Escape from the stand-alone game of the big factory, I make money remotely in the world amusement park.
While you are writing PPT in the office, Alaska sturgeon is jumping out of the water …
The former advertising words have poked the soft underbelly of countless migrant workers.
Nowadays, writing PPT and watching Alaska sturgeon jump can happen at the same time.
With the internationalization of talent flow, the globalization of office space and the increasing integration of work and life,"digital vagrant"This emerging group is on the rise. They enjoy unprecedented initiative, flexibility and sense of control in working hours.
According to the data of the global recruitment platform Bossjob, since the third quarter of 2023, the number of candidates seeking long-distance or mixed work arrangements has increased significantly, with a growth rate of seven times. A survey of over 3 million active job seekers based on this platform shows that about 32% job seekers are actively seeking remote job opportunities.
According to a report released by MBO Partners, the number of digital vagrants in the world has reached as high as.35 million, and is expected to break through the 1 billion mark in 2035.
More than 40 countries around the world have responded positively by launching digital visitor visas.At least 15 European countries such as Germany, Spain and Greece have joined the ranks.
There are also more and more "big manufacturers" who choose to leave their jobs to become digital vagrants, start living around the world and realize geographical arbitrage. In Little Red Book, # How to become a topic with high activity such as digital vagrants has accumulated 200 million+views.
"When you work in a big factory, you will feel that there is only one stand-alone game to play in the world, but after you don’t go to work, you will find that there are many kinds of games to play in this world."
This is the inner portrayal of Sherry, a female worker in the third factory. After three big factories, Sherry has too much say in digital vagrants.
"Although the big factory is good, don’t be greedy."In her view, this is just a bigger grass-roots team. I thought I could "build a plane" before I went in, but I found it was "screwing" after I went in."After playing a game, you can’t cheat your own brain. You don’t have to be promoted and raised in a big factory, and it’s called landing. "
Being a digital vagrant, while making money and career, experiencing life and exploring the world, Sherry feels completely stretched.
Fang Fang often thinks, what is the significance of living in the world? Her answer isDeeply experience the charm of life in different regions"Only by going out can we reach the Cape of Good Hope and get the cheat sheet secretly sent to us by the universe."
Digital vagrants don’t have to worry too much about job opportunities. According to Gartner’s survey, as many as 82% companies plan to include more policies related to telecommuting and digital nomadism for their employees in the future.
This paper will focus on those digital vagrants who make millions of dollars a year but bravely choose to leave the big factory, and feel how they go forward bravely in the pursuit of freedom and dreams, and what unprecedented challenges and puzzles they have encountered.
First, there is finally no "class smell" on me.
"I didn’t expect to be so lucky. The first time I dive, I actually opened my face with the long-tailed shark."
After two weeks in Malatu, Indonesia, Emily realized the freedom of diving. She saw long-tailed sharks, sea wolf storms, Czech storms, leopard sharks, dolphins, jellyfish, and helped turtles hatch their eggs. In her eyes, Maratu is cleaner than Semporna, and has a kind of unique and independent beauty.
This is Emily’s 200th day of resignation as a digital vagrant. Her previous job was as a marketing manager of the world’s top 500 multinational pharmaceutical companies with an annual salary of one million. But a "class smell", there are endless meetings and endless phone calls every day.
And now,Her life is mainly diving,Two dives in the morning and one dive in the afternoon,Give Chinese lessons to foreign students remotely through the online platform at noon and evening.Near dusk, go to the deck to bask in the sun, while listening to submarine missile guitar singing, while watching the sunset, you can also chat with potential friends from all walks of life about their experiences and life.
As a digital vagrant, Emily found a job as an online Chinese teacher, who can take classes while watching the world. As long as there is a signal, she can take classes anywhere. In the kitchen of Thailand B&B, in the self-driving car to Xinjiang, in the diving dock, on the suitcase of the wooden house at sea … ……Emily keeps unlocking new scenes of telecommuting.
After becoming a digital vagrant, Ye’s whole body and mind have been healed while traveling and working.
I traveled around the world with my backpack for 154 days, passing through 18 countries on 5 continents, diving in the Antarctic for my 30-year-old birthday, hiking in the Himalayas to see Rizhao Jinshan, taking a romantic hot air balloon in Turkey, and seeing half the city and half the grave in Sarajevo.
And six months ago, she was still deeply involved in the involution, PUA, serious internal friction and various red lights in her body. Health and millions of annual salary are placed at both ends of the scale.
"What I hate is not work, but going to work."
Ye Zi’s previous work in the big factory was not complicated in itself, but the complicated procedures and office socializing made her exhausted, such as dealing with colleagues to confirm the landing, holding large and small meetings to promote the process, and even preventing people from making small moves behind their backs and being required to go to the toilet for no more than 10 minutes.
Just like a new factory prison, there is a monitor overhead to prevent employees from fishing and chatting. In addition, there are various KPI, OKR and other performance evaluations.
"The annual salary of millions of Internet manufacturers is really fragrant, and it is really necessary to change it." After a struggle, she decided to choose naked resignation as a digital vagrant.
