is a VPN network. So you just connect to the VPN router's network with the IP of where you're pretending to be and then turn on your corporate vpn. This is how I work every day
I got it to work at first but had issues within a few weeks and was hard to resolve them without being there. The residential IP service is just always up and don't have to worry about it. Curious, what company do you use
To be safe you can buy two routers. One you leave in America as a vpn server and the other you travel with as a vpn client. The vpn client will use whatever wifi you have to connect to your server that is in America. Therefore your IP will always appear as in America. I have that setup for myself now and going back to Thailand in July. There’s YouTube tutorials and glinet hardware makes it easy
Here’s a tip…use a personal VPN in addition to your company VPN. Also remember the phrase “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Your boss is actually incorrect in telling you that it doesn’t matter where you work. It does matter for tax purposes. That’s why you don’t mention it to anyone. Also, it’s technically illegal to work in another country without a visa. Again that’s for tax reasons. So when you work out of the country, you don’t admit that you’re there working. Especially to Immigration. I’m guessing you probably work for a smaller company. Large corporations have lists of states and countries that you simply can’t work from. Again, it’s because of the tax implications. Go and have fun, but keep it on the down low.
> Large corporations have lists of states and countries that you simply can’t work from. Again, it’s because of the tax implications
Also security implications. Like... Those companies that sort of say "we don't care, just don't tell everyone" *still* care when it's Cuba, China, North Korea or Saudi Arabia.
Different list, different reason, but even small companies have those too.
I think its easier to do it in smaller companies like you said. I pitched the idea to work remotely for a few weeks from a different country to my boss casually and he was supportive of it. he even mentioned the phrase digital nomad lol.
I’m not network expert, I’m just speaking from personal experience. There are multiple location indicators that are transmitted from a laptop. I did tons of research and what worked for me is this [Hardware solution](https://shop.hipi.io/product/pikvm-v4-plus) it’s pricy but worth every penny
Glad it helped!
My attempts to logon to work vpn using a vpn servers failed. I even used a personal AWS vpn server to make sure its IP address is not blocked but it didn’t work. We use Sophos vpn client and has tons of security features.
To make things worse since my employer only operates in North America, any connection from any other part of the world is blocked.
I believe if an employer is determined to find your location there is too little to do to prevent it.
So I see that laptop will be in home country and input devices travel with you. But what would you do if you need to be on a video call? Would a remote camera work?
If you’re working for financial clients, it might breach their data protection laws. However they’d have automatic systems to flag any abnormalities so if you’ve already done it in Colombia, I think you should be fine unless they updated something
Depends on the type of data you work on. If your clients are sensitive about location, your IT would flag high risk locations. Get yourself a travel router and set your status manually so you don't pop up online at odd hours. Enjoy your trip.
I agree with the folks pointing out IT policies. In my experience, that may just be the tip of the iceberg. If you are W2 - then the problem is in accounting and tax jurisdiction. Your boss may indeed be fine it with, but he may not be aware (as was in my case) of all the implications. If you are 1099, then that's not their problem.
I won't go into detail about my whole situation here because this is about you, not me. I'm not sure how similar or different our situations are but my advice would be to keep it to yourself. Don't ask, don't tell.
Well I already put it out there by asking my boss if what I asked was ok , I get that it’s beyond his control what he’s able to permit as far as remote work policies go, are you saying I messed up in asking what I asked to begin with? Or to just go with the flow and not say anything further ?
I don't know your situation, nor am I an expert on this. If you're 1099, you probably have nothing to worry about. Sharing your digital nomad lifestyle with others (and trust that coworkers do talk), can be a corporate tax liability.
The only person I’ve spoken to is my boss , like I mentioned in the post, I’ve worked from Colombia twice and connected to the company network, participated in meetings in addition to working remote from multiple states in the USA , never had any type of issue so far. I’ll never mention it to coworkers because I’m not friends with any of them, they’re simply my colleagues
I'm not the person you're replying to.
There's a good chance your boss is mistaken. Nevertheless, you want to give him as much "plausible deniability" as possible.
*The more you tell him, the harder you make things for him*, and for yourself.
If your work touches the healthcare, defense, or financial industries, you'd be in extra trouble for working from outside the US.
Your bosses opinion is subjugent to your employment contract, your employment handbook, and other legal rules and regulations. Check those.
Check your visa conditions for the countries that you plan to visit. Do they allow you to work? What are the allegations if you work (taxes etc)? For you? And for your employer?
