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February 12, 2025 14 mins

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Get ready for a delightful blend of laughter and insights in this Not Safe for Remote Work (NSFRW) episode! We’re joined by Anna Burgess Yang, a freelance fintech writer, content marketing expert, and remote work pioneer (ABY Creative) who’s been thriving in the remote world since 2006.

Anna takes us on an incredible journey, from being one of the only remote employees at her company to becoming a seasoned veteran long before working from home became the norm. Along the way, she shares some unforgettable stories—like her grueling eight-hour road trips to maintain her marriage as a newlywed and when a coworker got locked out of the house by a mischievous child. And who could forget the epic company meeting interrupted by potty training chaos?

But it’s not all laughs. Anna also reflects on the evolving culture of remote work, the challenges of proving herself in a pre-remote era, and the strategies she used to build a successful career entirely from home. Whether you're a remote work pro or just curious about how the landscape has changed, this episode delivers the perfect mix of humor, wisdom, and inspiration. Don’t miss it!

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Got to hear a story That madeyou red in the face Had you drop
right to your knees Only withouta trace Dog screwin in the
background Little baby manthrowin cake Come on, y'all,
don't go berserk It's all goodhere, hold it Word! Not safe for
remote, word What you've got tosay, not safe for remote work,

(00:26):
eh, eh.
Zoom in day to day, not safe forremote.

Rick (00:32):
Welcome to Remotely One's NSFRW Not Safe for Remote Work,
where we invite employees at alllevels to share their most
outrageous moments while workingremotely.
Do you have a story to tell?
We want to hear it.
You can submit your story atremotelyone.
com forward slash podcast.
Today's guest is originally fromWisconsin and now lives in the

(00:56):
greater Chicago area.
She is a freelance contentmarketer and a journalist.
She also loves taking naps.
Anna Burgess Yang, come on down!

Anna (01:17):
You caught me during my non nap time.
So that's a good thing.

Kaleem (01:22):
Oh studio on and settle down studios they get too crazy
they get too crazy

Rick (01:27):
yes, yes, thank you for joining us.

Kaleem (01:30):
Yes, So wait, you're not napping

Anna (01:33):
I'm not napping right now, but that is one of the

Rick (01:36):
Write this down, how fortunate we are to catch her
during non nap hours.

Anna (01:40):
Absolutely.

Kaleem (01:42):
that's awesome.
Well, Anna, thank you.
It's nice to see you again.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Can you, you know, tell ourlisteners a little bit about
yourself, and then tell us thestory that you have for us.
oh

Anna (01:58):
Yeah.
So, just a very brief about me.
I have been a remote employeesince 2006.
if you want to, if you want tomap that out, that has been a
while.
Um,

Kaleem (02:11):
Oh,

Anna (02:13):
All the way from my first full-time job outside of
college.
I was a full-time.
I was a working remotely.
And now after working at a.
Tech companies for a long time.
And then working at contentmarketing agencies.
Now I'm a freelancer and afreelance full time and provide
resources for other freelancers.
So have not seen an office sinceAugust of 2006.

(02:38):
So, have been rocking the remotelife for a very long time.

Kaleem (02:42):
Congrats.
Congratulations.
Good for you.

Anna (02:45):
Yeah.
So I'd love to share to startwith like a little bit of how
that came about.
Cause everybody kind of thinkslike 2006, like was remote work
even a thing?
You had it.
It kind of wasn't.
So first job out of college, Istarted working remotely for a
financial technology company.
I was living in Wisconsin andthe company was in Kansas.

(03:05):
So I relocated myself down toKansas.
And, but I was also recentlymarried.
I was a newlywed at the time.
My husband was still finishingcollege and he couldn't
relocate.
Cause like at that point incollege, like you cannot, like
you would lose too many credits.
You need to finish out whereyou're at.
And this was such a greatopportunity for me.
I was like, okay, I'm going to,I'm going to go to Kansas.

(03:27):
And I drove back and forth fromTopeka, Kansas.
To Wisconsin every other weekendto see my husband.

Rick (03:36):
how long of a drive was that?

Anna (03:37):
Eight hours each direction.

Kaleem (03:39):
Oh my God

Anna (03:41):
So I would leave on Friday afternoon at 5 PM.
I would drive to Des Moines,Iowa and stay in like a super
eight motel.
Cause that's all I could afford.
I would sleep.
I would sleep until like 6 AM.
And then I would drive theadditional four hours to
Wisconsin to spend about 24hours with my husband and then

(04:02):
head back to Topeka, which was

Kaleem (04:06):
That's love and dedication.

