What I don’t like about working at a remote job
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Some folks thrive in an office environment, they value the things it provides - a schedule, a time, a reason to get up and out, socialising with others, being out in the world. It comes at a cost of time and a bit of freedom; you don't really get to choose the hours or where this happens, neither the folks you interact with.
Others prefer working remotely, they cherish being able to set their own schedule and work, and being able to manage their level of interactions with others. Remote work does not have to be work from home either, and the freedom this gives can be quite liberating.
There is also a somewhat of divide between introverts and extroverts between which they prefer, but of course - there are many in either camp leaning the other way too.
You just have to find what works for you - and that means trying both, or a mix, and seeing which one suits you best.
Where it gets rather frustrating for folks is when they are not given a choice - some companies; ergo leaders, can't wait to have everyone back in an office even after 2 or so years of being (mostly? somewhat?) productive during the pandemic; and this is where frictions arise. Other companies are entirely remote, and for those who thrive in an office environment, they will struggle greatly.
I'd love to see managers / leaders, and even employees recognise that individuals have preferences, and being accommodating of it to get the best out of their people, rather than imposing how they find they work best. How, or what this would entail, I'd have to give more thought - but I believe there are plenty of individuals with far more experience and knowledge than me around this topic who have been successful at managing hybrid (office + remote) teams, and accomodating individuals that lean either way.
Upper management has always been wfo or wfh as it suits them.
The 2 groups (wfo and wfh) of mid-low tier "office workers" are far from equal in size.
The majority rather be remote. Most of the wfo people realize their limited value is less visible remotely, as is their opportunities for getting opportunistically involved in processes and projects. Professionally, this a compelling reason to claim wfo is for them as it's part of their act, which doubles the insult (inefficient+predatory people in an organization, waving the WFO banner).
Yes, I believe this wholeheartedly.
we need a general clear out of middle managements, there are too many useless people in the workforce who only serve to demotivate the people who do the real work
Yeah, as an introvert, seeing the constant assertion that only extroverts want to work from the office is very frustrating. It is because I am an introvert that I want to work from the office. Sure, I struggle with interacting with people in general already. But I will have that trouble whether I'm at home or in the office. But here's just a small list of the additional troubles that pile on WFH:
Having to speak out on a public chat channel, where everything I say will be recored for a legally mandated long time, seen by who knows and potentially misinterpreted because of a lack of tone (slack).
Having to interrupt someone without being able to see if they're busy (IMs).
Being self conscious of the existence of a camera and not knowing if people are or aren't looking at me (web conferences)
Not being able to get tone and body language feedback from the people I'm talking to (any text based medium)
Accidentally speaking over or interrupting someone because of latency (web and audio conferences)
Having to specifically put effort into promoting myself and my work because it's less visible now
Not having the chance side conversations with my mangers, skip managers and directors. I know a lot of people doubt these happen, but I've had enough of them, and am convinced one or two major changes in my career have been in part because of those conversations that I would not have otherwise had. This goes hand in hand with the item above.
I am 100% behind having more choice and more flexibility, but I really wish people would stop pretending that the divide on this is extrovert/introvert. I'm far enough along in my career to understand the importance of speaking up and being seen and therefore to put the effort into doing it, but make no mistake, 100% remote requires me to put more more effort into it and for my personal form of introversion, it makes things much much harder on me.
Maybe, if you don’t open a whole neurodivergent can of worms. (Speaking for myself, autistic and ADHD, I’m more sensitive to some social cues than others, and quite a lot less for other cues; my sensitivity to specific cues is often different if subtly from most of the neurodivergent people I know.)
Also, it ia not like there would be two distinct species. It is scale and majority of the people are in the middle between extroversion and introversion. Just slightly biased toward one side.
I'm extremely introverted and plenty "good at" (most forms of) socializing. It's also hard work for me. But it's hard work like going on a mountain hike is hard work: it's a fantastic experience (usually) and I am glad I do it, but I also simply can't do it 24/7/365.
Young, single and living nearby by yourself or in a shared flat without a dedicated room to work in? Not too sure about what to do with free time? Going to the office for socializing and structure is great.
Married, with kids and living in a house on the countryside? Strong social ties and no need to get to know your colleagues? Or traveling around/ having an otherwise fulfilling life outside work? Then, remote is awesome.
I'm rather introverted myself and very happy with hybrid. Meeting colleagues when I feel like socializing and in need of some routine, working remotely when I have other things to do and want the flexibility.
Personally I'm changing my lifestyle to have a small urban apartment in the city close to work, shops and services; and a house close to the beach around 1 hr by car / 1.5hrs by train away. I plan to move back and forth around once a week.
For me this ticks a lot of boxes and I'm happy to overcome the hassles involved. I can see it becoming a more popular lifestyle. I couldn't do the 'fully remote' move to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
It’s definitely a bit of an indulgence but i could downsize both once my youngest is on her own.
At the same time - I also appreciate having an office that I can go to. Sometimes I just need a change of scenery, other times it's nice to just be around some other people. My team aren't local either, but there are a few folks I know in the local office on other teams - so it works out.
I very much agree that what's important is finding the right balance for yourself, and it certainly takes some experimentation.
I like going in once or twice a week, catching up with my team, writing stuff on a whiteboard, having in person 1:1s, attending an all hands in person, getting a free snack from the kitchen, having a beer after work at the pub.
I also like making my own breakfast, lunch and dinner, not spending over 50 quid travelling to the office, booking out an afternoon to write something, the ability to set my own schedule, having my own screen and desk, going for a quick walk in garden, and kissing my daughter goodnight.
So hybrid mode limits a lot your pool of potential employers.
