Fuck this pandemic.
There's still nothing widely used that compares to a whiteboard, either. Drawing tablets haven't caught on yet.
My Japanese teacher did that and it actually worked out much better than I expected.
I hate it, it makes me miserable and I'm much less productive.
I'm back in the office 5 days per week again, through choice. Most of the time, I'm there on my own, but get to see others when they show up, and also get to leave work at the office, come home and relax.
The one thing that makes me happy about my current job is fixing support tickets. But nobody in my management chain really cares about it so it’s pretty much just a work-hobby. Ironically that makes it much more enjoyable because nobody else (managers, tls, product managers, etc.) will take credit for my work and I don't have to get signoff on every little thing.
omg yes. It's hard to communicate to people this need for coworking and co-presence. I've tried over the years to ask for always-on remote presence tools -- always-on video or audio. Some people seem to think of these as micromanage-y employer-driven tech, but it truly helps me stay motivated and reduces anxiety/depression. Like I don't want anyone's explicit help or project management (though check-ins on one another are nice imho), but just your conscious human presence. I'm incredibly distraction-prone, but working in service of the humans around me is what helps keeps me in check.
If you're also energized by support tickets, I'd venture a guess that The Helper is a high type for you too, if you were to do the Enneagram personality test :) https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-2
You can pair with someone, or have informal chats, or plan some online game with your colleagues, have presentations in your team around work or non-work related things, setup a book club.
It is harder and not as good as in-person interaction, but maybe you can get some good out of it.
EDIT: sorry, I am re-reading this and please be assured my intent is not to say you're "wrong", but just to offer some minor remediation ideas that might be helpful.
It's hard to put a pin on why it feels like more than you're seeing. Part of it is that I'm asking for so many of these de novo supports when coworkers are so much more independent. The fixes happen easily, but need comms and planning that mostly only brings marginal benefits to me. I mostly leaned on ambient energy and indirect attention of others -- e.g., my best "need to be productive" days came from sitting in a common area and making sure my screen faced out, so my sense of pleasing others kept me accountable. Other ways are possible, but it's hard to reinvent your whole way of managing yourself, esp when it mostly feels like a solitary effort, I guess?
Anyhow, thanks for hearing me out. I know it might not sound like it makes tons of sense. It's a layered failure of all my prior mechanisms for happiness and satisfaction in work