Working remotely, coworking spaces, and mental health
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We have a bunch of style of remotees; work from home, work from coffeeshop, work from coworking spaces and work from a new place every day.
I've tried all of these styles, starting with work from home, then getting super depressive from loneliness and getting a coworking space (DO pays for it), then realizing I didn't use it and instead working from a mix of home, coffeeshop, and random visits I pay to my friends. And now I've been switching to mostly working from the crazyest settings I can think of. I worked from camping spots, from a sailboat, in a national park, on a beach in Asia, and it all works out once you're used to "travelling from anywhere".
I'm having the best time of my life by experimenting with what it really means when your ability to feed is now decoupled from your physical location. I feel like I'm living in a future that maybe more of the people will have the chance to live soon, and that it's my duty to find a "Theory of Working In The Future". My first theorem is "Don't stay home everyday else you shall go crazy".
Also, think about the implications of OneWeb and the constellation that SpaceX has been working on; I'm thinking "what if I could get low latency/high bandwidth internet from the middle of any ocean"? The future looks bright.
[edit]: just realized I'm kind of praising my employer a lot here. My comment isn't meant as recruiting spam, tho I think DO's great to remote folks. Also we're building massive distributed systems everyday and it's fun. So uh... check this out? http://grnh.se/wv3fgo
In general for remote positions, we look for people who've done it successfully before (or some shape of something like that - for instance I had experience as a research assistant for a prof from afar), or that have a lot of experience in their field of expertise.
(note: I'm an engineer, I'm not really involved in hiring stuff, so take what I say with a grain of "needs to be confirmed by competent authorities")
I think this has a bunch of advantages over other techniques for this kind of lifestyle.
I would love to receive some emails (myusername@gmail.com) or comments talking about oneweb, and the freedom it could provide for people who like this kind of lifestyle. Some testimonials that there are actually people considering this.
I spent ~5 years remote at a larger company where the vast majority of employees were on site. Needless to say, the culture didn't adopt any "remote best practices". I worked from home during this time, and am probably somewhere similar on the social spectrum as the author: some aspects of introversion and extroversion. I think the frequent meetings and synchronous communication with colleagues is exactly what kept the job from feeling too isolating during that time. (However, meetings were TOO frequent for productivity).
Some basic tips: mosh shell, international 4G data plans, dvcs and local dev/testing vm (with vagrant etc) for working autonomously in chunks, etc.
I envy you that you can do it. Having young kids makes things like that more complicated. Still possible, but not optimal.
I live a somewhat similar lifestyle( although not as extreme as gp ), I have 2 cats which that I leave with my girlfriend when I fly out.
>I envy you that you can do it.
I sometimes regret not having a structured lifestyle and warmth of family. I am envious of my friends with kids who are going with the flow of life and are not living in existential dread. It's a classic human dilemma of freedom vs security.
I've been working remotely in a semi-nomadic manner for a few years now, and while on average I have no desire to give it up, this sentiment definitely pops up from time to time.
I find I oscillate between a desire to be in a place where nobody knows my name, and places where I'm (relatively) well known.
Working remotely grants me the opportunity to adjust my location and lifestyle accordingly.
We tried to stay in each place for at least a week at a time.
We're wanting to settle down a little more now so we can have a stable social life and do more things like gardening, but I also know someone who has 3 kids and lives out of an rv with his family.
Now that our oldest is about start kindergarten, we're more interested in staying in one place so she can make longer lasting friends, but when they were younger it was a lot of fun. The sweet spot for us was when they were too young to walk and could ride in the carrier for hours on end, or old enough to walk well and be interested in more activities and places. In between was harder: not wanting to be carried, but not really capable of walking for more than a few hundred feet at a time.
I read this so often and can't understand it. It's like most people never get friends outside of work. Like they never grew up and are still in the 'I can only get friends at my school/class'-mindset from when they were young.
The best people I know I met at places of my choosing, not at work, not at school.
I work remote because my private life is so demanding and I couldn't get it work with 40h in an office.
