This is day 3, and there is no power supply! Where do I go from here? How do I complete my shift? I have 40 hours per week of deliverables before I can get paid for the month. The shift manager would do his calculations before I got paid. This I don’t have control over since we have software counting time on my system. Remote work is trending in advanced countries, and it is becoming the new norm of work. It has changed the way people work.
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Here, I share accounts of challenges that we encounter doing remote work in Nigeria:
1. Trust: We have trust issues among ourselves in Nigeria. An average Nigerian worker is not trusted by their manager. And when a manager doesn’t trust their staff, that triggers danger. The staff, in turn, would not trust them. To do remote work here, some companies would collect almost all kinds of documents from you, which include your data and privacy. Some would install all kinds of software, which are monitoring tools, without proper consent. And this is a breach of privacy. There is no point in working with people you cannot trust. The essence of remote work is to be flexible and not rigid.
2. Cost of buying data: Since the increase in fuel subsidies, we haven’t understood how internet data works. Either the data doesn’t last or it is very slow. This has led to the loss of jobs and not being able to meet deadlines. Some apps require heavy data usage, like Zoom and the rest. And this can translate into spending beyond budget at the end of the month. As if 10K data cannot serve its purpose. You must subscribe to all networks and start switching to the available ones. This is extra spending.
3. High price in smartphones: A good smartphone that is manageable now in Nigeria starts at 100k and above. You can’t use a mid-range phone for remote work. I mean phones below 50k, which are like 1GB or 2GB of RAM and 16GB of ROM. You can’t get some applications to stay on it without hanging, resulting in inefficiency.
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4. Price Hike of MiFi and Router: Any remote team would tell you that you need stable internet to get your job done. You can’t use your phone’s mobile hotspot to connect to the internet without being disrupted. If a call comes in a meeting, your calm will be on hold, and you might miss some important points during the conference meeting.
5. Environment: The importance of staying in a very quiet environment cannot be overemphasized. When you stay in a noisy place, you won’t be creative enough to produce or deliver. And this can make others uncomfortable with you during an important meeting. The environment that some of us find ourselves in is usually characterized by noise from generators, noise in the community, loud music from the neighbours, and other unwanted noises that cannot be comprehended.
6. Lack of power or shortage of power supply: Like I said in the introduction, just imagine not having light for 3 days. Sometimes for no reason. There was no communication from the regulatory power company. Sometimes they would tell you a transformer got blown! And sometimes it is on and off. And all these have a serious impact or damage on the devices that we use. Power banks are not recommended as a means of putting power into our mobile devices, likewise, generators. All these pose recent challenges!