Anna (04:08):
It was incredibly hard.
and so after about six months,I'm like, this is nonsense.
I can't do this is no job isworth this.
So I started applying other jobsand I got a job, in Sioux Falls,
South Dakota, which would havecut my driving time in half.
4 hours instead of 8 hours waslike, perfect.
This is much better.
So I turned in my notice to mycompany.
My manager was like, fine, we'llsee you later.

(04:30):
Bye.
And then I was sitting in anairport because I traveled a ton
for work on top of all of this.
I traveled and so I was sittingin an airport headed to Montana
to work with a client and I gotan email from the chief
operating officer of thecompany.
And she said, we want you tostay.
We're going to give you a raise.
We're going to give you acompany cell phone and we will

(04:50):
let you work from anywhere.
She said, I know that this jobthat you were offered is getting
you closer to home, but I amgoing to give you the chance to
be home.
And so I took, I was like, yes,please.
I called my husband in theairport and I said, I'm coming
home.

Kaleem (05:08):
Wow.
What motivated her to even giveyou that opportunity?

Anna (05:13):
I guess I was good at my job, so

Rick (05:15):
Yeah, that helps.

Anna (05:17):
I was really good.
You know, it was a tech companyand so I, I implemented this
complex software for banks andcredit unions.
And I had a background inbanking, so, she saw in me that
I was an employee worth keeping.
So I wasn't something I askedfor.
It was something that was givento an offer to me.
And so that started my.

(05:38):
Remote work journey.
And for four years, I was one ofonly two remote employees at the
company and everybody else wascentered in the office in
Topeka, but then in 2010, thecompany decided we're going to
open up remote work toeverybody.
And so, that's one kind ofthings really shifted because
before that, it was just me, Ihad to figure things out on my

(05:59):
own, but then the companyeventually kind of caught up and
said, this is great foreveryone.
And then things really changed.

Kaleem (06:06):
Wow.
And were people reaching out toyou asking for your advice and
stuff like that?
And how did you experience thecompany culture change?

Anna (06:13):
It was, it was really big.
Because when I worked remotely,I very rigidly like sat at my
desk from eight to five everyday.
Like I felt like I had, I feltlike I had to, right?
Like I had to, I had somethingto prove.
Like I was given this privilegeto work remotely and nobody else
was.

(06:34):
And so I felt like I really hadto do my job.
And when everybody else was, itwas a big shift.
Like, how do we manage like ourkids at home or not, you know,
not as a home, the kids aroundand how do we manage?
Like, we don't work thesetraditional hours.
Maybe we kind of work when itmakes sense for us,

Kaleem (06:56):
and this is 2010.
So you're talking Skype.
You're talking probably Skype,maybe Webex, maybe,

Anna (07:04):
Webex was a big one.
Um, but you know, back thenpeople didn't expect video calls
and the way they do now.
And so it was all audio.
We finally got a voiceover IPphone system when I started.
They couldn't figure that partout.
So I had like a separate phoneline.
That was a local phone line.
And so if customers wanted totalk to me, they had to like,

(07:26):
call me, call this differentnumber to get in touch with me.
But you know, when the wholecompany went wrong, they're
like, okay, we're going tofigure out how to make this work
for everybody.
And then it became reallydifferent.

Kaleem (07:37):
Pretty cool.

Rick (07:38):
I would imagine.

Kaleem (07:39):
Awesome.
Awesome.
So.

Rick (07:41):
what are the stories do you have for us as remove
worker?
I mean.
You know, it is interesting 2006

Kaleem (07:48):
So you're an OG.
So you experienced all thosedifferent types of technologies,
really forward thinking by yourcompany.
Pretty neat.
So now you're a professional.
So you've experienced all sortsof things.

Anna (08:01):
yeah, so back then a little bit more than now Maybe
the company really like didn'tdid not want to know if you had
kids around in particular oranything You know and part of it
was like professionalism.
We were working with banks andcredit unions We were really
kind of on the hush hush that weworked remotely.

(08:22):
We didn't want them to know thatlike yeah but not like you You,
did not know, you go, customersdid not necessarily know that we
were all working from our homes.
And so it was kind of a spokenslash unspoken mandate that like
you.
You did not have any noisearound, you did not have any
distractions around.

(08:43):
And two things in particular,and I remember both with
involved kids.
Eventually I became, thedirector of the customer success
department.
And one of my employees had likethis critical meeting with her
customer trying to part of theirprocess.
And I don't exactly know howthis happened, but somehow her
kid locked her out of the house.

(09:05):
She, she was outside and her kidwas inside, like pointing,
laughing.
Like,

Kaleem (09:10):
ha! Ha! Got you, mommy! you!