What many proponents of remote work are arguing for is unilaterally changing the contract because it’s possible to also work from home. This line of argument typically highlights the obvious benefits for the employee (no commute, flexibility, etc.), but often ignores the less obvious cost of working from home, such as lower team/company social cohesion, poorer communication, significantly more difficult onboarding for new employees and quite likely reduced productivity and socialization. Additionally the employee can expect some increased costs (electricity, food) which my or may not be offset by reductions from dropping eating out and such.
While many software engineers accepted poor working conditions in exchange for money and opportunities, now they want to have their cake and eat it too - at the cost of new employees and their company. Maybe the latter is excusable depending on the company, but the former is not and needs to be discussed instead of being swept under the rug.
My life feels hopeless. I wake up, go to the gym, and then work from 9–8. I work so much because I have nothing better to do. Then I watch a movie or some garbage on YouTube and go to bed. I have no friends. On the weekends I try my hardest not to think about other people my age (24) going out and having fun. I haven’t had fun going out with friends since college in 2019. The only things keeping me going are the gym and my work.
The days where my two teammates and I coordinate going into the office together are a nice reminder of what having friends was like. Ultimately, I go home and I am alone.
Has anyone had success with this that they can share?
Turns out all the action is at the organized league play with teams of 6, playing at home or travelling to nearby clubs. Through age groups and play modus anyone who can nominally complete a match skill-and fitness wise can join and contribute both to team success and social life surrounding the play. Through the shared activity you can connect, and meet for a match before joining people for non-tennis activities, before "making a friend as an adult".
So yes, the social structures are eroding rapidly and this will have major consequences for society, but there are still pockets left that you'll have to go out and find.
Eventually you will meet interesting people. Even some girls who may have similar mindset to yours. I've met more (former) girlfriends through this than any other means, and eventually my wife.
I consider it the best sport out there due to mental aspect of it, especially on rock (and ski touring in winter). But if thats really not your cup of tea, look for other sports. Team ones, or some course where you end up with bunch of others. Just expose yourself to the crowds, even if its not that pleasant for ie introverts (like me).
Doing above, I've regularly ended up with more close people than I could possibly manage to keep friendship with. Also non-trivial number of ladies were keen to meet for other adventures like hiking, ski touring etc. Tons of people are wanting to do these sports, but they need some buddies.
At the very least having more people to chat with can really change the texture of life
I am in Germany so even in the office people are cold. Native Germans (especially from the north) take months to years to warm up to you, so it takes a long time for them to warm up to you
The current political and cultural battles, in addition to a lingering #MeToo atmosphere, may also make this harder.
Note that behind the aparent coldness of Germans lies a promise of eternal, deep friendship once you break through :-)
I moved countries in 2013, and barely had 1 friend after I moved. I had a few office colleagues I was friends with, but very rarely met with them outside of the office.
My days were similar to what you describe. Working long hours and then sitting at home with Netflix or Youtube. COVID has made it worst in your case unfortunately.
Here's what I learned which might help you: - Watching movies or Youtube isn't necessarily a "waste" of time. It's just a way to spend time. You don't need to spend your time being productive or social. If the movies or videos let you pass the time in peace, enjoy that. I also enjoyed reading books back when I was living by myself, but the majority of my time was spent in "wasteful" activities like social media and movies. As long as it's a conscious decision to spend your time this way, I would suggest to not call it "wasted" time. You're spending time doing things that help you relax and unwind. It's not wasted. - It took me a long time (> 2 years) to find a group of friends that I was happy being around. College is really the last time in my life when I made friends quickly. I think it's purely because being together for hours everyday over the course of years naturally builds friendships. Making friends after college takes time. As someone who is introverted, it took me even longer. - The time I had to spend by myself was difficult at times, but that was just because of the way I had framed it then. Like you said, there's an expectation of how people your age have to act; go out and have fun. Ultimately it is someone else's expectations that you are enforcing on yourself. Find things that bring you some version of joy. Don't worry about what others expect you to do. - Find hobbies. If you have a well paying job and low expenses, you should try your hand at different things. I've tried and given up on so many things over the years. A few; like 3D printing and FPV drone flying have stuck around. Again, I used to think that I was failing because I didn't stick with hobbies for a long time. I now realize that it would have been worse trying to force myself to spend my free time on things I didn't enjoy. - Following up on the hobbies thing - find communities around your hobbies that you enjoy. It's a great way to make friends. Communities don't need to be in-person either. There are so many amazing people you can make friends with online through your interests.
Finally, working in-person with others in the office is a great way of accelerating friendships. Many in my current friends circle are people I met in the office, or people I met through my colleagues.
The last thing I'll end with is to not worry too much and give it time. That's essentially what helped me; giving it time.
Hope that helps.
Also, stop working 9-8. Obviously it's more difficult to find the energy to do things when you're tired from working 11 hours per day.
It’s a common experience for young people today because our social fabric is weaker than it has been in the last 100 years. (Read some Robert Putnam to understand)
I’d suggest getting some social hobbies like ultimate, dancing, running groups, board games, etc. A lot of these groups/hobbies exist because there’s a ton of people like you who are feeling socially isolated and want to make friends.
> It’s extremely hard to be friends with your co-workers. You have to go out of your way to reach out and be available. Friendships don’t happen “organically” like they do in the office
…because, most people seem to think they can just on their asses all day, don’t post on slack, don’t talk to anyone other than on standup and just get work done.
So many tickets done.
So totally miserable.
I’ve seen first hand so many times the last couple of years. There’s only so much you can do to reach out to people and give them the opportunity to engage.
…but they have to be proactively social.
Some people don’t like that, but it’s the reality of working remotely.
Also, get a standing desk. :)
Sitting all day is bad for you, and it forces you to take breaks.