60 hour weeks and a young family will do that. I literally don't have a single friend outside of family members. I'm also suffering from bipolar depression but it's either support my family or be happy. I'd rather they be happy. I guess.
There's your first problem. Stop overworking.
I don't think it's friends. It's the large number of causal acquaintances that most jobs deliver.
And so, of course, it comes as no surprise that people look to work to fill a lot of their social needs, and that coworkers play a big role in not only their job, but their life satisfaction.
I've been volunteering with a community theatre this year, which gets me out of the house after work most week days. My mood goes up about 10x when I do this. During the month or so downtime between plays though, things start going bad again.
I'm also involved with some other meetups/clubs and do piano lessons. Putting together a deliberate schedule of "outside activities", at least for me, is absolutely necessary to make it work.
And I would still never go back to working in an office!
One thing I did for a while was to rent a little office with two other freelancers a few bicycle minutes away from home. That was the best setup for me. You go out in the morning but still control your work environment.
Webex/Hangouts/GTM is fine for 90% of the banal, communication meetings. But it really fails for any design meetings that need a whiteboard. I have tried getting my team to use some alternatives, but there is always some eye rolling, and it never sticks around. It doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit. Also I haven't found an app that can compete with the tactile feeling of a physical board.
Also I feel like I miss out on the "water cooler" talk. Any sort of communication I have is very formal. My team doesn't like using chat casually, so it really hampers my ability to form relationships with them.
Finally, time management is an issue. When you have an office, its much easier to turn on and off. When I am at home too many mornings start late, and too many evenings run long.
I do wish that Microsoft would have standardized on thunderbolt 3 as opposed to the surface connector, but between power and all the compatability problems I suppose I get it.
It doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit.
You can even mix on a day-to-day basis, as long as you follow the same schedule. One office had a general practice of everyone in the office Mon-Thur, and then everyone teleworked on Friday. It was great.
The office I'm in now, though, has some people teleworking one day a week, and working four 10s so they're off completely on Friday, and some others working five 8's, in the office every day. It's murder to schedule a time when everyone has access to the same interaction tools.
I have a friend I meet for beer on a Thursday every 3 weeks, Family and the Missus occupy the rest, and the sliver of time I have remaining goes to personal dev / gaming.
I don't recall ever caring about being lonesome, so I don't think I got used to it as such.
Everyone is different for sure, but I too would never go back to working in an office!
Like everything in life, working remotely has tradeoffs. One person's pro is someone else's con.
Pro: I potentially gained hours of my life back every day. I know many people who work for similar companies who spend more than an hour commuting every day. They take less-desirable jobs and leave behind their coworkers just so they can get an hour of their life back and reduce their commute from 2+ hrs to 30 minutes.
Pro: I can disassociate my COL from the company's choice of office location.
Pro: I can cook food in the crock pot on a regular basis without worrying about my house burning down.
Pro: I can walk my dogs during my lunch break (or pick up food from the grocery store or run some other errand).
Pro: (subjective) My coworkers competence is higher than what I typically observe from companies that limit their hiring pool to people who live within a few minutes (or hours) of one office building.
Pro: I can and have worked from a hammock, a camper van in a state park, a car on a road trip, and a cafe in Paris.
Pro: No requirement to waste literally hours of my day in bullshit pre-lunch planning, post-lunch coffee, etc. When I'm onsite I'm happy to spend lots of time on watercooler talk, but I'm not obligated to do it every work day.
Pro: I can go hiking on my lunch break.
Con: I don't see anyone but my spouse. I have to go to additional meetups in order to make up for this.
Con: Not as much face time with execs. This can matter politically and for your career.
I've been working 100% remote for 5 of the past 10 years, and part-time remote the other 5, and in none of this time have I gone stir-crazy or felt depressed about my work... some people are able to thrive in a remote/isolated environment (I still do video calls 2-4x a day for different projects, so it's not like total isolation), while others really need a group of people working with/around them to thrive.
It also helps to have a family or more than one other person living in your residence if you choose to remote work from home—it forces you to have face-to-face human interaction (to the extent you choose to put down smartphones, laptops, etc. outside of work hours).
