I loved the flexibility of being remote, but I was dying from the lack of social interaction. A third of my waking hours are spent working, and most of my friendships/relationships came from the office.
I've been remote for about two years, and I would go days at a time without talking to anyone besides my wife. We aren't meant to live that way.
You currently have a community at your office that you don't realize. You will need to be intentional about building that community in other ways now.
I get lunch with friends more. Visit my Grandma out of state. Played a ton of Magic the Gathering.
It waxes and wanes, but it's my job to build and not just accept the "corp culture" as community.
"The magic is the gathering"
a draft is such a good env to just hang out, and we'd usually end up with a ringer or two, so it was a good way to socialize.
I've waned a bit because I didn't like the state of the meta, but have been itching to get back in for the social aspects alone.
Traded MtG for CS:GO mostly these days, but wanting to get more face to face time, even though I've been surprised about how much a consistent CS:GO group has felt like community.
As to the second point, using myself as an example, not everybody feels that "we aren't meant to live that way". Some of the happiest times in my life were when I didn't need to go to an office for one reason or another. I went weeks without speaking or even seeing another human in person, or not even stepping out of my home, and I thrived on it. Excellent sleep schedule, daily exercise, time and energy to commit myself to my passions. Perhaps you aren't meant to live that way, but it's important to recognize that no one lifestyle works for everybody. Without having to go to an office, I can be a hermit or spend time with friends as I see fit, whereas being forced to be in an office is a constant and active drain for me.
The social aspect of work always boils down to the same obvious thing: social people need socialization, and if they don't have a strong enough social life, they'll need to compensate with work socialization. People who have a strong social life or don't feel much need to be around other humans, don't need to socialize during work
I am, generally, very introverted. I have a few close friends, and don't enjoy making or meeting new ones. But two years of isolation was just too much.
But yes, there are definitely people who thrive in that sort of environment.
Would it be correct to assume that the majority of your time socializing is at work?
I'm at a remote-only company now, and have been so for seven years. I've found the key is that I have certain unconditional social activities I do after work. Without them I tend to go a bit squirrely and cranky. At work we also make a point to spend the first 5-10 minutes of longer meetings just hanging out, and get together in person at least twice a year.
You're not wrong though. I'm currently battling a cold/flu and I cannot fathom how I got it. I've left the house once this week and it was to drive to the mail. (I've been outside but notbofd the property.) If there was a coworking space anywhere near me, I'd spend a day or two a week there. I'd never lock back in to office live though. I never felt less productive than when I permanently shared a space with people. It was always too fun and I never got enough actual work done. Plus, I've been here to experience every life stage of my kid and every new achievement and that's preety fantastic.
Yes, that's why you should have a life outside of work. Depending on work being all of your social interaction is the issue here, not the fact that you were remote.
I don't go to work to find my SO or my best friend, I get to do that in my own time.
In addition, bonding a close, personal relationship with your co-workers lead into problems, office drama is not pleasant and can have severe consequences.
I think it would be healthy to simply maintain a professional relationship which ends at 5pm.
Different personalities I suppose..
I agree we are not meant to be hermits, but having work be your only social interaction is also not a way to live. I would argue that having work be strictly professional is both more healthy and better for dealing with people at work.
Nevertheless, remote work has been great. I feel like I've had enough time to experiment with what works and what doesn't work that I'm now very comfortable working remotely and hope to do so for the rest of my career, if possible.
Granted, some of the things that make remote work tolerable or intolerable are under the control of your employer and some are under your own control, so both you and your employer need to be committed to making it work.
Being one of the only remote members of your team can stink, because you know that the other team members are mostly having their water cooler chats by the water cooler. But when you're on a team that's majority or fully remote, a lot of that happens via chat (text or video) and you don't feel like you're not being included.
Having a remote-friendly culture is important. For instance: People remember to add a video chat link to every meeting invite. Your employer invests in quality teleconferencing equipment to make meetings run smoothly. When company swag is given out, remote employees are included as well.
I've found that I get stir-crazy after sitting in my home office for more than a day at a time. So I like to go out to a library, a coffee shop, or a park (when it's nice out) for an hour or two. Even if I'm not directly interacting with other people, it helps.
I'm at a stage in my life where office friendships aren't my main source of friendships, and so while I enjoy forming friendships with my coworkers, I don't feel like I need to be going out to every office happy hour or rec league softball game. And that allows me to make time to cultivate and maintain other friendships.
I'm also at a stage in my life where having kids in the house helps a lot. My wife homeschools, so our family is able to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner together most days, and throughout the day there's a sense of liveliness in the house. Again, that can make a big difference, even if you're heads-down and not directly interacting with them during work hours.
P.S. One life hack I've discovered is that if you can find a remote position that's within about a 90-minute commute radius, and you can commit to driving in occasionally, you can still (mostly) get the benefits of face time, and you can make the case that you deserve the same market-rate salary as the in-office people, as opposed to the "adjusted cost of living" rate that is sometimes offered to fully remote employees. That opens up a lot of possibilities, in terms of where you can live. I live about 75 minutes from my company's headquarters, but in a state with a lower cost of living.
like 8 years ago I had an older remote dev give me the best advice I've ever gotten about working remotely:
"If you were working in an office, would you hesitate to get up and walk over to a coworker and ask them about some bug? or just talk about your weekend? or maybe both? Then you shouldn't be shy about picking up the phone and calling them when your remote. If they can't or don't want to answer, they won't"
When I finally started taking that to heart, my remote working experience got significantly better. See someone pop online in slack? Shoot them a message about the weekend, start a call and just talk about nothing. Frustrated with some piece of code? call a coworker to talk it over, maybe mention in the slack channel that you're having trouble and post a zoom meeting link that others can join to help out if they aren't busy.