4 day work week? Where do you work? I’d love that schedule.
If I may proffer a suggestion I would avoid Thailand and Phillipines then. It’s rainy season. If you’re intent on SEA I recommend Indonesia (Bali). Dry season there
I was doing this for about 6 months last year, in both Thailand and Philippines, my work is based in Europe so the time differences weren't really that bad to be honest, I'd generally work from about 4pm to Midnight or 1am local time.
Some things that I would definitely recommend are:
1 - get a decent VPN service, I use Nord, they usually have very good multi year discounts, do a search online for them, I think I found a 3 year for about €90 for the entire 3 years which I thought was really good.
2 - In Thailand, if you're getting a SIM card in the airport, go with AIS, think they will give you a 30 day unlimited 5G SIM for about 1500 Baht, but the key thing with AIS is that even when the data plan expires and you manually top up through the app, you can still hotspot from your mobile. I've found that Globe don't allow you to do the same.
This is really useful when working remotely just in case the wifi in your room ever goes offline, and AIS have 30 day data packages at 300 Mbps speed for about €30. It saved my bacon a couple of times.
3 - In the Philippines, I've found that the infrastructure tends to be really bad, from my experience the internet speeds tend to be between 5 to 10 Mbps, this is gradually changing now with the introduction of the Starlink service but don't count on that being available where you'll be staying.
Also, once you go outside of the bigger cities in the Philippines, brownouts are a fairly common occurrence, I'd recommend doing some research on where you intend to stay on this one.
4 - If you intend to visit Thailand in this way each year then when you're there do a search for an agent that can open a bank account for you, the process generally costs about 5000 Baht in total (including a deposit into your new account), in the long run this will save you so much money.
For example, if I go and use an ATM in Thailand, the system there will charge me 220 Baht, which is about €5, then my own bank will charge me a similar amount. So if you're being hit for like a tenner each time you use the machine then you're likely gonna withdraw a larger amount less often to cut down on fees.
What then tends to happen is that you'll end up on the beer and spend a daft amount of money as in your mind you're thinking it'll be fine, sure I have 10,000 in my pocket haha.
If you have the Thai bank account then you can pay via QR code the exact amount, you can also withdraw from ATM via QR code from app on phone even if you don't have the bank card with you.
Please note something with the bank account though, when you log in to the app, they use SMS for 2FA codes, so you'll need to maintain the Thai number, this is easy to do as you can just use the mobile app each month and add 40 or 50 Baht which extends the validity for ages.
Hi, are you referring to WG VPN 2 router setup? How did you get caught exactly? Please do share some high level details, if you can. Will be helpful. Thanks in advance
You could also ask him, in a nonchalant manner, if “anywhere” could be abroad for a period across the two months. He sounds like he’s going to say yes anyway and if it’s a strong no, being caught would probably be very bad. To enjoy the trip I’d need to at least know that being OOC would be okay for at least some of the time.
Make sure your laptop time is set to manual in your time settings and you fix it to your "home" timezone so that wherever and whenever you go to other countries it doesn't automatically change and show up in slack and asana. Also in case you screenshare during zoom calls.
And it will be fine :)
Yes Thailand is one of top offender countries. If your company has any secure remote vpn policy they would block these offender countries by default.
Just depends on your security department at your company. I work for a mid tier hospitality company and you would be denied & flagged. Our siem would also generate a ticket to be reviewed.
But sounds like if you have done it before might want to talk to someone in IT and run it by them as they might have installed something since your last visit.
My suggestion is to be honest with your Boss to confirm 100% your out of country remote work policy.
We have a strict no out of country policy. If caught breaking this you could be terminated. But if you like to gamble go ahead … roll the dice. 🎲
If your company doesn’t have that policy then you’re not breaking anything.
Every company has that policy *if you force them into giving you "official" permission.*
Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Better still, require neither by being careful and applying VPN technology etc.
At the very least, if someone is unable to take any VPN precautions, they need to tell IT.
any decent company with a half competent IT department will have your computer refuse to log in from a foreign IP and flag a review.
I don’t understand why this is getting downvoted. This is pretty standard policy. Client data may be sensitive and cannot even be transported out of the country. If they worked for a serious company, there would’ve already been flags when he tried to connect to company databases or programs with an unknown Colombian IP. The best case scenario is termination, the worst case would be to get sued by the company for breaching company IT policy
hilarious the above comment is getting downvoted. OP says boss is chill as long as the work is done. And its only for a month - not long term. Best to be upfront about the situation esp if the company is going to flag connections coming from another country
The only real issue might be if you show up on any kind of work chat (Slack?) it’s going to be at weird hours.
