Sent Home
Andrea Battenberg worked as a digital artist for a well-known company in Thailand. She had been stationed there for three years. When the job was offered her, she grabbed the opportunity right away.
Recently divorced, she took the posting thinking she had to move away and experience something new. She said goodbye to friends and family, and flew to Chiang Mai, where her company had a small building formerly used as a rice warehouse. She had little expectations. All she wanted was to gain new experiences and meet new people. When she arrived in her room for the first time, she knew she made the right decision. The shadows of the past that used to hunt her by the minute disappeared. She felt, for the first time since the divorce, free to do whatever she liked. She had taken over her life once and for all.
Home away from home
Chiang Mai is a beautiful city in Northern Thailand. The mild weather and friendly people drew thousands of foreign nationals from all corners of the globe for work and vacation. In fact, Chiang Mai is popular with a growing group of working people called “Digital Nomads.” Andrea met five of them on her first night and they explained to her who they were and what they did in life. Digital Nomads are mostly freelancers working with flexible working hours, they said. Being mostly paid in American dollars, they travel to Asia where the exchange rates are high. And there they stay and live in luxury. The idea appealed to Andrea. She fell in love with their business model, and for a brief moment, she considered joining this new way of working.
The next day, she woke up early and decided to explore the place. The city, she said, was paradise on earth. It’s true it isn’t near the beach, but it sure has its own unique charms. The seemingly endless mountain ranges, rice fields, and peasant huts made the place enchanting.
After a couple of weeks at work, she realized that despite Chiang Mai being beautiful; she felt she wasn’t given a chance to take advantage of the city. Working hours were long. The couple of hours she could spare to explore the city after work were usually spent at home for rest. She often finds herself unable to go out with her new digital nomad friends because she had to wake up early the next day.
It was pointless, Andrea said, thinking her new life was becoming like the life she desperately wanted to run away from. And then, covid hit.
Covid
There were talks about a possible virus taking over the world during their Christmas party. Her digital nomad friends were also talking about it. She shrugged it off and didn’t pay it any attention. She was busy deciding whether to go home for Christmas or not. In the end, she decided to stay. The break at work, she said, she would use to relax and explore Chiang Mai.
It was a beautiful afternoon, and for the first time since she started working in Thailand, she went home early. She was walking along a street full of bars and restaurants when she got an alert from Twitter saying that the country announced its first corona virus patient. The virus arrived in Thailand.
Few cases were reported after that, so she deferred her plans to go back home to England. By March, Thailand declared a State of Emergency. She booked a flight, but to her horror, all flights were cancelled a few weeks later.
She was trapped.
Trapped in Paradise
All employees were sent home. No one must go to the office and leave their houses. Provisions were sent to her, including her office computer and digital art studio equipments.
While preparing the house for an area to work on her projects, two huge packages arrived from Vietnam. It had her company’s name on it side by side, a company named Flexispot. She received it and started opening the boxes. To her surprise, she realized her company had sent her the Adjustable Standing Desk Pro Series and the Soutien Ergonomic Office Chair.
She Googled Flexispot and saw that the company is dedicated to creating office furniture and equipment designed to help people do their job and take care of their health at the same time. It sounded interesting, so she wasted no time and started setting up her home studio.
Working with Flexispot
Andrea couldn’t ask for a better adjustable standing desk and ergonomic office chair. Working with Flexispot changed her working life.
She used to have two traditional working desks in the office, one for working while seated on her traditional office chair, which gave her backaches. And another one near the window for working while standing up.
With her new adjustable standing desk, she didn’t two desks. With a click of a button, her traditional-looking desk can adjust its height and serve as a standing desk. It was like magic, she said.
Her old office chair she gladly gave to one of her digital nomad friends. The ergonomic chair from Flexispot was like sitting inside a Rolls-Royce car seat. It was the most comfortable chair she had ever used. In the past, she had to stand up and give her back a break. Now, with her Flexispot office chair, she can sit for extended periods of time and she wouldn’t get any pain from her lower back.
Contented
Working at home during the time of the global pandemic is made comfortable by her new adjustable standing desk and ergonomic office chair. With the fantastic view of the rice fields from her window, she could quietly focus all her energy on creating digital art.
To date, she was able to go home to England for a quick break. But she had to go back to Thailand. There was nothing compared to Flexispot office furniture. Other desk and office chairs gave her lower back pains. Not with Flexispot’s ergonomically designed office furniture and equipments.