Absolutely. WFH makes me extremely depressed, and it resolves immediately when I return to an office. For me a personal coworking space was enough to stave it off, but an actual office would be much preferred.
as someone who has no problem with WFH, working from home for (and with) someone you don't ever encounter in real life can easily get people depressed.
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.
There are exceptions and I see how it can act as a sort of safety net group of acquaintances on which you can build... but for most people, work has got to be the worst place to find meaningful relationships and purpose, hasn't it? You can be made redundant in a moment and lose contact, there's money, an explicit hierarchy, and competition making everything awkward, and the purpose is usually questionable (hence the money)
> but for most people, work has got to be the worst place to find meaningful relationships and purpose, hasn't it?
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.
For many of these reasons which I also experience, I was hoping there'd be more of a blend of home/in-office emerge.
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.
Have you considered coworking at a closer destination?
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
The director is an Erlang guy. I sometimes think he applied some distributed systems reasoning to the dynamics of the distributed team.
I found that the daily standup was an important synchronization point for remote-first and distributed teams.
Co-working is not a substitute for working with teammates. To give an extreme example, "Hey, I wish I had a live in partner who gave me hugs and shared in my ups and downs but I don't" -> "You could hang out at a coffee shop and talk to random people" (not as a way to meet someone but as a substitute for having a partner)
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.
You can still have that by getting the team together every so often for a week or two of intensive meetings and planning. Many companies new to remote since COVID have skipped this part, maybe because it would mean admitting that remote is here to stay and not just a temporary contingency.
In my experience, meetings and planning are exactly the opposite of the enjoyable moments of being on an in-person team working on a project together. It is the impromptu ideas, brainstorming sessions, late nights figuring something out, that create a shared experience worth having, in my opinion.
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 mean, it may not be the same thing but if they're really just looking for some comraderie, those "bar coder" meet ups where a bunch of local engineers meet up at different local bars once a week to talk about stuff and make contacts, might kind of fill the void.
Yes, having a shared purpose for a team working together in the same place is difficult to replicate.
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 have been remote since 2018 and feel the same way. Prior to that I worked from the office 3 days a week and it was perfect.
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 :/
As the world opens up, working from home doesn’t have to mean living from home. A lot of structure and friendship can come from self-selected groups and activities, not just those who the organization put on your team.
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
This is a great idea! I’m having trouble advancing with my fitness too so this will probably put me in a better state physically and emotionally. Thank you!
> I have solutions to a lot of these problems. I just don’t always have the mental strength to actually use the solutions.
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.
Guy sounds like he lives alone and is depressed. I have exactly none of these problems. Go to sleep by 8:30, wake up around 3 every day, no alarms, no explicit schedule, no planning. It's just habit. I don't need to find stuff to do. I keep the house clean. Keep my car clean. Complete renovation projects. I don't find it takes much mental energy at all to work out every day. What the heck else am I gonna do waking up at 3 AM? I don't want to be friends with my co-workers. I've already got my wife, our neighbors, all the people at the community pool and local dive bar we hang out at.
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.
just a couple of things about making assumptions:
* The author of the post is a woman
* The author mentions her partners job towards the end of the post so we know she is not single and lonely
I don't see an inherent contradiction, it's entirely possible to feels lonely even when not single. She also mentioned that her partner is a surgeon that wake at 4am to end his work day at 7pm.
Some people just aren't up to working remotely permanently. Those who need to be social with colleagues and this author says that when they mention they want colleagues to be friends. Not me. I want colleagues to be just that. I don't need to tell them what I did at the weekend as it's my business and I don't care what they did.
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.
+1 on the coworker thing, with traditional office jobs you’re friends with those guys and you’re close and then you or they change jobs and you never hear from them again. All along it was just being in close proximity and seeing each other every day that kept you together. That’s not friendship.
And the idea that you can’t make friends working remote dismisses the idea that you can actually make friends through shared interests in a remote environment instead of just proximity and mutual suffering.
Who said anything about suffering? I enjoy spending time with friends at work. Whether that is working together on a project, chatting, or having a beer on company time.
Like you said, most of the time, you don’t get actual friendships with co-workers. But, being in close proximity, and sharing experience makes it more probable to foster friendships.
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.
That and you might meet non-coworkers through your work acquaintances. A lot of it is just expanding the opportunity space of potential social connections.
Most people don't keep up contact with with most people they even meet socially if they move away. The ones you do are special, it's silly to discount everyone who you wouldn't keep in touch with minus proximity.
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.
This seems overly dismissive of what friendship is or can be. Did you move away from your high school area? If so how many of your high school friends do you still keep in touch with? Are the people you don't people who were never your fiends? Or were they friends for a moment in time? Exes? Were you never friends if you don't keep in touch? College friends? Seriously there are many people in my life that were friends, but whom I have minimal or no contact with at all anymore. That doesn't mean they weren't friends. It might mean we aren't anymore but a relationship doesn't have to be permanent to be a relationship.
This seems strange to me. hey, I'm going to spent 40hrs a week with others, let's make sure I don't give a shit about them.....
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.