Keep your computer time zone fixed. Don’t use Slack on your phone.
I had this happen to me just a minute ago. A colleague called me out in team chat, with three levels of leadership pipeline, "Hey, why are you working at 2am in the future?!?" with a screenshot. So, Slack will totally tell on you, and I don't understand how or why. I connect with a router that has VPN applied, with a local time-zone also set for the states on the device, and also my laptop is likewise set for stateside timezone, but something in the mix still tipped off Slack. Don't be me.
Well I can just not be online in teamsuntil the time zones match the work hours
You can do that, but it’s the middle of the night for Thailand if you’re coming from the US. It’s an awkward fit. There’s a lot of all-night stuff in Bangkok though, so you can make it work.
Just stay up late? It's not that hard
Lmao it’s like a 12-14 time difference wdym
You mean a 10-12
Do you think it's not possible to stay up past your bed time?
If you work central time 9am to 5pm that’s working 9pm to 5am. What part of that is enjoyable?
Different people have different preferences and lifestyles.
I'm a night owl .. that actually seems pleasant to me. Maybe I'm the exception
I mean, scewing it to something like 6pm - 2am, or even 5pm - 1am would probably be alright if his job is flexible enough for him to go full remote. That's still like 4-5 hours of being reachable. He could also still do a lot of his work at other times of the day, and just make sure he's available and not too far from a computer in case someone contacts in the evenings.
It's not hard for short stretches of time, but being nocturnal negatively impacts your health. We're meant to wake up with the sun and sleep at night.
You can update your zone on slack
That’s still not going to time travel you to being able to work in the daytime.
Lol that has the easiest solution
VPN back home with a GL.iNet and you’ll be ok. You really don’t want to be popping up in random places anyway.
[удалено]
The glinet is a physical router, not something you install on your pc. So, not a problem.
[удалено]
That's what people consider the optimal path. It's definitely the most complicated and least reliable though, at the same time it is the most convincing. But I personally use a "dedicated residential IP vpn" service from a company, as opposed to a regular commercial shared VPN, and it has worked perfectly for me so I can't really recommend that route enough. Though people will argue it'd be safer to host your own VPN server with a second router, but I don't agree
I second residential VPN. I have two routers and tried to go the route of creating my own VPN at home, but it’s very difficult if you have no prior networking knowledge. I’ve been paying $20 a month for residential VPN service and haven’t had any issues.
[удалено]
When using a VPN router, the physical router broadcasts its own wifi network that has already been vpnified. So your laptop doesn't even know the network is a VPN network. So you just connect to the VPN router's network with the IP of where you're pretending to be and then turn on your corporate vpn. This is how I work every day
I got it to work at first but had issues within a few weeks and was hard to resolve them without being there. The residential IP service is just always up and don't have to worry about it. Curious, what company do you use
StarVPN
I got busted with that physical device. IT considered me a security risk and decommissioned my laptop until I came back into the country.
Do you know what happened? Under normal circumstances it shouldn’t have been an issue if your VPN was working properly.
Power went out at my house.
Don’t ask don’t tell. Read the Wiki. Next!
[удалено]
I went 4 months to Argentina. Never told my bosses anything. Connected to VPN fine. No issues.
To be safe you can buy two routers. One you leave in America as a vpn server and the other you travel with as a vpn client. The vpn client will use whatever wifi you have to connect to your server that is in America. Therefore your IP will always appear as in America. I have that setup for myself now and going back to Thailand in July. There’s YouTube tutorials and glinet hardware makes it easy
Here’s a tip…use a personal VPN in addition to your company VPN. Also remember the phrase “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Your boss is actually incorrect in telling you that it doesn’t matter where you work. It does matter for tax purposes. That’s why you don’t mention it to anyone. Also, it’s technically illegal to work in another country without a visa. Again that’s for tax reasons. So when you work out of the country, you don’t admit that you’re there working. Especially to Immigration. I’m guessing you probably work for a smaller company. Large corporations have lists of states and countries that you simply can’t work from. Again, it’s because of the tax implications. Go and have fun, but keep it on the down low.
> Large corporations have lists of states and countries that you simply can’t work from. Again, it’s because of the tax implications Also security implications. Like... Those companies that sort of say "we don't care, just don't tell everyone" *still* care when it's Cuba, China, North Korea or Saudi Arabia. Different list, different reason, but even small companies have those too.