>…because, most people seem to think they can just on their asses all day, don’t post on slack, don’t talk to anyone other than on standup and just get work done.
>So many tickets done.
>So totally miserable.
Oh no, people being productive at their jobs. I went remote for this, so I don't have to socialize at work and can actually get things done. My friends exist outside of the work sphere.
I’m saying I’ve seen it make lots of people miserable.
…and you won’t make friends or build relationships with your work mates if you don’t put effort into it.
You may not care; that’s fine.
If you’re a happy and don’t care what coworkers think of you, do whatever makes you happy.
I was responding to the OP which was about things they struggled with about remote working.
What are you responding to, other than “lol that’s not me”?
Good for you. If you’re happy, why did you bother to respond?
What’s your advice? How do you deal with the issues the OP mentioned?
I tend to get responses like this from people who are being defensive about putting no effort into their professional relationships.
It’s fine. If that’s a thing you place no value in, don’t do it.
Sorry, I can’t hear you over having a life outside of work. (That life is almost entirely centered around my dog, we have amazing adventures almost every day, AMA)
> Sitting all day is bad for you, and it forces you to take breaks.
So it’s only mostly bad for you ;)
This is the key, I think. Even in a general sense, very few of the problems we face in day-to-day life are unsolvable. But having the discipline and strength to actually implement those solutions -- especially when they require sustained effort -- can be really hard.
I've been running into this too lately, now that I have more time on my hands. I've picked most of the low-hanging fruit from my personal project list, and it's hard to find the motivation to keep going. Lately I've been spending a lot of time watching TV shows and movies, reading books, and reading random things on the internet (like HN). These aren't pointless activities, but I'd like to be spending more of my time on activities that I personally find more valuable.
A few suggestions:
- Choose to not make every day the same. You're free! Once or twice a week, take a train or bus to a different place for the day, somewhere with good cell signal. Work from a national park, or a beach, a café, pub, museum, library, take a river cruise... whatever. There's nowhere in the world that has nothing to offer. Just get into the habit of picking somewhere different than home and going there to work for a day. In your breaks and before/after working, explore, relax... Just enjoy yourself somehow.
- Be deliberate about arranging calls with coworkers, friends, family. Just hang out on a call. Go for a walk while you take these calls, or do something other than sit in a chair.
- If you don't already have hobbies, you want to discover some that you enjoy. Do something that creates nice memories with your spare time, and that isn't the same as your work, or just relaxing. Once you've got one or more hobbies, if you're missing social interaction, find a (local/regional/national/International) group, meet up, society or some other form of community. Join it and participate. In person, online, maybe travel to go to events related to it. You'll quickly find your people this way. There are friends and partners out there for everyone.
- if you're not happy with where you live... move! It might not seem possible, but it is. Whatever the hurdles, you can get over them. Remote work is freedom to choose your environment. Choose it.
Need to get out of your headspace and ideally out of the office.
Sort of. First your employer needs to approve of where you’re going to live assuming it is out of state or country. There are a variety of legal and tax implications.
The first remote company I worked for had a list of approved states, for instance. I assume this is common.
State governments that collect income taxes beg to differ. Heck, your employer probably disagrees with you too! Heck, even federal governments that are collecting taxes beg to differ.
Good for you if you can keep the secret though, it’s probably illegal in one way or another.
I'll second this. I started a new remote job recently where we're encouraged to regularly schedule virtual coffee time with coworkers where we don't talk about work. It goes a long way towards fostering relationships.
I've been trying to keep track of park locations near me that have
- restrooms
- tables with shade, if shade comes from tree there must not be lots of birds shitting from tree
- 4G/5G signal
- not hot mid-day
It's hard to actually get work done without all of the above.
Separately, an EV makes an excellent mobile office. You can use the car's power and air conditioning all day without "idling" an engine. Just pack a lunch, drive to a scenic vista point that has a restroom and cell signal and you're all set.
Until a bird shit on my head
My quest continues
For us, once we all went remote, the day just started earlier. Whereas we used to start at 10 we begun starting meetings at 8. The assumption being that nobody is commuting, so why not start the day earlier? This also helped accommodate others in non-Pacific Americas timezones. This means you have to jump straight into meetings and each day can't be materially different, unless you make your after work life different.
> Be deliberate about arranging calls with coworkers, friends, family. Just hang out on a call.
We tried this but it wasn't the same. Eventually, everyone ended up on their phones while on the call and slowly nobody started showing up to social Zooms. Zoom calls are fine for work but just don't allow the same sense of presence that being in the same space in real life would offer.
> If you don't already have hobbies, you want to discover some that you enjoy. Do something that creates nice memories with your spare time, and that isn't the same as your work, or just relaxing.
But my coworkers and I have so much shared context. We spend 8 hours+ together. It feels like a waste to pretend that we just don't have anything in common despite the time.
Don't get me wrong I love how easy it is to start my day and how little time is wasted commuting. I love the coffee I make at home and I love being able to eat my home cooking or talk with my partner over lunch. Being able to use my home bathroom is majestic. But there's definitely things lost working remote. Maybe if you're a remote worker at a hybrid or in-office company where expectations around most employees are in the office, the above works, but at a full remote company I'm not so sure.
We do also tend to end earlier. I don't care because I'm a night owl, but early bird coworkers seem to enjoy the extra time. And yes I've considered walking but haven't yet because I'm not so sure it's that different in other companies I'm interested in at my level.
I think that what is kind of unsaid and lost here is that long working hours in office were super often about socialization and not work itself. I mean, it was noticeable even before - people who were there long hours tend to chat away a lot of times both in and out of meetings.
