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People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish th

People with friends and family can't gauge how bad of a toll this has taken on lonely single guys like me. For most of them WFH been a Godsend. I really wish this ends or at least there remains enough places which require working from the office.

turbinerneiter 6y ago
Being home alone in a tiny apartment, the desk placed next to my bed - that's not the home office I want to spend all my time in. With family and house, sure. But I literally don't have the real estate to make a nice home office. Mixed mode works very well tough, I can go to the office if I want and stay home if I want, so I mostly spend 4 days in the office, 1 at home.
- NamTaf 6y ago
  I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a 2br (65-70m^2 internal) to myself, so I have more than enough room and don't feel cramped. As such, I tend to go the opposite direction - 4 days at home, 1 day in the office out of obligation. Sometimes I just skip that 1 day a week if my workload requires more focus time, as office time is generally me helping more junour staff. I agree though that a mixed mode can be a best of both worlds scenario. If we as a whole continue down the path of more WFH, open shared office spaces may eventually begin to find their feet and fill that 'mixed-mode' equivalent if the company itself does not have office space. I predict there might also be more public spaces such as libraries opening up with work areas for people to get out of home when working. The other challenge is the social component of work, but I think that will change post-Covid too. Being in Australia has afforded me the extremely lucky capability of being able to get out and socialise almost completely freely during the last year, and it undoubtly helps immensely. I think that for people who live alone, working from home will become less isolating when they can socalise outside of work hours more freely again. For example, social sport is a lot easier to fit in to your day when you're not then also losing an hour or more in your day to travel. You can do it and still easily have time to prep dinner or do your daily chores. In short, I think that the shift to WFH due to covid will be a lot easier for a lot more people once the restrictions of Covid subside.
- soneil 6y ago
  I'm in a similar solution - 1br, 1 living room, 1 kitchen, 2 people - so while everyone's been showing off their fortress of solitude, I've spent 12 months at the kitchen table. Watching people on youtube build stylish and spacious home offices has become our new fantasy porn. I've heard a lot of people saying that companies are going to realise this means they can cut down on their property costs, but far, far fewer mentioning that they're moving the costs for us. We're looking for somewhere with 2-3br so we can dedicate WFH space, and it's going to mean 2-3x our current rent.
  - llampx 6y ago
    I think permanent WFH means tons of savings for employers, and meager tax savings for employees. Our costs have gone up substantially in one year of working from home, and the government doesn't allow us to write almost anything off. Whereas an office could write off coffee, TP, cleaning staff, electricity, the whole rent etc, we are stuck with only being able to write off equipment we bought specifically for working and wondering if the tax authorities will come after us for that.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    It's kind of a ratchet, possibly still underappreciated. If WFH was to become the norm, the rational thing for a person in your situation to do would be to find that 2-3br place in a location where it costs 1-1.5x your current rent. There's no point in living in cramped, overpriced apartment in the city, that was bought on the assumption that everyone living in it will be out at work/school for most of the day, when there's no work to go to! And once enough skilled workers move away, it might be tougher for the companies to bring them all back, reinforcing the pressure for WFH.
waynesonfire 6y ago
i'm optimistic here; you're not the only one and society will adapt to this new void if WFH persists. we are after all social and want to spend time with other people. covid is still very much among us so don't expect much socializing until people feel safe to leave their basements.
Hendrikto 6y ago
Obviously there are also numerous negative effects. That‘s why I qualified my statement like this. To respond to the point you made: I am a young single guy loving on his own. Still, I do not mind the lockdown so much. Granted, I may not be very representative, but just another data point.
dkarp 6y ago
Is all of that loneliness from WFH or can some be attributed to National lockdowns and limits on social interaction outside your household? In a post Covid world, WFH could involve coworking spaces and cafes. I expect that industry will grow massively over the coming years as we migrate into a more distributed working style. It’s a new way of doing things things and it’s going to take time to adapt and replace the social side of the office.
- el_benhameen 6y ago
  Exactly. I “worked from home” for several years before covid, but I never worked exclusively at home until covid. I’d usually spend a few hours of a few days a week at a coffee shop, library or park, and not being able to do that during covid has definitely made remote work feel more isolating.
  - d0ugal 6y ago
    I have been remote for around 8 years. When speaking to people new to remote (since covid) I always tell them this is the worst version of remote. Generally remote working means flexibility and freedom (to varying degrees). We don’t have that now.
