Ryan Schaffer watched the sun rise over the mountains of northern Portugal from the terrace of a refurbished medieval monastery. He sipped his espresso, took his time getting ready, then headed down to join his workmates for their regular morning meeting.
Yes, his workmates.
They
chatted for a while before heading to various corners of the 15th century
building with their laptops. It’s all in a day’s work for employees of San
Francisco-based Expensify, a start-up specialising in the less-than-glamorous
world of expense report management.
Every year
the six-year-old company offers its approximately 50 employees the opportunity
to be flown to a different country to travel and work for a month. Destinations
have included Thailand, Vietnam, Croatia, India and, this year, Portugal.
“We spent a week in Lisbon,
Porto, [in a] monastery called Pousada de Amares, an hour from Braga and
Lagos,” explained Schaffer, the 27-year-old director of marketing and strategy
at Expensify. The trip took people around much of Portugal.There was, he said, generally no fixed place to work, with 35 employees scattered across various Airbnb lodgings, some with their partners and families. The trip also included nightly informal meals with colleagues and a weekly company dinner.
“People are sceptical when we say we work hard during our offshore month, but truly we work more that month than we do when we're back in the States,” Schaffer said.
Where would you like to be taken to travel and work for a month by la Preu?Why? Answer with 200 words.
