Most office workers dream of working from home. For Ulladulla based remote worker Bec Summers, the opposite is true - she loves escaping to the office.
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"The luxury of working from home is such a privilege but it comes with its own set of challenges," she explains.
Bec works for Business Chicks, a large national membership organisation for women in business based in Sydney. She moved to Ulladulla about 18 months ago, when her daughter Harriet was 10 months old. She now values the times she can walk away from what she calls her "mum life".
"I have a toddler at home so there's a never ending amount of times I can stack the dishwasher in a day, There's always washing to be done and those things are hard to walk away from as a mum.
"When I was staying in the house to work, I was trying to do all those things as well."
One of a growing band of remote and freelance workers using the Milton Work Hub, a shared office space, it's not just escaping the demands of domesticity that appeals.
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The connections she's building when working out of the space comes with social benefits, as well as a boost in productivity.
"It's a real sense that I have moved here and am starting to make a life here while still still working for a company in Sydney."
Before discovering the Work Hub, she felt a little trapped in her own house.
The brainchild of Leonie Marsh, a former film producer who now creates podcasts, the Milton Work Hub is providing a flexible space in which users who mostly work in isolation can now enjoy interaction with like minded people.
Leonie moved to the district with her husband Jonathan and three young sons about 18 months ago.
They hit on the idea of the work hub when a friend who ran a yoga studio in the space in Wason Street announced she was moving on.
People can hire a desk for a day a week or more. The hub also hosts local artists, with gallery opening nights providing opportunities for socialising.
"We've got a really wide range of members. We've got people in coding and software, we've got PR, we've got producers of film and podcasts, we've got ex Googlers come and work and be inspired and focused and also hopefully meet other like minded people," she said. Turia Pitt uses the space a couple of times a week.
"All our members have actually said when they come in for a day their productivity just goes through the roof. They get so much more done than if they were at home because you're so easily distracted . There's always that domestic space calling you back, particularly for women."
But it's not only women who use the space.
"There's quite a lot of dads down here who are working from home. They might be connected back into Canberra or Sydney or even internationally," Leonie said.
Before the Milton Work Hub was established, these remote workers could be found in the library or in cafes when taken by the urge to escape the confines of home."
On the day The Times visited, the space was given over to the Women's Connection, a networking initiative of the Milton Ulladulla Business Chamber.
The energy in the room was palpable as introductions were made and connections forged. For the remote workers gathered, it was an opportunity to tap into the business community and push those professional roots a little further down.