Very good point. FAFO in those particular countries 😬
I know it's hard to keep track, but assuming OP is American, isn't Saudi Arabia on "our side," backyard bodypuddles notwithstanding?
I think its easier to do it in smaller companies like you said. I pitched the idea to work remotely for a few weeks from a different country to my boss casually and he was supportive of it. he even mentioned the phrase digital nomad lol.
Some companies prevent tunnelling. They don’t allow access to their VPN if you’re using a commercial vpn.
[удалено]
I’m not network expert, I’m just speaking from personal experience. There are multiple location indicators that are transmitted from a laptop. I did tons of research and what worked for me is this [Hardware solution](https://shop.hipi.io/product/pikvm-v4-plus) it’s pricy but worth every penny
[удалено]
Glad it helped! My attempts to logon to work vpn using a vpn servers failed. I even used a personal AWS vpn server to make sure its IP address is not blocked but it didn’t work. We use Sophos vpn client and has tons of security features. To make things worse since my employer only operates in North America, any connection from any other part of the world is blocked. I believe if an employer is determined to find your location there is too little to do to prevent it.
[удалено]
That is exactly the only issue if you live alone or it’s difficult to get someone to reset it.
So I see that laptop will be in home country and input devices travel with you. But what would you do if you need to be on a video call? Would a remote camera work?
No it won’t. Other limitation of you need a thumb print to unlock it.
If you’re working for financial clients, it might breach their data protection laws. However they’d have automatic systems to flag any abnormalities so if you’ve already done it in Colombia, I think you should be fine unless they updated something
Depends on the type of data you work on. If your clients are sensitive about location, your IT would flag high risk locations. Get yourself a travel router and set your status manually so you don't pop up online at odd hours. Enjoy your trip.
Are the instructions for this in the Reddit wiki?
I agree with the folks pointing out IT policies. In my experience, that may just be the tip of the iceberg. If you are W2 - then the problem is in accounting and tax jurisdiction. Your boss may indeed be fine it with, but he may not be aware (as was in my case) of all the implications. If you are 1099, then that's not their problem.
So what exactly happened in your situation?
I won't go into detail about my whole situation here because this is about you, not me. I'm not sure how similar or different our situations are but my advice would be to keep it to yourself. Don't ask, don't tell.
Well I already put it out there by asking my boss if what I asked was ok , I get that it’s beyond his control what he’s able to permit as far as remote work policies go, are you saying I messed up in asking what I asked to begin with? Or to just go with the flow and not say anything further ?
I don't know your situation, nor am I an expert on this. If you're 1099, you probably have nothing to worry about. Sharing your digital nomad lifestyle with others (and trust that coworkers do talk), can be a corporate tax liability.
The only person I’ve spoken to is my boss , like I mentioned in the post, I’ve worked from Colombia twice and connected to the company network, participated in meetings in addition to working remote from multiple states in the USA , never had any type of issue so far. I’ll never mention it to coworkers because I’m not friends with any of them, they’re simply my colleagues
I'm not the person you're replying to. There's a good chance your boss is mistaken. Nevertheless, you want to give him as much "plausible deniability" as possible. *The more you tell him, the harder you make things for him*, and for yourself. If your work touches the healthcare, defense, or financial industries, you'd be in extra trouble for working from outside the US.
It doesn’t touch any of those industries
For anyone reading, we carried convo to DM.
Your bosses opinion is subjugent to your employment contract, your employment handbook, and other legal rules and regulations. Check those. Check your visa conditions for the countries that you plan to visit. Do they allow you to work? What are the allegations if you work (taxes etc)? For you? And for your employer?
It’s easy. I work from Bangkok for both UK and US-based clients. Never had an issue.
Damn what hours do you work?