Funny you should mention that. I'm a co-organizer of a pretty active meetup. The first tuesday of the month is the highlight of my social calendar.
Just something to consider investing in.
I've been back at an office job for about 3 months now and it's been a huge improvement. I love being in an office with a team of people all working on the same thing, solving problems together, and socializing.
Obviously, different things work for different people, but I wish I hadn't bought into the remote work idea as wholeheartedly as I did. It's important to be aware of what you get out of onsite work in addition to the drawbacks.
More likely if you're reading this, you're somewhere between those two extremes. I'm an introvert when I need to get things done, but I'm an extrovert everywhere else. I have seen just as many people crash and burn trying to motivate themselves while working remotely as I have seen people go quietly nuts in an open office.
I am going to be working from a co-working space in the near future, but I suspect that I will still need to spend significant amounts of time on my own in my home office if I want to stay productive. I don't expect that solution to work for anyone else, but after nearly two decades in the software industry, I know what works for me.
The author mentions socialization only in real life. What about online socialization? I still talk to 2 of my best friends in a chat room (used to be IRC, now we use Slack). I keep up with old friends on Facebook. I have discussions and arguments on HN and Reddit.
And probably most importantly, my remote company has a VOIP chat that everyone is on and we routinely have "water cooler" type convos, in addition to serious stuff.
So yeah, I think you can solve this problem without needing real life interactions. Embrace your digital life to the extreme! And, companies hiring remote workers need to support them better, with VOIP and text chat rooms that they can be in (with other employees) and feel like they're part of the team and not just a worker.
For some meetings we use skype or google hangouts and then it is always on. Most meetings, including our daily standup, just take place over teamspeak though.
Part of getting a good remote team is making sure everyone has all this communication software setup right and knows how to use it effectively: advice on what keys to use for PTT, what settings to use, etc.
I get stir crazy sometimes, but that is easily solved by longer walks and other such things.
But then again, I have fairly low social needs.
Online socialization interactions/chats (even video) with friends/team members never gave me the same kind of feelings, and i still felt more lonely. I guess there is something about face to face that I like.
I think a big part of it is that I started working remotely at the same time as I had kids, so now I can take off any time I want to spend time with them. I normally take a 2 hour break for eating dinner and helping with bedtime, then I'm back to work. I remember people from my office job who would say that they only see their kids for 10 minutes a day or something like that. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but now that I have kids of my own with my current setup, I can't imagine only seeing them for 10 minutes a day. That just doesn't seem right.
This may be viewed as a benefit rather than a downside by a surprisingly large number of people.
I'm not passing judgment here, just speaking empirically. For men especially, the office and work are the default place to hide from unhappy marriages, dull domestic life, housework, and [perceived as] perfunctory obligations that they want to avoid (due to lack of interest) but which it is not socially acceptable, or perhaps politically correct, to reject. Not everyone is in a happy marriage, and not everyone actually enjoys spending time with their wife. Furthermore, not all fathers have the right combination of personality, emotional constitution and intellectual disposition to have fruitful interactions with all kids, at all ages, and all times. "I love spending time with my kids more than anything else in the world!" is an obligatory refrain nowadays, so few people will admit otherwise—even to themselves—because it's very non-comme il faut. But the truth is that 2 1/2 year-olds can be pretty unstimulating company. For a lot of busy, career-minded, highly accomplished, worldly people, ten minutes before bedtime sounds about right. That sounds cruel and terrible now to a lot of people now, but would have been quite uncontroversial half a century ago.
That has been one of the most important functions of the organisation office in the 20th century. It's a cover that gets many men—often fairly inscrutably—out of having to deal with things they don't really want to deal with. Feminism picked up on this a long time ago, and that's what's behind a lot of the "second shift" double standard critique. The charge is that men still have an easier time cloaking themselves in inscrutability when they attend to their careers. In this version of events, nobody really has a right to question why they're at the office so much, what they do there, or why they're working so hard.
