If you recall, yesterday, we discussed why working in Nigeria sucks; both for working for a foreign country(abroad), and working for a Nigerian company. Today, we continue with the various reasons why working in Nigeria especially remotely is bad for one’s health.
So, here, in my opinion, are my last 6 reasons why working remotely in Nigeria sucks:
1. Miscommunication can be very detrimental:
Unlike in on-site jobs, where all members are in one building or within a premise, in some remote jobs, members of staff are spread across different countries, continents, and time zones. Owing to this, miscommunication can be very common.
Therefore, for every remote working environment, policies should be set in place to adjust to these variations and ensure that messages are clear enough to all teammates.
If meetings must be held for everyone, the company must ensure that the time chosen isn’t just in the CEO or MD’s favour, but is suitable to every member of the team. (And this can be very difficult. It sucks).
To overcome this, companies with remote workers should ensure they incorporate good project management and collaboration tools, monitor the process of everyone on the team, and ensure everyone’s on the same page.
2. Work-life balance is a myth:

Most remote workers living in Nigeria, especially techies juggle 2-3 jobs or more. They do this to make more money, to cover up for all the expenses they make on data and power supply. Imagine doing these 2-3 jobs, with each of these companies expecting that you put in 8 hours daily. You find out you end up working all day and have no time to socialize with friends, to rest, or just have fun. On this, we discover that the whole idea of “work-life balance” for remote workers is a Big myth.
3. Bad access to the internet in some areas in Nigeria makes remote jobs quite tiresome:
I had written earlier in this article that as a remote worker, you can choose to travel anywhere you want. Maybe I was wrong! Over the Christmas holidays, I decided to go visit my village, to see my parents and younger siblings. And guess what, I couldn’t survive life in the village for more than 2 nights. I was almost on the verge of dying. 3 days of not working on my PC and doing my job felt like forever! So yes, not everywhere in Nigeria has good access to the internet, so in case you live in such areas, remote jobs might not be a good idea for you. It is annoying and sucks.
4. You don’t get to enjoy holidays and certain staff benefits:
A close friend of mine works as a content writer too, but with a Nigerian-based real estate company. Hers is a hybrid job – as she works from home 3 times a week, and goes to work 3 times. During the Christmas holidays, her office closed officially, there was a Christmas bonus and some physical food items worth a lot of money.
On the contrary, I had no Christmas holidays, no Christmas bonus and when I tried to take the laws into my hands by travelling to my village for Christmas, I almost lost my job. Most staff that work On-site or hybrid, not fully remote, have benefits and entitlement to certain health care facilities and many more.
Maybe this is because remote jobs are relatively new. Most companies are yet to create favourable policies to keep their remote workers fulfilled and very happy. I believe big companies like Facebook and Google do this better.
5. Consistent glaring at computer screens can be very injurious to one’s eyesight:
As part of the setup, while preparing for remote jobs, it’s very important to find ways to create a barrier between your naked eyes and the piercing rays from your computer screens. I never knew or thought this was a thing till very recently when I started seeing hazily and my eyes started feeling. I knew the cause of this and very prolonged staring at the screens without any barrier. Every remote worker must find ways to keep their eyes safe and healthy.
6. Getting paid could be a problem:
As much as I love my job and enjoy the services I render there, I always dread month-ends. Before I became a full-time staff at the company, I did a mathematical calculation of the USD-NGN conversion and was very impressed by how much I was going to earn.
The heartbreak came when instead of the 500 NGN per USD I calculated, my boss, insisted the pay was going to be via Payoneer whose exchange rate was 400 NGN per USD. I felt so devastated for many days. How was I going to lose over 100 NGN per USD? I requested the money be sent via other means, but he seemed very adamant. It sucks.
Aside from me, I’ve also heard of some of my Tech friends talking about how the government clamped down their money from abroad for months; thinking they are involved in some fraudulent activities to be getting paid in foreign currencies.
Most techies found Cryptocurrency as an easier means to send and receive funds over countries. Unfortunately, there are still so many regulations surrounding this.
Conclusion
No matter how challenging working remotely can be, I still love it! It gives me the liberty to be myself and work from my comfort zone.
I think more companies should build a hybrid working environment – let some staff work On-site, while others work remotely.
Some do better when supervised, others do better while at home. It’s not safe to assume everyone is comfortable to work from home, ’cause not everyone is.
No matter the challenges workers face, I strongly know that remote working opportunities have reduced operational costs for companies. It caused a robust growth in employment opportunities for digital marketers around the world.
The only bad thing about this is office culture is gradually waning and getting a full-time job is gradually becoming old-fashioned. It sucks
If employers must expect better productivity at their work, then all these options should be made available for prospective employees; also, an enabling environment must be created for these varieties of employees.