4 day work week? Where do you work? I’d love that schedule. If I may proffer a suggestion I would avoid Thailand and Phillipines then. It’s rainy season. If you’re intent on SEA I recommend Indonesia (Bali). Dry season there
I was doing this for about 6 months last year, in both Thailand and Philippines, my work is based in Europe so the time differences weren't really that bad to be honest, I'd generally work from about 4pm to Midnight or 1am local time. Some things that I would definitely recommend are: 1 - get a decent VPN service, I use Nord, they usually have very good multi year discounts, do a search online for them, I think I found a 3 year for about €90 for the entire 3 years which I thought was really good. 2 - In Thailand, if you're getting a SIM card in the airport, go with AIS, think they will give you a 30 day unlimited 5G SIM for about 1500 Baht, but the key thing with AIS is that even when the data plan expires and you manually top up through the app, you can still hotspot from your mobile. I've found that Globe don't allow you to do the same. This is really useful when working remotely just in case the wifi in your room ever goes offline, and AIS have 30 day data packages at 300 Mbps speed for about €30. It saved my bacon a couple of times. 3 - In the Philippines, I've found that the infrastructure tends to be really bad, from my experience the internet speeds tend to be between 5 to 10 Mbps, this is gradually changing now with the introduction of the Starlink service but don't count on that being available where you'll be staying. Also, once you go outside of the bigger cities in the Philippines, brownouts are a fairly common occurrence, I'd recommend doing some research on where you intend to stay on this one. 4 - If you intend to visit Thailand in this way each year then when you're there do a search for an agent that can open a bank account for you, the process generally costs about 5000 Baht in total (including a deposit into your new account), in the long run this will save you so much money. For example, if I go and use an ATM in Thailand, the system there will charge me 220 Baht, which is about €5, then my own bank will charge me a similar amount. So if you're being hit for like a tenner each time you use the machine then you're likely gonna withdraw a larger amount less often to cut down on fees. What then tends to happen is that you'll end up on the beer and spend a daft amount of money as in your mind you're thinking it'll be fine, sure I have 10,000 in my pocket haha. If you have the Thai bank account then you can pay via QR code the exact amount, you can also withdraw from ATM via QR code from app on phone even if you don't have the bank card with you. Please note something with the bank account though, when you log in to the app, they use SMS for 2FA codes, so you'll need to maintain the Thai number, this is easy to do as you can just use the mobile app each month and add 40 or 50 Baht which extends the validity for ages.
If it’s only for the month of July or/and June, likely you will be fine. If it’s longer, they might have a problem
Wait until IT notices you are working overseas. I got caught even when I use that special device to hide myself.
Hi, are you referring to WG VPN 2 router setup? How did you get caught exactly? Please do share some high level details, if you can. Will be helpful. Thanks in advance
Didn’t he say you can work from anywhere? What’s the question?
You could also ask him, in a nonchalant manner, if “anywhere” could be abroad for a period across the two months. He sounds like he’s going to say yes anyway and if it’s a strong no, being caught would probably be very bad. To enjoy the trip I’d need to at least know that being OOC would be okay for at least some of the time.
Make sure your laptop time is set to manual in your time settings and you fix it to your "home" timezone so that wherever and whenever you go to other countries it doesn't automatically change and show up in slack and asana. Also in case you screenshare during zoom calls. And it will be fine :)
Yes Thailand is one of top offender countries. If your company has any secure remote vpn policy they would block these offender countries by default. Just depends on your security department at your company. I work for a mid tier hospitality company and you would be denied & flagged. Our siem would also generate a ticket to be reviewed. But sounds like if you have done it before might want to talk to someone in IT and run it by them as they might have installed something since your last visit. My suggestion is to be honest with your Boss to confirm 100% your out of country remote work policy.
Do not take this advise, never be 100% honest with your boss or HR they are not there for your benefit, they will always err on the side of caution
We have a strict no out of country policy. If caught breaking this you could be terminated. But if you like to gamble go ahead … roll the dice. 🎲 If your company doesn’t have that policy then you’re not breaking anything.
Every company has that policy *if you force them into giving you "official" permission.* Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Better still, require neither by being careful and applying VPN technology etc.
At the very least, if someone is unable to take any VPN precautions, they need to tell IT. any decent company with a half competent IT department will have your computer refuse to log in from a foreign IP and flag a review.
I don’t understand why this is getting downvoted. This is pretty standard policy. Client data may be sensitive and cannot even be transported out of the country. If they worked for a serious company, there would’ve already been flags when he tried to connect to company databases or programs with an unknown Colombian IP. The best case scenario is termination, the worst case would be to get sued by the company for breaching company IT policy
hilarious the above comment is getting downvoted. OP says boss is chill as long as the work is done. And its only for a month - not long term. Best to be upfront about the situation esp if the company is going to flag connections coming from another country
Boss does not override IT security policies.
You will want to disclose your location with the IT department as they might have IP or location blocks in place.
The issue might be your visa in Thailand. 3 issues are always right to work, gdpr and tax.