I'm not talking about men that lie that they are "at the office" when they're in fact at the hotel with their mistress. I'm talking about men that are legitimately ambitious and interested enough in their work that they take on more of it—a lot more of it—than they absolutely have to willingly, because they are secretly not so interested in achieving "work-life balance", as other aspects of their life are not fulfilling to them. There's a lot you can get out of if you have to stay late at the office all the time due to meet a legitimately ambitious shipping schedule. Hard to argue with.
Another, related problem is that most non-digiratti don't really understand computer-based self employment. I'm sure we have all dealt with the problem of older relatives, more traditionally-minded people, or unenlightened spouses perceiving that we are simply sitting on the couch "playing on the computer", much as many of us have always done since childhood. In the mind of such people—a vast segment of American society—work is a place one goes, with a briefcase, and which keeps defined business hours. Intellectually, they understand that the money comes from somewhere, and that you are not actually paid to "play on the computer". But instinctively, they can't process that. The appearance of "playing on the computer" means you don't really do much of anything and are always available to chat, run errands, walk the dog, feed the baby, etc.
Some will say, "But that's why I have a house, with a door that closes, and everyone around me knows not to ever bother me when I'm in there!" Yeah, okay. My experience hasn't been that this works. The first time your wife walks in there anyway and sees you browsing Reddit instead of feverishly parrying phone calls and struggling to right critical infrastructure to prevent impending apocalypse, that's done. From that point onward, you're just hiding in there to play on your computer and are preemptible by processes with nominally high priority. :-)
That's another class of problem that going to an office solves.
Good is that you face more serendipity than when working from home. But really, it is not that much more. After only few weeks, the novelty wore off and I got bored and saw more the downsides. Like super small tables, no dual monitor setup, always too cold, the commute, less free fruit, and the people. Some are quite nice and you realize that you need random social encounters but there are also the typical odd people to whom you cannot relate at all (like everywhere). Those people don't hurt but I remember one who reserved the best flexdesk the night before by leaving tons of her post-its and other papers there. No big deal but nobody who makes you happy either.
I knew most people I met there before. Bonding with new people without having a common mission was not easy, it just didn't feel natural (and I am rather the extrovert sales type of guy). So, you can still feel 'alone' in a coworking space.
I think a coworking space makes more sense if you need a space as a team and want or need to see each other f2f on a regular base.
For business meetings or doing interviews, I prefer lobbies of top hotels, they are even more representative than the best coworking spaces and at the end of the month also cheaper with full service included and no extra fee when booking some meeting room. And for two hours working away from home, I am a fan of Starbucks or any coffee ahop with good wifi.
Some have internet that is flakey or slows down on crowded days. Some are just too loud. Some are just too hot or cold. Some have bad locations. Or have horrible chairs and desks. The list goes on and on. Seems like you have to find the one that is just right. Even still, don't go there every day. Mix it up by working from there, home, cafe's, etc.
I've realized I'm very picky about my work environment...
Seems to me that the best part of remote working is the ability to figure out what the best environment is for you. Don't be a theorist, be an experimentalist: try a bunch of different situations and see what you like best. It sounds like the author started down this path, but stopped too soon (at first).
> Are you sad when a lot of your office is out sick, or are you relieved?
Usually relieved, then I wonder why I bothered with an hour of driving to sit in the office by myself, when I could have done that from home.
> Do you get uncomfortable when you’re in quiet environments for too long, or do you revel in them?
Love quiet! My office at work has no windows (not even internal ones); being able to close the door and cut off the outside world is the best!
> Do you feel weirdly lonely when you’re in a noisy coffee shop, or do you feel energized?
Annoyed by the noise mostly. Coffee shops are for getting coffee and getting out. Libraries are way better for actual work, IMO.
I think almost everybody will have the same answer here. I don't think it's a good question, because most people have too much interaction every day and is tired of it. That does not mean they will be happy standing most of their days alone.
-- negative: lost interest in having friends (and generally the patience needed to talk to people), no social life, no career, work-life balance completely broken
-- positive: sleeping 8 hours a night! (and more if I need to), making walks in the park/training at noon, never really sick, comfortable home office, can be efficient again (only my job doesn't require that). Started having ideas again and thinking about side projects.
