With Colleagues Overseas, Time Is Always on Your Side

Over the many years in South Africa when I worked for clients in the U.S., I came to appreciate the benefits of collaborating across time zones. Transatlantic teamwork gives you almost an entire extra workday. So while I was six hours ahead of my stateside colleagues, as is most of Europe, we got into a rhythm that enabled us to work nonstop when we needed to.

The U.S. staff had to make absolutely certain that they attached the files they wanted me to open. Their late afternoon e-mail arrived in my inbox close to midnight, and I opened it long after closing time, U.S. But it usually took only one phone call (”Sorry to bother you at 2 a.m., but no attachment”), and they remembered to double-check the next time. Even better was when they avoided corrupt files and other e-mail annoyances altogether by uploading files to an FTP site, where the files were always accessible and opened correctly.

We had a bit of a buffer, the two or three hours when my colleague and I were both at our desks, if we needed to resolve queries or agree on final touches.

A British graphic designer I know still works for clients in the U.K. He loves working from New York because clients tend to send e-mail at the end of the day, early afternoon his time. He can turn projects around and get a finished product in the client’s inbox at 9 a.m. London time. Makes him look like a magician.

Of course, when he worked in London he sometimes got requests from U.S. clients at 5 p.m. (11 a.m. New York time) with a deadline of COB their time, which meant late night in the U.K. That’s what taught him international diplomacy.