But I'm not going to spend 40 hours a week with you. I'm working for an employer and might intersect with you a few times a day. I'm there to do work not to do the social scene.
Okay but I'd argue your take on this is an outlier, and not how people commonly view a workspace. Especially when people spend so much time in their jobs. It does seem to me you've left a lot of potential meaningful relationships on the table with your approach, but that's your choice.
>When you have no interesting hobbies, you’re spending a lot of your time dabbling. You don’t have the discipline to force yourself to stick with something you’re not good at and you don’t see any benefit from
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.
Today all I did was attend the standup meeting, had a brief huddle with a coworker on Slack, did about 2 hours of light work, then pretty much logged off the rest of the day just doing code reviews on my phone or answering a slack message. Basically nothing. Felt like a day off. And I frequently have days like this.
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.
I have worked from home, remote or on distributed teams far longer than I have working in-person and onsite, for over a decade.
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.
> purpose is what gets you up in the morning, fuels your willpower and self-discipline
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.
A lot of us are in the same boat, and I see some good advice here. But the pattern I see in the OP's observations is the lack of motion. The repetitive motion from home to work, work to home, is like breathing on a different time scale, and as annoying as the travel itself is, you are at least moving through the world. And when you're at work, you are with people who are facing the same mundane challenges of where to get lunch, where to find parking, traffic, weather and so-on - also, interestingly, mostly problems about moving through the world.
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!
There’s no mention of motion in the post but as someone who did WFH for 2+ years before the pandemic, I can attest that even café hopping falls within the author’s first bulletpoint, which is that everyday is exactly the same. It’s expensive, too, since you can rarely just sit in a café without ordering anything.
I can relate to most of these. As an extrovert living in a different state than I grew up, I really miss just being around people. However, for now, this just works really well with having a toddler and a wife that has an unpredictable schedule.
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.
I think this is good advice. Sadly in some places it's hard to have dog. Example, went to an apartment site, ~2000 listings available. Checked "allows dog", dropped to ~280
Counterpoint: they require a lot of care and attention, and expense. You can't easily just pick up and go, you now need someone to look after the animal, every time.
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).
This is all true. I moved to SF and really enjoy the fact that I can walk out my door, hop on BART, get out 40 minutes later in an international airport, and go anywhere I want. Except… it’s going to cost a few hundred dollars extra every couple of days for dog and cat boarding, and I need to get that boarding reserved far in advance, then arrange transportation for my pets to get to the boarding center, and then plan my return so I arrive at a very specific time so I can pick them up. I love my animals, but they come with a real cost of time, money, and freedom.
> Counterpoint: they require a lot of care and attention, and expense. You can't easily just pick up and go, you now need someone to look after the animal, every time.
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.
Agreed, a lot more effort needs to be put into supporting people just starting out in companies that are remote. Too often seen it as a complete after thought.
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.
When you put it like that it sounds like you're saying that people who prefer to work in an office don't have established social structures, skill sets, nor maturity. Is that the point you are making?
No, I’m saying to work successfully remotely, you usually need those attributes. That’s not to say you can’t have those attributes and prefer working in an office. I’m speaking about characteristics of people at successful fully-remote orgs who feel fulfilled in their careers. They aren’t getting meaningful socialization from work so they need it on their own terms.
I applaud the author on being honest with herself about the downsides of WFH. I've worked from home a lot over the past 10 years. There's definite benefits and it helped me sometimes knock some shit out. In my experience, doing it day in day out is so difficult that very few people can do it well. I get why people want it, but like others pointed out here, it causes depression. There's no real boundaries, it's ground hogs day and self motivation starts tough and gets tougher. Its similar to the negative feedback cycle of feeling like shit and not wanting to get out of bed, so you stay in bed and feel even more like shit tomorrow.
Working from home, or remotely is not for everyone - neither is being in an office.
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.
Yes this requires everyone on the same schedule. If you can find a workplace like this, do not take it for granted. I’ve worked fully remote and fully office and it’s the hybrid (sync schedule) that is hands down the best (for me).
> Working from home, or remotely is not for everyone - neither is being in an office.
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, much hard to justify their bullshit jobs remotely, they actually have to do some real work to try and posture.
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
>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.
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.
On the flip side, I'm an extravert, but I have stopped considering anything but 100% remote work. I get my energy from others, but that doesn't mean we have to share the same physical space. I used to spend 2 hours a day in a crappy commute, and for an extravert, that sucks. Now I get to spend that time around people I enjoy.
I'm not sure if there's any study to back this up but aren't introverts generally more sensitive to social cues? As an introvert myself, we have similar frustrations. In-person communication is just more effective in some cases.
> aren't introverts generally more sensitive to social cues?
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.)
Afaik no. Introverts can be both very good at social cues and bad at them. Same goes for extroverts. Introversion vs extrovertion is just one of huge amount of traits we have.
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.
The distinction between "introvert" and "extrovert" is really about whether socializing is draining or recharging.
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.
I doubt that this is an extravert/ intravert divide and am pretty sure it has more to do with the current life situation.
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.
Exactly - it varies person to person and company to company.
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.
