Remote work is bad for you

I never really had the choice of a full remote work, but I'm like the author and anytime I work remotely I have that loneliness issue he's describing. There are a handful of colleagues that I never interact with when working remotely that are part of those "Weak Ties" the article touches upon and seeing them is part of why I go to the office, even if I don't have to.

And I posted this to see if other on HN are like that.

"Remote work is bad for ME" is what the title should've been, and that would've already made your point more palatable.

The logical leap from "I feel lonely" (which is absolutely valid) to "remote work is bad" is simply blunt overgeneralization.

Moreover, it comes as a disservice to posts like mine (https://0xff.nu/remote-work/) as employers see "lonely" -> "See?? remote work makes you lonely! So now everyone goes back to the office"

Otherwise – what have you done to address specific issues? What worked? What didn't work?

It seems the entire premise is that Social Media is what is actually bad for us but going to office would help people be more tolerant... I don't think so. The vast majority of people do not work from home remotely. And the intolerance in our society was well established before remote work was common during the pandemic.

I personally really dislike when someone proclaims how society should be from the own personal anecdote.

>This was a good part of life. The office gave us access to this. It served as the ambient social substrate where tolerance, community, and begrudging, low-grade, constant connection took place.

I'll chalk it up to personal preference, but this is exactly the type of interaction I'm happy to miss while working remote.

The author mentions loneliness of remote work, but he didn't do a research of tools against that. For example, there is a tool called virtual frosted glass video meetings (via the MeetingGlass app) that allows you to be behind a shared layer of virtual frosted glass with colleagues. It functions like the physical frosted glass and makes you feel relaxed while being on video.

Allow me to write my rebuttal. Remote work is good for you.

I started remote working just before the covid hysteria began. I used to view it with suspicion. If I work from home, then I will always be at work I reasoned. But by the time I had accepted to work from home, this was already the case. If the server went down at 2am, I had to get up and fix it, no matter what.

Working remote wasn't a big change, I was still sitting at a desk with my laptop. My office interruptions went from colleagues to spouse interrupting my train of thought. But being untethered from the office opened up the whole world as a potential location. In fact, that is the reason I started remote working.

I purchased a modest home outside the country at a very low price and intended to live there for a few years. The cost of living was so much lower, I was living a great life there too. It allowed me to save enough cash to buy another home here in the US. Of course, since I work remote, that means I could live anywhere in the US. Anywhere at all.

Where would you choose to live if you could live anywhere? I didn't want to live in the city that I left. I left there because I could never afford a home there. I had no reason to go back to it. I didn't arrive at my answer quickly. I spent more than two years shopping around, weighing pros and cons, deciding what location fit my lifestyle the best.

I tried to find a place that replicated my home outside the US as much as possible. Low cost of living, low cost housing, adequate passenger rail, walkable with no need for a car, low crime. A small town that is a short train ride away from the big city. Now that I've found it, the major expenses of my life are gone. I don't own a car, I have a bicycle. I don't have any debt. I owe no one a rent/mortgage check at the end of the month. Carrying everything I eat and drink home from the grocery store is a great way to stay in shape and avoid over-eating as well.

Since my expenses are so low, I now enjoy a three day work week. We live on one income. I'm no longer responsible for server uptime. I can work whichever days I choose. I split my four days off. Two days of the week are for my side project ideas. The weekends are spent enjoying eating out, hopping on the train to explore a new station stop or revisit a favorite one. If we stay home, I do the cooking on Sunday for my spouse who cooked all week for me. I'm very stress free now.

Despite living modestly, I consider myself richer than the billionaires of the world, because I have the one thing they'll never have: Enough.

> But I feel myself becoming myopic, self-obsessed, lonely, fearful, resentful, and repulsed by strangers from the private enclosure of my home in the suburbs.

Your creepy boss needs their social life! That is reason to abandon your children, and spend 2 hours every day on commute to office. So thay can have their daily fix of chit chat!

I got fired from last job, company's dog tried to rape me, and I had to pepper spray it! It is "a good dog", except it humps everything in sight! They would not even pay my hospital bill!

But working from home is bad for me, what a gaslighting! Get your own social life, do not be a creep!

Oh yeah, then why has my life only gone downhill since RTO?