"I suddenly feel that the whole world is much cleaner and simpler, and I don’t have to deal with many meaningless people and things."
For Xiao Xincheng, a 34-year-old programmer, being a digital vagrant for telecommuting,It is also an effective solution to the "35-year-old crisis".
Xiao Xincheng was once a "child of other people’s family", and he got nearly 40W annual salary and stock benefits from a famous school as soon as he graduated. However, after the first few years, he found himself in a technical bottleneck and needed to be sublimated, but the endless overtime made him have no time to study.
With the influx of more cost-effective "post-waves", Xiao Xincheng, 34, was forced to "graduate" because he couldn’t keep up with new technologies and couldn’t compete with young people physically.
"Everyone in China thinks that 35 years old will be a watershed in the programmer’s career." At this awkward age, Xiao Xincheng went out to look for a job. After being a "favored son of heaven" for so many years, he encountered the "Waterloo" in life for the first time.
In order to distract himself, he took his resignation gift package and started his life as a digital vagrant living around the world.
Soon, he found a remote job overseas through the online platform. This company is American. Americans think that age is a private matter, and they don’t care too much about age in interviews and workplaces. Xiao Xincheng Many American colleagues, aged 40 to 50, are still engaged in front-line development.
Moreover, he was pleasantly surprised to find that after becoming a digital vagrant,Can save 28 hours of commuting time in a week,It takes more than 1000 hours a year, which gives him more time to pursue his interests and dreams.
Second, the compulsory course of digital vagrants, first learn to "disenchant"
However, there is no denying that digital vagrants are not as beautiful as they thought, and they will also encounter various problems.
The first lesson of becoming a digital vagrant is to learn to disenchant the "digital vagrant".
Freedom of work, freedom of time, freedom of place, freedom of movement, these seemingly attractive labels, in fact, hide a lot of risks.
Digital vagrants still have to live, rent a house, eat, and deal with the odds and ends in life. For remote workers who rely on the network, a stable network environment is even more important.
Emily is a teacher of Chinese as a foreign language and needs to teach foreigners Chinese online. Before living in Thailand, the network signal was too bad, and the class was always intermittent. No way, Emily had to move the computer to the kitchen of the hotel, because it was closest to the router.
Personal protection is a great need of digital vagrants.Without social security, many digital vagrants are generally weak in their ability to resist risks and are in a state of "safe streaking".
The lamb accidentally wrestled abroad and hit her chest. After a few minutes of violent impact, she had difficulty breathing and her scalp was numb. She squatted on the ground for a long time before she stood up.
After more than a week of continuous pain, the lamb went to check and found that two ribs were cracked, and she had to rest with a waist for 2 months.
Although the expense of travel insurance has been settled, Lamb also realized that he can no longer be in a state of "streaking" and has provided himself with millions of medical care, accident insurance, critical illness insurance and life insurance.
Self-discipline is a big challenge for digital vagrants. Without a fixed commute time and a clear work framework, the boundary between work and life becomes blurred.
Greater freedom is behind more self-discipline. But this is a struggle against human nature, and it is not easy to do.
After Xinda became a digital vagrant from naked resignation, a big factory, he began a period of "indulgence". He often played games and brushed his mobile phone until the early hours of the morning, and his biological clock was disordered and his work efficiency was low during the day, which made him feel miserable.
Sherry used to be deeply influenced by "non-self-discipline", but she quickly adjusted herself and chose a place with a strong working atmosphere to Push herself with "heteronomy".
At the same time, I am constantly familiar with exploring my own working clock and making reasonable arrangements to improve efficiency. Aware that she will be more efficient at work at night, she will do input for learning in the morning, work for output in the evening, and rest and play in the afternoon.
Every day, Sherry will make a work plan in advance, which is not very difficult, and will also use a fun activity as a work Deadline for herself, such as making an appointment with friends for dinner. Then you will try to improve efficiency for dinner appointments.
In this way, Sherry can finish a day’s work efficiently in two hours a day, but her income has tripled.
What Li Xinran faces is more.Pressure from parents.
In the eyes of parents, digital vagrants are "unreliable" vagrants. It is better to go back to a small town in my hometown to take an examination of a civil servant or a teacher, and get married and have children as soon as possible. For parents’ opinions, Li Xinran chose "not to listen" and can blacken his parents if necessary.
There are also unavoidable anxiety problems.
After Mengxi became a digital vagrant, she was particularly happy that she finally got rid of the "class taste" and found the wilderness of life. However, after three months of sweet period, she gradually fell into "wilderness anxiety", which once affected her daily life.
"Who ever thought that naked resignation was depressed before, but he was anxious after naked resignation?"
Meng Xi is frank, and he will want to go back to work during the six months of being a digital vagrant. For example, when there is no traffic, there are only three praises from the media a day. When the efforts are fruitless, when the income is unstable, when you can only eat, sleep and work in one place every day.
She calls this stage "snake molting". Every month, she nests in the corner, doing nothing, feeling the vitality slowly shrinking and disappearing, and then after reaching a node, new skin emerges and lives again.