But, it looked like work, it was pleasant and rewarded.
But let's assume this is true. What does this have to do with "It feels like a waste to pretend that we just don't have anything in common despite the time.". Let's assume, to play devil's advocate, that 40% of your 8 hour day is a waste, that 3.2 hours of your day was a waste used to prop up performance reviews. This leaves 4.8 hours of a day with your coworkers actually working. That's 4.8 hours of building connection. To recreate this effect, I'd need to equivalently spend 4.8 hours per day connecting/socializing with others to build the same rapport. That's more than I've ever spent in any social context with friends sans events like week-long concerts or vacations and those are special occasions. This 4.8 hours of daily connection is now lost under a scenario where people don't form bonds at work.
I'm not sure how this complaint is relevant. Just because the time was superfluous or used to pad performance reviews, a claim that seems dubious for ticket-based companies, doesn't negate the time spent connecting. Getting annoyed/angry at a culture that rewards face-time is unrelated to the reality of time spent together in the same context.
> That's 4.8 hours of building connection.
No, a non-overtime company does not have you building connection 3-4.8 hours a day. That is huge amount of time and does not happen in that setup, unless you are all slacking.
Now I wake up at 5:00 AM and basically work non-stop in the same spot (sometimes a coffee shop in the morning) until 6:30 PM. I skip breakfast and lunch altogether, because I've found that without walking around the office campus I gain weight too quickly.
It's like the saying about hard drives: however much more space they get, people still find a way to fill them up. Same thing with my time apparently.
It sounds like you filled the extra time gained through WFH mostly with more work. Try filling it up with social activities, exercise, going outside etc. You might start feeling a lot better and not have to worry about weight.
I'm personally happy to put in a productive 9-5 and don't see a need to regularly work 60-70 hour weeks.
It is nit overstepping, it is finally having chance to sleep away that sleep debt.
But for the rest, what actually worked for me was to have commitment at end of workday. Ideally something that forces you to finish (a gym class, activity with friend/kids etc). But even if not, something as simple ritual of "I play guitar 17:00 sharp for 15 minutes and then exercise another 15 minutes" did the trick. It takes you mentally away from work and in few weeks creates habit.
Instead in both programming jobs Ive had post pandemic, it is all remote. I've met my workmates in person perhaps thrice despite working at the company for a year. It is surreal.
> it feels like I’m living in Groundhog Day everyday. Every single day looks exactly the same
This in particular, and it is even worse if you live alone.
I've been working on distributed teams since around 2011, though I have been contracting from home for five years before that. In the very first distributed team I joined, the eng director made it a point to:
- Have everyone gather in-person periodically by flying everyone to HQ
- Making coworking spaces available
- Traveling to the different cities to meet with the team
- Setting "core hours", a subset of the regular business hours of the US timezones
I found that the daily standup was an important synchronization point for remote-first and distributed teams.
There's something about working on the same project, collaborating, brainstorming, in the same space, that is missing from remote work. Hanging out at a co-working space gives you the presence of other people but not the camaraderie of actually working on the same project.
Maybe if you never felt that camaraderie then you don't know what you've been missing.
Nothing is universal, but I can't help but assume that the work-from-office cohort is VERY disproportionately young. People whose lives are not yet as full as they likely will be a decade in the future, and for whom their job may be at the center of their personal socialization.
I remember the shared experience that you're describing, and sure... it's great to have a few years of that when you're fresh out of school, working your first couple jobs as a junior dev, and transitioning out of that college student lifestyle. But I was married at 25, and had two children in my 30's. I am OVER late nights for the sake of late nights, and think that's normal and healthy by the time you're a mid to senior level professional.
I'd argue though that, people used to have that with their local community, and it has since been replaced with working in jobs far away from home and the local community. This shift in working has not always been the default mode that civilization has collaborated, and a remote-first culture might enable some of the good things that come with being a part of a community along with modern technology.
In my other comment, I suggested reconnecting with that local community. Maybe if you never felt that camarderie with the community you live with, then perhaps you don't know what you've been missing.
I think the effects of everyone pushing all of their lives onto the internet are going to be negative, and probably will affect millennials and gen z for decades. I feel most sad for the kids who didn’t get to socialize in person for two years :/
What is great is that, whereas before covid, it was a little harder to find a fully remote position, it's now really easy. But, at the same time, there are plenty of non-remote places too, so people who want that experience can find it, and they won't be competing with me for that job either.
There are even hybrid offices, where you can work on-site part of the time, and work from home part of the time.
Pretty much any setup you want is available to you with a readiness that wasn't there 3 years ago. It's just a better situation for workers over all.
So, if you don't like working remote, you don't have to!
And even if there was an office available, would there even be a benefit to going into the office to work with the 2 other people who are local if I still have to spend all of my time on video calls with the 8 other people who are remote? And the labor conditions have changed such that even if I could find a company and team that was fully local (and cared about it enough to give up my current team, whom I love working with otherwise), I probably wouldn't want to work with any team that was only hiring locally and made it a requirement. Just look at how many people associate working from an office with pointy haired management overreach! Who would even take that kind of job? Nobody who had any other options, that's for sure.
When the industry is moving to remote first, everybody gets swept up in the same tide.
People who compete in the Olympics had to work very hard to get there. People who manage their time needed to learn how to do so, and then actually do it.
Like Nike said, "Just Do It." There is no secret. Nothing you learn will make this magically happen. Just do it. There is no shortcut.
It takes some people decades to learn this. Others seem to know it subconsciously and appear to live a charmed life. The secret is that there is no secret. Just do it.
I live by work to make sure I have no excuse to not start my day. I find someone at an office to go to the gym with me at lunch, and people at the gym who are there at the same time. I grab food with other people who I know are healthy. I pick up my son, who I also make sure goes to school near work and home, and put down my phone when I’m with him.
