Julie Fritzner has led a dedicated team one of AnswerConnect’s major accounts for the last year and a half or so. Her husband, Aaron, has worked at Camping World for the last ten years. In early 2015, Aaron was offered a big promotion. The new job was parts and service director at the 165-store chain’s Spokane, Washington location. This was great news for the Fritzners, except for one thing: they didn’t live in Spokane, but in Troutdale, Oregon, 373 miles away.
Luckily, unlike so many other couples trying to get ahead, the Fritzners didn’t have to choose between her job and his new promotion, because AnswerConnect works on a distributed model, with most employees working from their home offices. They moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, just across the border from Spokane, where Julie could continue to do her job from their new home, just as she had been doing in Troutdale.
Using a remote working model just makes sense—both for AnswerConnect’s employees and customers. Remote work allows us to hire the best people we can find, rather than just the best people who live within an hour or so of a single call center. It allows us to save money on facilities, and pass that savings on to our customers. Finally, it keeps tons of carbon out of the atmosphere, which is good for everyone.
“I really like my job and the people I work with,” Julie says, “so having the chance to keep that job made it a no-brainer. We didn’t even really have a big discussion.” Aaron moved two weeks after getting the new job, and Julie joined him after a few transitional months of dealing with getting their old house ready to rent. Since Julie and her whole team work from home, she could pack up and move without taking any time off at all. The only days she missed were because of technical difficulties with her new Internet provider. “I can’t believe I said this, but I missed Comcast,” she jokes.
“Having to find another job is not an impossible thing to do, but I can’t imagine being at a job I enjoy anywhere near as much,” she says. Some people have a hard time understanding how Julie can be so attached to her team when she very rarely, if ever, sees them in person. “I don’t have to see them every day to be friends with them,” she says. Giving up her team and fellow leads, she says, “would have been really, really hard for me. Because I can work anywhere, I didn’t have to.”
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(Photo from Tubbs Hill in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho by Emily Poisel via Creative Commons)