Before going remote, during 15 years I was commuting 2+ hours in the morning (so 2 hours again in the evening), sleeping 4 hours a night by the end of the week, dozing off the entire weekend and generally feeling extremely exhausted, mentally and physically, easily catching flu etc.
Would I move back to office employment? I really hope I won't have to.
Although I am surrounded by people, since you're not working with these other people, and/or there are desk moves every 3 months or so as teams are growing, you only ever end up with very superficial "friendships"/social interactions. "Hello" "How was your weekend" "Which team are you on?" "I am on this team" etc etc. You're just doing it out of politeness really, then in a month or two they'll move on to another team/office or there will be another desk move and you're back to square one, surrounded by strangers.
It is not unusual for me to go a whole day in an office surrounded by hundreds of coworkers without physically saying anything to anyone apart from "thanks" for holding open the door.
It is extremely isolating.
[Since then I've opted to work from cafes, shopping malls that have started encouraging laptop workers, and a 'coworking' space I found that was mostly empty.]
If you're ever in Singapore I can recommend the 100th Starbucks in the financial district (at The Fullerton Waterboat House). Large space with lots of windows, a great view and not very busy. Terrible WiFi though, so tether to a cheap Singaporean 15GB SIM.
On another note, I do have to disagree with the author with regards to making the most money in either New York or the Bay Area. Perhaps the salary looks bigger on its own, but when you consider housing costs, food, gas, taxes, and other costs of living, you actually end up making a lot less than you do in other locations. I've received multiple offers from the Bay Area, and one or two from New York, but they just can't compete, all things considered. Plus, I don't have any desire to cram my family into a 1,000 square-foot cubbyhole, when we can enjoy seven times the space elsewhere for half the price.
Being 24/7 with the same person can get really tough.
Everyone is different. Every new remote worker figures out what they need to do to make it work for themselves. And we do not all do the same things. But we all know ourselves well enough to try things, see how it works for ourselves, and figure out what changes we need to make it work. Of course, we also talk to each other, give suggestions, etc. But ultimately, to succeed on your own, you have to proactively care for your own mental health. And self-awareness is vital to doing so.
We are social creatures, to varying degrees, and if we limit out interaction with others too severely, I think it makes it too easy to look exclusively and excessively inward. I'm all about self-analysis and looking inward but there comes a point when you go too far and it's no longer about reflection but a feedback loop of anxiety/fear/self-doubt... at least that has been the case in my experience! Also, regular exercise (running, lifting) has always helped me out of these emotional funks.
I've spoke to one about potentially giving me a key to the space, and perhaps that would work, but it's often easier just to roll out of bed, throw on coffee, and start my meetings.
I tend to repeat, and stop going outside much at all, just staying indoors. That then perpetuates my desire to not go outdoors.
It's solvable though, it takes effort on my part to continue experimenting, and trying new things. It only becomes an issue when I just keep repeating the same situation. Definition of insanity, repeating same things, expecting different results.
I found myself missing my widescreen monitor, standing desk, and chair. The amount of money I've sunk into my home office felt wasted when I used the co-working space.
And the co-working space would swing between eerily quiet or way too much noise. It seemed weird to go (and pay) for a co-working space where everyone is primarily staring at their laptops.
On the other hand, I would maybe consider going from a two bedroom to a one bedroom apartment if I had a full-time 24/7 use of a co-working space and then the cost would more than even out.
I tried a couple of coworking spaces, found one that I liked, and have been going there regularly since - my employer paid for my membership at the time, but I quit my job a year ago and it's still worth it to me to have a space where I can go every day to get out of the house and be _around_ humans, even if I don't socialize with them as much as I could.
I've always identified as an introvert, and used to fantasize about the idea of e.g. working in the top room of a lighthouse for a month - assuming you had a good Internet connection, you could get so much coding done there! - but it seems that being around people is much more important than I'd given it credit for, particularly in the winter when it's pitch black outside at 4pm and you're already kind of depressed by default.