Work from home makes only one of those things simple and self reinforcing. Without a standard office I often feel like my life is falling apart.
And I’m not the only one! I fully expect sentiment on wfh to come full circle within the next two years.
The author mentions a lack of willpower to implement solutions, and I totally get it, so if there’s just one thing I would strongly suggest getting a personal trainer, which several people described changing their lives in a thread yesterday. I got one when I was having trouble with energy mid pandemic, and even though I chose not to continue with her in specific, the kickstart was fantastic
Work from home. Live in the office. Keep 'em guessing. Blaze your own trail.
- it forces you to wake up at a certain time
- you get some exercise in
- you go outside and have micro social interactions
- if you take them out at a certain time after work, it’ll come let you know that it’s time, so you won’t overwork
- they’re great antidepressants
- great for company when your partner is gone 4AM to 7PM
You can get exercise and social contact besides (although on the latter point, animals can provide some comfort, but they don't sub for a social life). I think the valid reason for wanting a dog is wanting a dog, and tolerating if not enjoying the lifestyle that it requires. There are a lot of owners out there who think they want a pet, and then they end up neglected or at a shelter (or the owner does their job, but regrets their choice).
I'm being pedantic here but not all dog breeds require the same level of care, attention and expense. For example, in India, an Indian Pariah Dog is probably the most healthy and behaviorally balanced dog breed you can get. They don't have any exotic food requirements, they don't need regular grooming, they shed minimally, and they're happy with decent exercise. I've heard Greyhounds are somewhat similar but I don't have experience with them so I'm not completely sure.
But yeah, I agree that people shouldn't get dogs on a whim. When they do, those dogs almost always end up on the road or in a shelter.
* completing tasks
vs
* who see work as a piece of their life
People _need_ social interaction (this is an indisputable fact of being human) and remote work divorces the social from the productive for the first time in history (there are jobs where you are isolated for periods like oil rig workers, but this is on a completely new scale).
There aren’t any proven methods to manage this, so your experience is largely dictated by your social reserves and social skills/circle (outside of work).
People can be satisfied working remotely without having social reserves and social skills/circle.
I definitely consider myself closer to someone who sees work as a piece of their life than someone who completes tasks for money. I love working remotely.
I’m not arguing against work being only a part of life, but that most remote jobs cannot be broken down into pieces like an assembly line where socializing is unnecessary. Jobs cannot be completely compartmentalized.
This is the first time perhaps in my life where I have been beaten over the head by the in-group that I am in the out-group. I'm a mostly straight, white man who never had to worry about being targeted due to who I am, and who never had to worry about food or housing. I'm smart and never had to work to get into college or get a good job.
Reading HN makes me feel like I'm insane to think that WFH is a major societal change that will hurt many people, especially younger people who are just getting into the workforce.
Kids who just went through two years of remote study, who will now be thrown onto macbooks shipped to them and told how to do their coding and learn corporate culture and understand their fucking job that is a third of their life from a desk at their house. Good luck making new friends. Hope you're religious or an alcoholic or a sex addict, because that's how you meet people in the digital age.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills to think that interacting with people in person for some portion of the third of my life that is work is silly. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills to think that I should get some kind of social fulfillment out of the activity that I must complete to buy a table and put food on it.
I felt out of place today even chatting 30 seconds worth of brainstorming overtime on a zoom call, because no one "just talks" on zoom anymore to work out problems. We just zone out on Slack and trudge through our shitty WFH job, having many meetings but struggling to reach out for help.
I know WFH is good for many people and for many family situations, but I think the highlight of my professional IT life will have been my mid twenties when I really liked my coworkers and could actually feel like the work I was doing was a fun activity.
I haven't figured it out yet, but certainly a standing desk is now essential for my mental and physical health. Again, it falls under the umbrella of movement. Joining groups (which are still around - meetup.com is still around but clearly getting long in the tooth!) is a good idea. Going out to bars can be fun, too. Just seeing real faces, hearing real words -- it's very refreshing and good. We've all been in solitary confinement for a solid chunk of time, so now that the pandemic is cooling down, it's time to revel a bit in the joy of other humans!
If I was in an office all those days would just be wasted time rather than actually using it for living my life. I really don’t understand how people could prefer living in an office and pretending coworkers are their friends rather than on their own terms.
The upside of having easy days like this is I genuinely enjoy immersing myself in the challenge of hard problems once in a while, with full energy to tackle them head on.
That said, a couple years into remote work I'm starting to get a better grip on my free time usage, and I think friends will start to come naturally as I start to pick up classes and such once the pandemic situation improves.
As for the rest… For the most part all my days felt the same at the office too. Choosing a place to move to was a function of picking a place that was affordable and best suited my tastes. Schedule comes naturally to me because I feel terrible if I don't have one. The time I spend doing things I like I consider "meaningful" even if they don't amount to much. For exercise going on walks and a VR headset has helped a lot.
Overall while I miss some things about the office, the balance generally weighs in favor of remote work. At this point I think I'd only consider coming into the office if I were living within a 5-15m walk of it.
I think it will take time and some experimentation to get used to this freedom. These are just ramblings where I’m trying to identify what’s making me feel sad and how to fix it.
Again, thank you everyone for the great suggestions!
The sole fact that I get to actually sleep like a human rather than waste away 2 hours of my life every single day travelling in the early morning is more than enough reason for me to never, EVER go back to an office. Not having to interact with the parasitic middle management types is also a big bonus, because I have actual friends outside of work and have ZERO interest in turning my co-workers jnto anything resembling friends.
