Can remote employees work outside of their at-home office?

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to put my laptop on a massive watermelon floatie and work. That was the worst and best decision I’ve made all summer.

Working in the pool meant I got to cool off, get some Vitamin D and get my work done all at once. In theory, it should have been a dream come true. But my keyboard started to get hot about a minute in, so I took the laptop to the shade and ended up working by the pool instead. My grand idea didn’t exactly work out, but still, in a true “work from anywhere” world, there’s no rule written in Protocol policy saying I can’t work from a watermelon flotation device.

But according to HR experts, “work from anywhere” requires some common sense, too.

Whether or not to allow remote work has dominated the back-to-office conversation over the past year. But as more companies let employees work permanently from home, TikToks and tweets have cropped up showing where, exactly, tech workers are getting projects done — at the beach, in a coffee shop, by the pool. And for those who still keep to their home, there are horror stories of people forgetting their cameras were on as they did anything but work (I once witnessed someone complete the full “Rasputin” Just Dance without realizing they had their camera on).