_starts looking for lighthouses_
I'd recommend a mixture of both, plus visits to coffee shops and libraries, depending on what type of work you need done.
Learning what is effective and finding the right balance can be one of the trickiest elements of WFH.
While I did experience a bit of a breakdown at one point, it is something to overcome. I like the "lazy days" of regular work in coffee shops, libraries and sometimes even pubs (no alcohol during work hours though, that's bad on so many levels). When there is heavy need of cognitive abilities, I tend to stay in, start the day with a cold shower, breakfast and coffee, then work at my standing desk.
I find standing desks really something all offices should support for their workforce. It keeps you active during the day and allows for greater focus. Start small, go for what fits your physique. Use a rubber mat. I would suppose it also helps with what the author calls "off-days", since I do not encounter them. There is always something to improve upon. If no hard-work is available, I just work on documentation and learning new skills that advance my work/life/career. This allows me a good night's sleep.
To such an extent do I relate to it that I wrote a blog post about it a year ago:
https://likewise.am/2015/12/18/why-i-love-industrious-and-ab...
This post struck a similar note:
Working from home might genuinely be the ideal environment for those closest to the introvert end of the spectrum, and I think those are the people who form angelic choirs of blog posts asking if you have met their lord and savior, the Fortress of Infinite Solitude, Home Office Edition. For them, the quiet work environment makes their jobs dramatically more enjoyable. But for me, it was the opposite: I’d gone from management (high social interaction) to software development (lower social interaction), and from working in an office (hundreds of people) to working from home (two cats), and expected that this would all be fine.
I'd take the extra 15% of free time over the hit in the "socialness" of my office space. I can get that social fix during that time instead.
I don't know that Industrious is the right place for a lawyer or CPA. Maybe a rather nontraditional one. But I would expect someone like that to prefer traditional "Class A" office space a la Regus.
> However, as a software engineer, it seems like the only benefit is social. And with that, from a financial standpoint, it doesn't make much sense to me. You're basically paying to work.
Well, if you buy the premise of the articles—both the parent and mine—then that benefit has value. It has a lot of value to certain kinds of people. By the sound of it, you do not have such high psychological needs. :-)
I didn't talk about it in my article, but the OP did in his: getting one's social fix outside of work isn't that easy, particularly if it's work-related socialisation that is the deficiency you're trying to address.
Having said that, even Industrious doesn't magically fix certain existential problems. For instance, I'm in VoIP, so I have relatively little to discuss or collaborate on with the usual array of people who commonly inhabit such places: SEO/web marketing firms, web developers, miscellaneous ad and marketing agencies, etc.
Industrious had less of these than the typical coworking space, and the tenants of that nature who were there were less obnoxious, but still: being in an exotic and highly technical niche removes a lot of the benefits of shared work culture and water cooler talk, the ability to bounce ideas off officemates or answer their questions, etc.
edit: $1000/mo is pretty steep for a one-person office. Industrious didn't charge me quite that much. But it was pretty up there.
People often write about software development as if it's a solitary activity, but I can only do my best work for other people. Having personal relationships with my co-workers makes me a stronger developer, and I can't do it remotely.
I wish I could work in cafes, at friends etc, but I just can not bring myself to work without a proper big screen and keyboard, which means most nomadic coffee shop setups are off limits. One day working off my laoptop and my neck, eyes and and back hurts. I need a proper desk, which makes it a lot harder to move around.
Could be the change from bossing people around (being a manager) to being bossed around (being a dev)? Because all the rest (interaction with friends, walks, going to the gym etc) one could still have from working remotely -- like the author says they did for the first months anyway.
I agree with most of it.
Short commutes + some privacy at work would probably entice most people in.
Having 1-2 days a week at the office would be grand.
Being able to focus for long periods without interruption is quite important, frankly, I have no idea how software gets written in those cramped open workspaces with all the noise etc..
Granted, different types of software for different types of things.
I can imagine a deeply technical problem requiring more thought than say a lot of dev-ops, scripting, code reviews, bug fixing, etc. etc..