We don’t know what we are doing and that’s ok because we have a core product that is the best in the world and the periphery to that is “so, what now?”. We have short and long term goals, and an extremely viable business with an excellent sales force. But yeah — for all the solidity of what we’ve built so far (and have been successful at selling) there’s ask a lot of blue sky above us and it’s all our jobs to reach for it.
Blue sky is a challenge because while don’t know how to get there, we can figure it out by talking, having ideas, finding out which ones rock, refining them, going off and hacking, and coming back and talking about it some more.
Things that work perfectly fine when working remotely: ideas, proofs of concept, hacking, thinking. Things that suck remotely: talking about stuff.
I would go crazy if I didn’t get the hybrid time in the office that I do, with my colleagues. Funnily, the top notch conversations are the ones that start in the office but then happen while we are walking around the business park on foot. How do you feel out a controversial idea on zoom when the call just ends and you have no soft touch ways of winding back from professional conflict? Does everyone who works remotely have some magical team juju that means they mostly agree on stuff all the time? Are you remote-first people all working on such clearly defined goals that you never have to go through the strife of what the goals should be in the first place?
You do the same thing you'd do in person? Go snag a person (or people) for a conversation and talk? Or send an email or whatever, if you wouldn't ordinarily speak directly to them?
If -after more than two years of remote work- the folks you're working with haven't yet learned to respond to "Hey, do you have a minute?" in text chat in the same way that they'd respond to a face-to-face request, then I'm not sure what to say.
Though, if you spend most or all of your day managing people, rather than building things, I guess I can understand the point of view. From what I've seen, managers seem to be _far_, _faaaar_ less likely to be able to cope with not being in meatspace with their coworkers than ordinary line workers.
Probably jarring because our whole lives are so structured, from school, to college to our job on schedule. It's odd to break free mostly.
Embrace it, keep dabbling and trying and thinking. The rest will come.
Are people actually friends with their coworkers? I'm friendly with my coworkers, but I find actual friendship to be a conflict of interest. This is why I love working from coworking spaces. I can be friends with everyone I spend the whole day with, without worrying about it negatively impacting my work or vice versa.
I wouldn't call us friends by any means, but man does it create this giant conflict of interest in my head still.
On a similar note, I also helped a friend get a job with me a few years back. He was completely checked out, to the point I was ashamed to have ever recommended him. So I probably won't do that again, either.
Understandable, but still weird: Is it our job to enforce work quality and productivity from our colleagues? Has "The Man" made us turn on each other?
I found that managers (representing the business) are not primarily focussed on eliminating underperformers; instead they are trying to have work done within the constraints they have - recruiting and retaining competent employees being a major constraint in today's workplace. It is management itself that wants you to work around and cover for weaker colleagues. Your boss is likely operating on a macro level, trying to defend the entire team through the ups and down of corporate restructurings.
I have realized that it was my own ego acting up, wanting to be seen as 'better', and complaining about 'unfair' work distribution. The honourable path is to try and enable the weaker team members, there are always tickets they can handle right? If you carry a heavier load, make sure it is reflected in your salary accordingly.
I can't do much about having a harder time socializing and bonding with co-workers. On the distributed teams I have been at, there were periodic in-person gatherings (retreats, or everyone showing up for the same tech conference) where we can do things that is difficult by being remote. You'd have to take that up with your team and manager.
I can offer some words on some of the other things:
Probably the most important thing is to find and live in a purposeful way, whether that with in-person teams or on a remote-first team. That purpose is what gets you up in the morning, fuels your willpower and self-discipline.
A lot of people substitute external activity for that inner purpose. Unless someone has purposefully found a company whose mission aligns with their purpose, chances are, that person is using their job as a imperfect proxy for that purpose. That person, in having to rely on something outside of themselves to be self-disciplined, is not likely to do as good of a job as someone whose inner purpose aligns with the company's mission. I personally think this is close to the heart of what I see as malaise of modernism.
The other is that, if you can, try filling the extra time you would have gotten into commute to get to know your local community. Whether that is going to the coffee shop, volunteering for something local. I think a lot of people substitute a connection with their local community with their workplace. There's a sense of belonging, of place that happens in a company, at the expense of the local community.
If the local community you inhabit does not resonate with you, then finding one you feel you feel you belong to will guide you on where to move out to. It's helpful if you can find some place that is walkable, designed for humans to walk around, to live, to work, to play. Or perhaps, you find that you enjoy hiking and biking and outdoors, in which case moving to an area where you can do that would make more sense. Perhaps you enjoy being nomadic. You can make that happen with a remote-first, distributed team and a starlink subscription. Perhaps you like gardening or farming; working remote would let you work out from a rural area.
Finding the purpose within, and finding a community you belong to are things that, once you connected with, will endure through jobs in your career. Hope that helps.
This! So much this.
> malaise of modernism
In the past, people could learn their values from literally a single book and it was enough for a lifetime.
Nowadays I have a chance to only slightly nudge any meaningful aspect in my entire lifetime. I now need to understand complex global systems and their local manifestations. That's quite a few books and blogs in itself, but it still would be a breeze without the rampant disinformation. The crux is that the people who managed to "bootstrap" and are standing on a solid foundation have no scalable social mechanism to pass it to others. Getting that ground under my feet honestly felt like 90% of the work.
The bar is just too high for many.
It looks like people don't know what to do with their life and find work as a meaningful baseline that is acceptable in social gatherings.