Similarly, in order to avoid anxiety, Xia Mengren will meditate at the seaside every morning, observe breathing attentively, and feel the state of every part of his body. Every time he finishes meditation, he will feel as if his whole body is charged.
Third, my peace of mind is "making money"
Of course, digital vagrants are most anxious about money. After all,Poetry and distance are very expensive, and the pursuit of dreams and freedom is inseparable from travelling expenses.
"In fact, if you jump out of the framework and put down your face, you will find that there are really many ways to make money." Emily combines her own experience with that of digital vagrants around her. Many digital vagrants will cultivate themselves into "fish with many claws" and there will be many income channels.
Digital vagrants make money both offline and online. Off-line, many digital vagrants usually focus on experience and try different careers.Make money with your love and expertise.For example, market stalls, bar singing, teaching yoga and so on.
Fangfang chose to set up a stall in the streets of Australia to sell handmade ornaments. In the eyes of people around you, this is all about "Amazing". After all, Fang Fang used to handle tens of millions of projects, but now she will fight for an extra 50 yuan in booth fees and market hosting.
In Australia, Fangfang is increasingly talking about the word "hourly wage". Even the invitation interview, her first reaction is:Yes, but you have to pay by the hour.
More digital vagrants will look for jobs online through remote platforms.According to Statista, 17% of global digital vagrants are employed by telecommuting companies, and 83% are self-employed or freelancers.
Online platforms include platforms such as Remote.co and Bossjob, platforms focusing on freelancing such as Upwork and Freelancer, and comprehensive job-hunting platforms such as LinkedIn and Boss Direct Employment.
There are also many digital vagrants,Rely on the contacts accumulated in the past, and take orders to find a job through mutual introduction and internal promotion of "people of the same mind".
Alex is one of them. He is about to be promoted to a nursing father and wants to find a job that can balance work and life.
However, considering the age of 30+, it will cost a lot of time to find a job with a salary or an increase before Cover in China, so it is difficult to divide time for life.
Moreover, combined with his own background and technical advantages, Alex also made a rational evaluation. "If it is a general-purpose iOS, I will go to a senior level, or a level like P7, I think my industry field will be narrow."
After comprehensive consideration, Alex feels that it is more suitable for him to skillfully use geographical spreads to find jobs for companies in Europe, America and Singapore to support remote services.
Beilu, on the other hand, found himself enjoying the state of "working while traveling" during the 10-month freelance exploration, so he consciously went to look for a remote job and found the current overseas technology startup company.
Bellow revealed that a business plan project takes about a week and earns 1,000 to 1,500 dollars.
Time is free, so is taking orders. "The income is not bad. Compared with the previous factory, the salary can be doubled."
But there is no denying that,Finding a reliable remote position is not easy.
Lucas, who works in Web 3, has a deep feeling that he faces many problems when he is looking for a remote job. "All kinds of information on some platforms are mixed, and you will worry about whether the company is reliable. There are also some platforms that have fewer domestic jobs and need to spend a lot of time looking for them. "
Emily stepped in the pit in this respect. There is an unreliable platform for teaching Chinese as a foreign language, and the class fee can’t be withdrawn, which makes people angry.
In ord to find a reliable opportunity,Alex specially wrote a crawler to climb various technical communities and LinkedIn."As long as you find the relevant position, you will automatically email me, and I will check it immediately."
Xiaoyu "happened" to find a job in the digital vagrant community. "I just shared the copy I just finished with my partners, and I wanted to get a key and three links. I didn’t expect to get a job."
Xiaoyu was originally from the brand PR, and she is very familiar with all kinds of copywriting. The copywriting she just shared happened to be seen by Ellie in the group. Ellie is currently operating for an overseas company, just as a new product is on the line, and she needs to write a handwritten promotion copy. Before, the two had interaction in the digital homeless group. This "timing" was just right, and the two hit it off and started a "win-win" cooperation.
of course，There are also many digital vagrants who have chosen to realize from the media.Xia Mengren is one of them. In her view, self-media account is a bit like the logic of saving money-saving a little every day will inevitably add up, because it has compound interest.
When the road from the media went through, Xia Mengren found that the money earned by working in a big factory for so many years was not as much as that earned by digital vagrants in recent months. More and more, she feels how inefficient it is to make money by packing all her time and selling it to the company.
"It is impossible to get money at work, and going to work will only affect the speed of making money." Xia Meng people sincerely expressed their feelings.
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If you had a time machine, would you choose the past or the future? Some people choose to go back to the past, while others choose to go to the future.
In reality, everyone gave the answer.
Some digital vagrants have chosen to return to the big factory for a period of time;
Some people "never go to work in this life", pack up their bags and fly to the next destination;
Some people find new projects and start businesses in this process;
Some people return to the workplace again and make screws again.
As Fang Fang said, life is like a huge open-world game. You can choose to do the main task, get promoted and raised in a big factory, or choose the sideline treasure hunt, such as being a digital vagrant and exploring freelancing.
Many people have asked Sherry, where are you going next?
She can’t answer this question, but she knows that she will never stop exploring the world.
(The interviewees in the article are all pseudonyms)
