Ask HN: Remote workers and freelancers – how do you deal with loneliness? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Remote workers and freelancers – how do you deal with loneliness?

14 pointsterabytest7 comments

I’ve been working remotely for about two years now, first with a distributed company and currently as a self-employed designer and developer. I’ve definitely experienced a big reduction in my already limited social interactions after switching away from a local job. I’d say it generally helps me to work alone as it’s much less distracting, however the loneliness of it has been more or less a constant issue.

Recently a friend and I have started working alongside each other since he has his own one-person business. This has helped massively in reducing the feeling of loneliness, and it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of.

I’ve been mulling over this issue for the last few weeks and I decided to try building something simple to try to share this experience. The idea is to connect fellow remote workers in the same area so that they can keep each other company during work. I’d really appreciate your feedback on it. You can find it at https://www.remotyo.com/

For those of you who work remotely, what’s the experience been like? How do you feel about your level of social engagement as a remote worker? Have you experienced similar feelings of loneliness? How do you cope?

I've been remote for a couple of years now. My situation is a bit different tho: I'm at a large company and a manager so I do interact with other folks more often than, say, a developer probably would.

- I get on IRC & Slack to get relief from the "is anyone out there" loneliness during the day.

- I tend to shut down at a specific time of day and make a point of doing something more social (work out, go to networking events, plan something with family/friends). I find that many of my work from home folks have a really tough time 'turning off' to allow for some health downtime.

- I get out of the house for a few hours a couple of times a week and work someplace where there are people. Even if it's just someplace like Starbucks, it's good to not be staring at the same 4 walls all the time. When possible, I'll meet another remote worker.

- If your company has an office convenient, try to go there periodically even if it's not part of your job. My company has a subsidiary with an office in town, and I have an arrangement where I come in and work there for a day every week or two.

I'm remote living in Saigon. For me having social hobbies like going bouldering and training muay thai help the curb the compounded loneliness of working as developer and being an expat. Outside of that I take quite a few vacations around SE Asia and have a WeWork membership.

Hey, I'm remote based out of Ho Chi Minh as well. Would be great to meet up and chat some time... derick { @ } dericksozo.com.

Hope you're enjoying over here in Vietnam as well.

Cheers, Derick

I used to work remotely and could not deal with the loneliness and social isolation; now I'm not sure I would consider a full on remote role. I consider myself introverted and the social interaction at work is all the interaction I have, really

I believe thats the reason why many of them become digital nomads.

me, I took the extra time to do unrelated part time job.

Its a problem we need to solve. Our current cities and lifestyles are a bad fit for remote workers.

What you describe is part of the reason why i started a remote worker social network

I agree, it's tough. I've also been working remote for the past 2 years. In the past, most of the friends I had made were through work. I think you really have to make an effort to do things after work - workout classes, sports...whatever interests you. I try to also go to a co-working shop 1x a week .

I see threads like this one with similar sentiments every now and then. I personally have opposite opinions: I don't feel lacking at all in social interactions.

- The current (remote) company I work at has been a remote company from the start and has been running for 2-3 years as such before I joined. The remote work culture is established and we have regular video meetings (basically every day; not the same ones / same group of people each day of the week though). In this way, I don't feel it to be any different than working in an office really, as far as interactions with coworkers go. (And indeed, Slack is on for the entire work day as well)

- On the personal side, my wife is full time taking care of our baby at home, so I actually have even more family social interaction than before I started working remote. For example, I get to have lunch with her and our baby multiple days of the week (and dinner every day), which would not have been possible working at an office. Also, I don't have the "shut down" problem because of this -- the demands of a baby force me to simply stop work at 5pm (when the nanny leaves) and I simply do not have a chance to do work or even think about it, until the baby sleeps at 9pm.

- If I wanted to see strangers or be around other people, a couple times a week I work at a coffee shop for a few hours in the afternoon. It's not like I talk to anyone there though, so it's purely for "being around other people".

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I feel like most of the issues other remote workers have with social interactions come down to probably two things:

1. Self-employed and having basically no coworkers.

2. Not living with anyone.

On 1, you can solve this by being at a shared office (like Wework but perhaps you could pick a cheaper one to save on cost?). On 2, either having a family or having roommates to live can be a solution.

I'm a bit surprised to see how many people seem to suggest that because they don't have coworkers they see on a daily basis, they don't have people to hang out with for fun on the weekends. My question for them is, who were their friends before they started working at an office? College or high school friends? Personally, friends that I hang out regularly with pretty much have never been my coworkers at any company, but friends I made either from college or friends I met through other friends. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I've never really been super close friends with anyone I have ever worked with. We have great working relationships while we work in the same company, and there are indeed a lot of folks I keep in touch with fairly regularly online even after I left those companies; but the actual people I meet up with on the weekends? Always personal friends instead of coworkers or ex-coworkers.

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