Just do stuff. Don't look for meaning in things. It's a glaring red flag that he finds the idea of working 15 hour surgical shifts appealing and wants someone else to tell him what to do and give his life structure. That isn't meaning. That's just outsourcing your decision-making. You're going to die, sooner than you'd like, and everyone who ever gave a shit you once existed will die as well. I spend so much of my time wiping down surfaces, lifting weights, sweeping and vacuuming floors, for what? I know damn well it will all go to shit and rot into dust within days, if not hours, of my death. To paraphrase Beric Dondarrion, entropy is the enemy, and the enemy always wins. But still we fight, because what the fuck else are we supposed to do? You either kill yourself, you fill your time with something, anything, or you sit around writing think pieces about how much you despair over not knowing what to do with your time.
A good place to start is don't hijack the right click action on your blog.
I probably sound like an asshole, but I do empathize. I've felt this way a lot. Then I get over it and get back to work. Then I despair again. Then I get over it and get back to work. Hopefully this guy at least goes through similar cycles and doesn't just spend his entire life directionless and depressed. It's okay to slow down and realize how pointless this all is every now and again. Just don't let it consume you, and eventually get over it and get back to work. Not your job, but your life. Live it, no matter how stupid and pointless it is.
Working from home solved my problems.
I do not want, necessarily, to be friends with my work mates. I have an other life, and there my friends are.
The person writing that article needs to go back to the office. Not me
It's like they are not getting what it's being discussed here: no more commuting, more productivity and more time.
My situation is fully remote, however my home is my "duty station." I am required to work at my physical home. If I were in a position to nitpick my situation, I would really like to just be able to go to a public space to work such as a coffee shop, campsite, shared space, etc. sometime - just to interact with humans.
OP might have resonated with me a decade ago, but now I have a wife and kids. I don't need office socialization to give my life meaning. I have my eight hours of work to do and then I have my life to get back to. I definitely don't need to lose two hours a day commuting.
There were days in my twenties where I had no idea what to do with the day, and on many of those days I ended up doing nothing. I haven't had a day like that for the greater part of a decade.
I look back and I don’t even know how commuting fit into my schedule. In between work obligations, wife, 3 kids (one in college), dogs, home maintenance, and musical aspirations, I have zero problems with getting my work done and getting back to my life.
If you know what you’re doing, you can get all of your obligations done and then carry on with whatever. It normally doesn’t take me a full 40.
What you think would be a good adjective to describe this opinion you just shared, that people who prefer in person work don't have their lives stuffed with meaning and structure?
"Pregnancy works best for people with uteruses" doesn't mean that pregnancy works fantastically for every person with a uterus.
Unfortunately, on the internet, someone is always ready to take offense at a generalization, even if the generalization implies nothing worth taking offense about.
What’s interesting is that successful fully-remote companies are full of emotionally mature and established people. This is a moat in itself.
I’ve been remote for most of the last 10 years but nearly all of my first 3-4 years was onsite in public service/government positions. I was lucky enough to be in an environment where giving time to younger staff was the norm and expected. I haven’t seen this level of support again since going to private industry sadly.
But there's more to life than work! I wanted to live an easy bike ride from the train near a good school with a few acres to rewild under 100k. And now I do! Couldn't before remote, though.
Long story short: IMO, so far, WFH is mostly chosen by skilled people and since they are a minority it's hard to find matches outside restricted areas like universities and some companies HQs... That's NOT a WFH issue, but a social one. That's can only be solved after a significant amount of time.
That's means: now many try to relocate to nice places for climate, nature, leisure, ... and so far it's a virgin territory. After a decade or more, like we have "good" and "poor/bad" neighborhoods in cities now we will find "WFH places" where people match enough to satisfy the physical proximity need. The issue is that such process is long and hard, but I see no other evolutions so far...
I think it’s time to find some new hobbies. Find something that does inspire you. You know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
We are born good at crying and sucking nipples. Everything else we learn.
You have to stick at something through the awkward ‘not very good’ stage too.
1. Get to spend more time with your spouse and pets. 2. Can cook your own meals instead buying outside junk. 3. Spend 1 hour working out or gardening instead of sitting in traffic.
But of course, if you live alone in a tiny shoebox apartment then remote work is the last thing you want.
This does not seem like a problem due to remote work. Presumably, working in office still permits people with time to pursue hobbies.
Or are the number of hours vastly different working remote versus office ?
Discipline is certainly important but it's important for everything. As more of the people I work with moved to remote work the ones who have struggled tend to be the younger ones without much actual work experience. A lack of discipline combined with unrealistic expectations seems to play a large role in whether someone is dissatisfied with remote work.
I'm working in an Italian co-working space and can relate. I'm the only foreigner here. I would like to be friends with them and practice my Italian but my workload and schedule doesn't allow me to be always available. I'm not used to reaching out to people. Usually I work and discuss with my colleagues and relationship just happens. Would like to know a way to improve this. I hate small talks though.
I've also worked at places with absolutely forgettable coworkers; working in the office was a drag.
I'm remote now and love most of it. I miss the fun office of the first paragraph, and would love to find something like that again, but I know its unlikely -- filling an office with people that just click with each other is a rare thing.
Short of that scenario I don't think anything could entice me back to the office.
And it definitely doesn't feel like retirement...You still work every day, even more because people expect you to be around at any moment. This is bad but easily fixable with just ignoring messages at night. In office, if you're there people could just approach you even when you're leaving.
For me it's great because:
- No more alarm clock
- No more noisy office
- No more beng pulled aside for every little thing
- No more people dropping in
- No more unhealthy lunches at the food trucks or some restaurant.
- I can just pop out quickly to get some task done.
- Tons more free time since I don't commute
- My choice of location. I lived and worked out of a farm for years. At the end of the work day I'd move the irrigation lines and then kick back on the porch with a beer and watch the sun set over the fields. My commute time was spent on farm chores instead.