Anna (09:17):
she's running around trying to figure out how to get
back at her house.
She's got this meeting with aclient or customer that doesn't
know that she works from home.
And how do you explain somethinglike that?
And

Kaleem (09:28):
in the house! Let me in the house!

Anna (09:32):
I think now, like kind of collectively, we've, we've,
we've kind of like, okay, peoplework from home, stuff happens.
But it was so hilarious becauseof my mind as I'm hearing this
story kind of unfolding in realtime about how she can't get on
this call because she's lockedout of her house.
I'm like picturing her likerunning around her house, trying

(09:54):
to figure out, like desperately,like emailing the customer from
her phone to be like, I'm sickor I'm something, any
explanation other than what hadactually happened was that her
kid locked her

Kaleem (10:07):
What, had, had, had, had, happened, what had, had,
had, had, happened, is, um, you

Anna (10:15):
her house by her kid.

Kaleem (10:17):
can't tell the truth.

Anna (10:18):
And then the number one that I cannot, I will laugh
about to this day is we were ona all hands company meeting and
the CEO was talking through thecompany financials and how we're
doing and all that.
So we're all remote.
We all were very used to it atthis point.
Well, somebody forgot to putthemselves on mute as,

Rick (10:40):
Love it.

Anna (10:41):
as, like, I don't know how long we all have to be working
remotely before we like figurethis out.
Okay.

Kaleem (10:46):
I mean, all the time.

Anna (10:48):
And he was potty training his toddler,

Kaleem (10:51):
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.

Anna (10:52):
like during the company meeting.
And so we're all cheering onthis call.
Like, come over here, sit on thepotty.
Good job.
And my boss is texting me like,who is that?
We could not figure out who itwas.
Like we kind of did the math, weknew it was male voice.
We knew which males in thecompany had like that age child,

Kaleem (11:15):
so you're frantic because like, he's trying to
give the whole company updateand you have

Anna (11:23):
somebody,

Kaleem (11:24):
Stevie on the phone line good job little Johnny.
You see the poopoo?

Anna (11:29):
yes,

Kaleem (11:29):
You see the poopoo in there?
Is that a poopoo

Anna (11:33):
that is exactly what we've

Kaleem (11:34):
that a poopoo in your diety?
daddy.
You like it?
You see the poop in there?

Anna (11:46):
and without like a system where, you know, like zoom where
you can mute all attendees, weweren't on anything like that.
It was just a Webex.
Yeah.
We had nothing, or the CEO, likewe're just plowing through and
we had no way of muting thisperson.
We were like, who is this?
Yeah.
Who is this?
Oh my God.
And so, you know, life happenswhen you're working remotely.

(12:09):
And sometimes you are pottytraining your toddler while
you're on a company conferencecall.
But at that point, likeforgetting to hit the mute
button as experienced as wewere, it was a couple of years
into it.
We're like, Please make it stop.
Please make it stop.

Kaleem (12:26):
I mean, Rick, I can just totally see this skit
reenactment that we're going todo.
And I'll be the baby, I'll bethe baby.
I wear the diaper guy, I wearthe diaper, but like, it's just,
we haven't had the potty trainon the conference call yet
story.

Rick (12:47):
it was bound to happen.

Anna (12:50):
I'm sure it's happened and nobody else has like heard about
it.
Like heard it at all.

Kaleem (12:55):
Rick, you remember potty training all sorts of, they say
kids say the darndest things.
That's why it's hilarious.
You

Anna (13:01):
yeah.
And every parent is like, Ohyes, I have been there.
Like I've been there where I'mtrying to multitask on the
conference call.

Kaleem (13:11):
Unbelievable.

Rick (13:12):
Yeah.
Now you've opened the floodgatesand invited everybody to tell
that exact story because youknow it's happened to more than
one person.

Anna (13:19):
Oh, I'm sure.

Kaleem (13:20):
No doubt.
No doubt.
Anna, thank you so much forcoming on the show and sharing
your stories.
Where can people find you inthe, on the interwebs?

Anna (13:33):
I am best found on LinkedIn because that's where
I'm most active.
And then from there you can goto my website, go to, you know,
reach out, connect with me, butthat's kind of like a central
hub for like finding me on theinternet.

Rick (13:46):
Awesome.

Kaleem (13:47):
Thank you so much.
We Appreciate you.

Anna (13:50):
Yeah.
Thank you.

Kaleem (13:51):
Awesome.
Come back anytime.
We'll talk to you soon.

Anna (13:54):
Yeah.
Thanks.

Kaleem (13:55):
Peace.
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