At some point in March 2021, when the November lockdown had been going on for months and spring just didn't seem to be coming, Andreas Theyssen was fed up.

He met two colleagues in the evening - not really natural, only virtually.

The three management consultants were working from home at the time.

Now they were at least having a beer together across the screens.

"The ceiling fell on our heads mercilessly," says Theyssen.

Kim Maurus

Volunteer.

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So this time their conversation went further than usual. Theyssen and his colleagues decided to run away, get out of their own four walls to leave this endless lockdown behind.

They planned to rent a holiday home on the Spanish island of Fuerteventura for the whole of May.

Still in the home office, but then at least with the sea on the doorstep.

If Theyssen had their way, he would do it again in a heartbeat.

On Fuerteventura he and his colleagues would have continued to work as before, "unfortunately that could not be done from the beach".

Because of the one-hour time difference, it started even earlier.

The only difference was: "We could go out to dinner every evening, that was a highlight after we hadn't seen a restaurant inside for six months."

At 4:30 a.m. in front of the laptop

The property was 300 meters from the beach, and they only really visited it on weekends. But that wasn't the point. "It just wasn't that monotonous anymore," says Theyssen. In the evenings over dinner, they had ideas for their projects, just as they did in the conference room. Your employer, Theyssen says, didn't mind. They only had to fill out a few papers, and the change of scenery couldn't take more than four weeks.

Ingrid Fray could have stayed away even longer than the two months she spent in her home country during the lockdown. The Brazilian actually works for the mattress start-up Emma in Frankfurt. At the beginning of December 2020, however, she got on a plane to South America. “I live alone and couldn't meet my friends during the lockdown,” says Fray. It was summer in Brazil, she visited her family and was able to work from there. She agreed with her boss to fly back to Frankfurt immediately if she was needed.

After two months, however, she made up her own mind to return. “Because of the time difference, I always started work around 4:30 in the morning,” she says. Fray was able to spend the afternoon with her family, but at some point the early morning work was too exhausting for her. In addition, the time change was approaching, after which Fray would have had to get up earlier. Nevertheless, she fondly remembers the time. “I really liked being able to work so flexibly,” she says.

Theyssen and Fray confirm what many office workers have felt in recent months: During the crisis, fresh winds blew through the abandoned corridors of companies.

On the one hand, the pandemic has severely restricted working life.

On the other hand, bosses suddenly nodded to work methods that were previously unthinkable - without wasting time with formalities.

Problems can arise without preparation

"During the pandemic, many companies followed the initial impulse to make working abroad easily possible," says lawyer Tobias Preising from the management consultancy KPMG. So many employees tried the new option that in the meantime the authorities abroad had also become aware of the phenomenon, especially since income could be generated in this way. Preising therefore urges caution. Because working in another country without the appropriate preparation can be problematic.