But it does require some new habits:
- Have a set start and stop time and stick to it religiously. Outside of those hours, do no work related activities.
- Develop good cooking and food habits. Newer gadgets like instant pots, air fryers and sous vide cookers make this MUCH easier.
- Make sure you get at least 10 minutes of some kind of exercise per day. Better yet 20.
- Take breaks and go for walks outside.
- Have a rotation of places to work from.
And there are some people who just don't work well in this kind of environment:
- Maybe they need a communal feel, even if they're not actually talking to people.
- Maybe they need face-to-face contact with at least some regularity.
- Maybe they need to hang out with at least some regular people during the workday.
- Maybe they need a clear, physical distance separation between work and home.
- Maybe they need a regimen where the actions are built-in to the system rather than self-imposed (having to go to an office that has a set start and end time, office rules, etc)
And that's fine. Each to their own. At my workplace, there's an office that people can go to if they want, or work from home. Their choice. And it's cheaper for the company since the office doesn't need to have a spot for every person.
You can very likely walk near your location. If you can, you can phone a colleague. Combine the two. Sitting for 8 hours behind a computer screen is unhealthy, no matter if its remote or not. Also, the walk allows for inspiration (diffused mode) and will make you more productive afterwards when you are in focused mode. My employer even gives me one hour paid sports a week cause they know they earn it back. Give it a whirl.
A job is just putting make up on the problem but the problem itself will remain intact.
Recently I joined a rowing club and joined a coworking space.
Working remotely is nice. Working out of your living room is intense.
Getting a watch that will tell me when I've been sitting still for too long is nice, too.
most people seek for meaningful relationships and purpose in life, not just paychecks.
it's not people's fault if that particular way of working can lead to depression.
why?
it's not the best or the worst, it's one of the many places people spend time.
it also depends a lot on people's age, when I was young I made friends with people I worked with of my same age and at first experiences like me, we are still friends.
Now I mostly am there to do my job, meetings and be the "uncle" of younger co-workers.
is there a particular reason why college or the gym should be considered a better place to form bonds, except for people expectations?
> You can be made redundant in a moment and lose contact,
or you could move and lose contact...
or you could keep in touch because you became friends.
There's no general rule.
> there's money, an explicit hierarchy, and competition
I believe this mostly boils down to cultural differences, where I am from co-workers rarely compete fiercely and hierarchies are mostly not very deep, work is not organized like the military here.
It is probably less efficient, but it makes the work more stable, so people work at the same company for much longer on average and they do actually consider co-workers friends or at least people you have to interact with everyday, so why not make the best out of it.
I'm not saying that it's impossible to mentor people online, but here's the issue as I see it...When I physically worked with people, I'd them having trouble, I could see their body language, notice they were coming into to work later, looking unenthused. I'd develop their social skills. The bandwidth was way, way higher. Problems were ok because though I'd go over to their desk, sit with them and teach them things, teach them to communicate, develop their social skills, go get coffee and talk about their problems, they'd ask questions and we might go to lunch together and talk a bit more about things and work through. We'd form a bond. What I'd get out of this bond is more capable people around me at, what felt like, a lower price than with remote work.
Now, mentoring for most people is a way bigger sacrifice. I mean, I could be out riding my mountain bike rather than mentoring newbies or sit on the phone listening to their issues.
I'm also simulating a social scene based on previous work social life. I know what the important of conversing with my peers is like. I remember how to do it. I perpetuate it with online work. Not everyone can do this.
When I worked in an office there was a clear distinction between my two lives, my work life and my free time. I was happy to give my work life and time to others. I went out of my way to do it. Now all my time seems more precious and I don't want to give too much of my free time away. This is great in the short term but it's bad in the long term, I can see it affecting our team negatively already. There is a growing gap between the less experienced people and the people who can learn and grow on their own, autonomously. It's like some people have a level of knowledge that makes them immutable to the isolation of remote work, for them remote work is 100% ok. Others don't have the skills yet to cope. The people who don't have the ability to perform and work autonomously aren't schooled, they're scorned, they're annoying, they're stopping people from accessing their endless free time gained from being good at what they do.
There's a raft of other issues that go with this too, timezone barriers, the fact it's super easy to avoid people so they can hide issues and their feelings with less effort. I could go on. Anyway, I believe this will become more of a problem as more experienced people retire and stop schooling the younger crowd.
Time will tell, it will be interesting to see how all of this pans out. I'm 100% loving remote work , I'm not trying to say there is an inherit issue with it, just going to have to solve this problem, I can only imagine it getting worse over time if younger people stop physically attending college. Good bye another mechanism for developing social skills...
> I can’t move out bc I have nothing determining my location
Not sure I understand this one... any insight?
Willpower is a learned skill that you can fine-tune so you are focused on your work. You need to treat your work as the single most important think in your life during the work hours. Don't surf the web from your work computer. Don't allow yourself to deviate from the regular daily routine.
The number one place where Americans met their married partners was at work
It out ranks mutual friends, hobbies, and College.
I had a lot of colleagues in my last job, and I have become friends with 2 of them. So the odds are not big. But it’s bigger than my current remote only job.
Everyone's different and you do you, but from a social person's perspective the interactions in the moment have value and can bring joy whether or not I'm going to be friends with that person in 20 years.
Vs, wow, I'm going to hang out with friends 40hrs a week. Sounds fun!
I'd pick the 2nd always. 3 of my best friends in the world are ex-coworkers and 1 more was a friend before but we started a company together at one point so we're we were co-workers. Another close friend I got managed to convince to come to the company I was at. We all had great times together.
It's one of the things that didn't happen at my last job and is certainly not happening at my current job with hybrid mostly WFH. Not making friends which basically makes work a chore instead of a party.