Danish couple quit their jobs and now lives as digital nomads in Thailand

[webfact]

 

by Gregers Møller

 

Danish Sophie Schou Jensen and Mathias Lemvig Larsen had a great life in the town of Aarhus, Denmark but have always dreamt of a different working life and more freedom so the couple recently quit their jobs and traveled to Thailand where they currently live as digital nomads. 

 

Sophie Schou Jensen says to BT, “during the pandemic, we started talking more and more about whether or not we should try to make our dream a reality rather than let it continue to be a dream.” 

 

In January, they took the plunge and traveled to Thailand. After Thailand, Australia is the destination and who knows where they will end up after that. They live like digital nomads which means that they work digitally on assignments from Denmark so they can work from all over the world.

 

Full story: https://scandasia.com/danish-couple-quit-their-jobs-and-now-lives-as-digital-nomads-in-thailand/

 

-- © Copyright ScandAsia 2022-02-17

 

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[jacko45k]

Don't let it slip completely mate, a day off to the barber for a shampoo and trim would be good!

[petermik]

Up to them...enjoy life.

[RandiRona]

Sounds more like Dumb nomads than Digital!!

[Henk Langeweg]

So still working then ...but in a nicer office that's true.

[DaLa]

It would be interesting for them to place a definition on 'more freedom'. Everything comes with a price in the long term and it's difficult to predict the positives and negatives especially in a foreign country.

 

Always makes me smile when youngsters talk about work/life balance.  Work is a large  part of your life and can be the part that forms your social life, your enjoyment of life, your quality of life and your funds for later in life. 

 

I wonder how much they will enjoy the sunburn after 8 hours unable to see a screen in bright sunlight.

[Harry Black]

11 minutes ago, DaLa said:

 

I wonder how much they will enjoy the sunburn after 8 hours unable to see a screen in bright sunlight.

I'm taking a wild stab here and say that the photo may have been staged for the article.

[ezzra]

Live it up while you can, but remember, not everything that shines is gold...

[johnnybangkok]

51 minutes ago, DaLa said:

It would be interesting for them to place a definition on 'more freedom'. Everything comes with a price in the long term and it's difficult to predict the positives and negatives especially in a foreign country.

 

Always makes me smile when youngsters talk about work/life balance.  Work is a large  part of your life and can be the part that forms your social life, your enjoyment of life, your quality of life and your funds for later in life. 

 

I wonder how much they will enjoy the sunburn after 8 hours unable to see a screen in bright sunlight.

Spoken like a true Boomer.

 

Work/life balance is a HUGE thing now, with forward thinking employers embracing the concept. I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon). Some are part-time, some also have a second job but all are working from home. Technology today means all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone and you can conduct large swathes of business from anywhere you choose. This couple are obviously tech orientated so why not sit on a beach rather than a freezing cold Danish town?

 

Monday to Friday 9- 5 is rapidly becoming a concept of the past; the future is work when you want and where you want and as long as the job gets done, what does it matter? 

 

 

[mommysboy]

1 hour ago, DaLa said:

It would be interesting for them to place a definition on 'more freedom'. Everything comes with a price in the long term and it's difficult to predict the positives and negatives especially in a foreign country.

 

Always makes me smile when youngsters talk about work/life balance.  Work is a large  part of your life and can be the part that forms your social life, your enjoyment of life, your quality of life and your funds for later in life. 

 

I wonder how much they will enjoy the sunburn after 8 hours unable to see a screen in bright sunlight.

Ok, Boomer!

 

It worked for our generation.  But it simply doesn't now, though there is some truth generally about coming to terms with work.

[MSMU1993]

Narrator: They were really a Viking invasion advance team....

[OneMoreFarang]

I hope they are happy with their way of life.

 

And I hope they won't complain in Thailand or any other country about all those unfair regulations with work permits, visas, paying taxes, etc.

It is easy to work in Thailand or many other countries for a month or two. It is not so easy to do that same i.e. for a year in the same place. If they have i.e. a baby, what will they do? Still move every couple of month to another country to another hotel?

All that doesn't mean people shouldn't try to live the way they want. But it is also a good idea to look at reality and the legal situation. Maybe it is more complicated then you think... 

[Virt]

Nice if it works for them.

 

I think a lot of people would like to move from their own country to work in other countries where the weather is better.

 

Not a lot of them have jobs that make it possible.

[arithai12]

Is this really the most newsworthy story that happened in all of Scandinavia? A couple decided to work online. Wow.

[scorecard]

38 minutes ago, Virt said:

Nice if it works for them.

 

I think a lot of people would like to move from their own country to work in other countries where the weather is better.

 

Not a lot of them have jobs that make it possible.

"Not a lot of them have jobs that make it possible." Very true, and I would emphasis '...not a lot...'

 

Many jobs require daily/many times a day interactions with customers  (7/11 and many other stores).

 

Folks who work on factory production lines can't work remotely as digital nomads.

 

Many jobs require daily/many times a day interactions with other employees.

 

There's also the point that regular face to face communication builds innovation and cretaivity, valuable cooperation and teamwork, and motivation.

 

• Several times my executive MBA students (Thailand, SIngapore, Vietnam and I'm aware of the same happening in Australia) have tried to write their thesis on this very subject. 
• As to be be expected their: surveys, one on one interviews, small group interviews (peer groups/supervisors & management groups) produced comments / points which the students hadn't expected.
•  Example comments / observations from a small face to face group of mid and Snr level managers _{(from different companies - the 10 people in the discussion group didn't know the others in the interview/discussion group and didn't know what industries they came from).}
•  
  • E.g. 'I quickly found:
  •  - Expected output was not fully satisfactory and
  •  - That I needed to spend more time supervising / pushing the remote digital nomads than I wanted to.
  •  - Outputs/submissions from the digital nomads contained very litte/zero innovations or creativity  and when this point was raided the digital nomads mostly commented 'not my job'.
  •  - Trying to get all the digital nomads together in the same room for a six monthly (?) review was a
  •     nightmare and not productive.
  •  - At the request of one then several digital nomads to conduct the six monthly review by zoom or skype was also unproductive - in fact a waste of time.