I just signed a lease on an apartment to do something very similar. House out in the country, apartment in a very walkable town just outside a major metro area. The motivation was to help a family member in that town but I’m stoked at the prospect of having both.
It’s definitely a bit of an indulgence but i could downsize both once my youngest is on her own.
I prefer to be remote. I find having my own space is less distracting but if I need to get up and walk away from my computer for a bit because I'm stuck - that also works better. I can be more flexible with my time if I have other things that I need to do during the day. Less thinking about lunch or drinks or such - I'm home, I have my kitchen.
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.
The problem with an hybrid approach is that it forces you to live close to the office. If I were living in Hamburg and the company I want to work for is located in Munich and requires me to go 1 day/week to the office... Well that's a nogo to begin with.
So hybrid mode limits a lot your pool of potential employers.
Office work has obvious costs for the company (rent, etc), and obvious costs for the employee (commute, etc). All of these were known and agreed upon when the contract was signed.
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.
As a long time remote worker I can emphasize with some of the points in the article. However, if you think willpower is a limited resource or that keeping a daily schedule requires a lot of mental energy then maybe working remotely or without an imposed schedule and supervision just isn't for you.
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.
Like anything we've likely swung too far in one direction with the remote thing. I go into the office and travel quite a bit for work, I spend roughly every other week with my team (~10 people) and am having the time of my life. After doing the remote thing for a long time, I don't see myself doing that again for a long long time, if ever.
Thank you for all the comments here! I’ve seen a lot of helpful suggestions here that I will definitely try. I think the problem is that I just started a job where I have a lot of autonomy over my time, which is amazing and exactly what I want. I am just finding it a bit hard to adjust after switching from a job where I barely had any control over how I use my time.
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!
It’s not an unfair set of points and this one rings true harder than most:
> 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.
>> 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.
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 wouldn't say your coworkers should be Friends with a capital F, but a certain level of friendship is very helpful. Like it or not, your coworkers are humans and they have emotions. A little socialization helps see people as humans and give them the benefit of the doubt when there's a misunderstanding, overcome other communication hurdles, etc.
I'm sorry that you think being productive at your job is the only thing that's important in your life. Maybe you've just gotten really unlucky with the people you work with, but for me, finding people I actually enjoy spending time with really improved my quality of life at work significantly.
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.
"Working with people you're friends with" and "having a life outside of work" are extremely not mutually exclusive. You can work with people you enjoy working with and still work 8 hours a day.
Personally after being allowed to be fully remote I found this to be a weird experience. I wasn't totally sure where to live. I no longer needed to be in the bay area, I could go back "home". Idk what I wanted to do, got pressure from family about what I "should" do. I didn't really know what I wanted in a place to live. And I think for most people for most of their lives no one had this freedom to just live anywhere. There isn't a lot of good advice.
Remote works best for people who already have their lives stuffed with meaning and structure and don't need any help from the office on those fronts.
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.
As someone with teenagers, they also need less and less supervision over time. I wouldn’t be overly confident given the data on social relationships and age.
I agree with this, and I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe because life doesn’t have to be about optimization, but we make it that way as we get older, and in a way, we lose mental freedom.
I agree with this. I think there would have been a much higher chance of failure if I was remote a decade ago.
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.
I have pretty good relationship with my boss. Some weeks I work 20-30 actual hours. Others, I will get on in the evening to fix things if we are having issues. My salary is decent but I would love to continue building my career, however, whenever I interview its so hard to gauge the actual work load. Devs often say "we work 40 hours a week"...
I dislike remote work and have a full social life.
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?
I didn't say that. Hopefully it's not necessary for me to go through a lecture on logic and standard English to explain why.
"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.
The problem I’m seeing is the people who see work as:
* 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.
Nothing is built into the structure. I think folks are taking this for granted. You have to consciously create such structure regardless of the conditions. It's possible to have anti-social office environments too.
In person it is built-in implicitly, people will be social naturally by proximity alone. Anti-social in person environments are de facto considered problematic.
It’s not, but many people feel like it is. In order to uphold this via remote you have to make a concerted effort, which to people, makes it different.
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.
We are a team of 150 with half of us in engineering. Half the engineers work on the product and they are split into a handful of teams. Half of the remainder of engineers are SRE, IT and dev tools.
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?
“ walking around the business park on foot” <- you nailed it, looking back at my career, the 1-1 time I got with managers or my co-workers walking together and informally talking things out is what made a lot of things efficient. It’s impossible to do this over Zoom. It’s just awkward.
> 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?
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.
These all sound like good problems to have. Seems like the first time the op has a chance to figure them self out and learn a bit about who they really are without work forcing it self to be their identify.
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.
Thank you for this comment. You’re right. I had an extremely busy job before this one and now is the first time I have this much free time. Your comment makes me feel better! Thanks again!
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 257 ms ] threadRecently 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.
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:
The director is an Erlang guy. I sometimes think he applied some distributed systems reasoning to the dynamics of the distributed team.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 :/
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
- 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.
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.
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.
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 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!
> 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 ;)
> I can’t move out bc I have nothing determining my location
Not sure I understand this one... any insight?
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.
* 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.
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.