happy. productive. loosecubes.

A Land Without Loosecubes

As a Loosecubes engineer, I am permitted encouraged to pack up my MacBook Air and relocate anywhere a Loosecube can be found. I’ve been studying Russian for almost 2 years, and when I thought about where in the world I might want to spend a few days working remotely, Moscow was my first choice. Loosecubes has locations in 71 countries, so I had lots of exotic places to choose from. Much to my dismay, Russia was not one of them.

How could the largest country in the world not have any Loosecubes? It’s difficult to say, but remember that the fall of the Soviet Union was less than 20 years ago. Despite being taught in schools, English is not spoken by much of anyone older than 20. Tight corporate fists have stalled the growth of telecommuting and coworking, making it a challenge to find shared workspaces.

But I was not deterred. I plunged into a world devoid of loosecubes.com and combed the internet by hand - like anyone would have done before our Founder, Campbell McKellar, dreamed up Loosecubes 18 months ago. I located a new coworking space on the north side of Moscow, mustered up all my Russian skills, and fired off an email inquiring. (“Могу ли я зарезервировать стол в пятницу?” or “Can I reserve a table for Friday?”)

To my surprise, a fast response, including a blush-inducing compliment on my Russian skills, was returned by Alex (the host) the next day. A few weeks later I was zipping through the Moscow subway tracking down Flacon Coworking. Locating it was hard enough but communicating with the host and paying for my desk was a real challenge. I quickly realized one of the many powers of Loosecubes: A quick, painless process for finding, booking, and paying for a space all online make the language barriers virtually disappear. (Do you know how much easier it is to read/write in a new language than it is to speak/hear? Especially with dictionaries and Google Translate if you get stuck!)

Over the next 5 days, not only did I get a lot of work done from a comfortable, productive workspace, but I learned a lot about what we as a company need to do to be more effective in international markets. Plus, I helped Flacon add their space to loosecubes.com, becoming the first location in Russia!

Спасибо! (Spasibo!) Thank you to Alex for hosting me at Flacon in Moscow and for expanding the Loosecubes network to its 72nd country! Together, we are changing the way people work around the globe.

Colin Bartlett is a back-end developer at Loosecubes. He lives in Brooklyn with his two chihuahuas, Loki and Lola. Does the idea of exotic workations around the world intrigue you? Loosecubes is hiring!