 

 

For business operations set up to offer: business solutions, improvements in business effectiveness, improvements in operating costs and more, seems to me a team in one locations is much better placed to build/offer/propose suggestions/strategies etc.

 

In many cases to grant a contract for the actual work the client would want to quickly have the solution offerer quickly visit, with their solutions development team, and discuss with the client.

 

In a circumstance like this I would not give a contract to a solutions company who do all their internal work by using remote digital nomads. 

 

Sure lots of things being written about the NEW world of work.

 

Seems to me the world of work is still 90% the same as it ever was but of course with a lot of good/valuable electronic aids.

[DaLa]

1 hour ago, johnnybangkok said:

Spoken like a true Boomer.

 

Work/life balance is a HUGE thing now, with forward thinking employers embracing the concept. I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon). Some are part-time, some also have a second job but all are working from home. Technology today means all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone and you can conduct large swathes of business from anywhere you choose. This couple are obviously tech orientated so why not sit on a beach rather than a freezing cold Danish town?

 

Monday to Friday 9- 5 is rapidly becoming a concept of the past; the future is work when you want and where you want and as long as the job gets done, what does it matter? 

 

 

Ad hominem. Starting off labelling someone is never a good idea especially when that person was programming in Fortran in the late 70's. What does it matter what generation I am from , it's completely irrelevant to my comment on the article. I could write a thesis on the benefits and pitfalls of 'remote working' including the fact that their employer  could at any point come to the very realistic financial decision that  the 'job' can be outsourced to a cheaper supplier.   Of course your 'technology' precludes all the plumbers, builders, refuse collectors, fishermen etc. etc. or are you going to leave all those to be serviced by 'boomers'?

[Live Long and Prosper]

All good fun till someone tells Immigration and the Labour office, ohh they are featured on a mainstream platform!!

 

[John Drake]

Quote

For now, Sophie Schou Jensen and Mathias Lemvig Larsen have planned to be away for a year.

Sounds more like an extended vacation than a switch to being digital nomads.

[Chris.B]

1 hour ago, johnnybangkok said:

Spoken like a true Boomer.

 

Work/life balance is a HUGE thing now, with forward thinking employers embracing the concept. I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon). Some are part-time, some also have a second job but all are working from home. Technology today means all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone and you can conduct large swathes of business from anywhere you choose. This couple are obviously tech orientated so why not sit on a beach rather than a freezing cold Danish town?

 

Monday to Friday 9- 5 is rapidly becoming a concept of the past; the future is work when you want and where you want and as long as the job gets done, what does it matter? 

 

 

Anyone into serious computing will have multi-screen large displays with anti-glare screens, large hard drives, large RAM, fast CPU, full size keyboard and a large size mouse. Sitting at the beach with a puny 13 inch notebook is not high tech! ????????

 

[Pouatchee]

1 hour ago, johnnybangkok said:

I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon).

Show off. Big man, no?

[Pouatchee]

8 minutes ago, Chris.B said:

1 hour ago, johnnybangkok said:

Spoken like a true Boomer.

 

Work/life balance is a HUGE thing now, with forward thinking employers embracing the concept. I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon). Some are part-time, some also have a second job but all are working from home. Technology today means all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone and you can conduct large swathes of business from anywhere you choose. This couple are obviously tech orientated so why not sit on a beach rather than a freezing cold Danish town?

 

Monday to Friday 9- 5 is rapidly becoming a concept of the past; the future is work when you want and where you want and as long as the job gets done, what does it matter? 

 

 

Expand  

Anyone into serious computing will have multi-screen large displays with anti-glare screens, large hard drives, large RAM, fast CPU, full size keyboard and a large size mouse. Sitting at the beach with a puny 13 inch notebook is not high tech!

Sounds like cheap Charlies, and look like cheap hippies

[kwak250]

3 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Don't let it slip completely mate, a day off to the barber for a shampoo and trim would be good!

Yeah think he should go and have a shave and trim as well.

[Chris.B]

9 minutes ago, kwak250 said:

Yeah think he should go and have a shave and trim as well.

Are you referring to him or her, as she is showing a nice bit of leg under the table.  ????????????

 

 

 

[racket]

Most digital nomads I know work every day all the time. That 9-5 became 24/7 all of a sudden. 

[Chris.B]

2 hours ago, johnnybangkok said:

 I currently have 10 people working remotely (and plan on hiring another 10 soon). Some are part-time, some also have a second job but all are working from home. Technology today means all you need is a laptop and a mobile phone and you can conduct large swathes of business from anywhere you choose. This couple are obviously tech orientated so why not sit on a beach rather than a freezing cold Danish town?

What work are your 10 people doing?

 

[mvdf]

It almost sounds like a paid advertisement. Paid for by a certain... oh wait, never mind, i might end up facing defamation charges.

[JeffersLos]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

Mathias Lemvig Larsen

First, My Mate Nate.

 

 

Now, Take a Bath Math. 

[cyril sneer]

lefties

[dj230]

I think this will become the norm soon, im in my mid 20's, moved to Thailand and make all my income online, more than enough to support my living in Thailand. 

[strikingsunset]

How does this all work in Thailand, do these people have/need work permits. Also all the Thailand based  ' you tube ' vloggers' generating  income, just do not get it.