  - brailsafe 6y ago
    You're not alone. I just couldn't work without a varied selection of places to work from. I kind of froze, and couldn't bring myself to wake up and go 2 meters to my desk and work all day. The office was worse, but having coffee shops to go to was my previous solution.
  - endymi0n 6y ago
    While there‘s truth to that, it doesn‘t bring home my own issue with WFH: It might be okay to much better for individual contributors, but it‘s harsh for me as a manager. Zoom (fatigue) meetings all day, staring at the screen instead of real people and any form of "managing by walking around" and watercooler chats are gone. This might not make a difference if my job was a corporate mess and sucked before already, but for people like me who actually enjoy their peers, it‘s a net negative. I feel completely out of touch with what happens in the company and everything feels super transactional. I mean, nobody opens a Zoom call to just chit-chat about mundane stuff. Well, some do but I‘m sick of taking any additional video call beyond the 4h I’m enduring every day. Sure, we could adjust to an even more asynchronous workflow like the poster child remote companies, but to me it would make this issue even worse. I can see how this benefits introverts and people with social anxiety, but as for extroverts me, I‘m getting more depressed every day.
rvanmil 6y ago
It will probably end with a better balance than right now. I used to enjoy working from home a couple days a week as focus days with minimal interruptions, but doing this all week with a lot happening inside the house at the same time (schools and daycare closed, spouse also wfh every day, grandparents in the house taking care of the kids, 3 different package delivery services at the door etc.) is not that great and I can't wait to work from the office again.
- ArnoVW 6y ago
  Could it be that working in close proximity of your kids is the main cause of that? We experienced 2 months of 'school at home' with kids 5 and 8, and there is no comparing with the current situation (schools open)
sago 6y ago
I'm wondering to what extent social working has to be within a company. A fitness club I was part of a decade ago had this amazing 'cafe' space that was often used by folks with laptops and the odd bit of chat. It felt social. If work anywhere becomes the thing, is there is scope for work 'clubs'? Or without the fitness reason to be there at all, is it a nonstarter?
- hnick 6y ago
  It sounds like you are describing co-working spaces that have already existed for a few years. Some are subscription, others are drop in (e.g. if you work from home but want to book a nice room for a meeting). I assume each has their own culture depending on their clientele.
- dx034 6y ago
  If you work at a bank that's basically impossible. Most people will deal with data to some degree, anyone else in the room needs to be cleared for that data (i.e. employee of the same company). And banks aren't the only companies where that applies, anyone dealing with customer data cannot just use a shared office with people of other companies. If you deal with code that can also apply to some degree. I've often enough seen confidential data on trains/planes because people were working on the go and not using proper screen protectors (in the past those were mostly consultants). Luckily that never included sensitive customer data. The more people work in public places, the higher the risk for data breaches. I love working from home but I think it has to be either home or office for many, cafes or co-working spaces aren't a viable solution and a nightmare for anyone in IT security.
globular-toast 6y ago
Work isn't the only place you can socialise with people. You seem to have a deeper problem if you're using work to fill that void. Do you need help on finding alternative sources?
- fredophile 6y ago
  On a weekday pre covid many people would spend about half their waking hours at work so its reasonable for work to be a major social component in their lives. I'd guess that other social activities they might have been doing were also curtailed due to covid. As another single person I can definitely relate to feeling very isolated over the past year.
- quicklime 6y ago
  Work is also not the only place that is shut right now. In a lot of cities, it's not easy to go to meetups or bars to meet people and socialise.
Anktionaer 6y ago
I totally disagree, people go to work at least partly to get away from friends or family.
krageon 6y ago
> lonely single guys like me Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise). If that's pathologically impossible due to fear or something along those lines, you need therapy. Working from home isn't taking a toll on you, it's the problems that already existed but that you have ignored.
- eecks 6y ago
  Well right now you can't because of the virus..
- chairmanwow1 6y ago
  I don’t think this is fair or helpful to OP. Isolation is not fun for a lot of people, myself among them.
- glemmaPaul 6y ago
  I'm close to 100% disagreeing with you
- coddle-hark 6y ago
  > Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise) Or, you know, if we’re in the middle of a global pandemic.
- Natfan 6y ago
  Sure, let me just pop down the pub. Oh wait, everything is closed, because we're in a global pandemic.
- Dma54rhs 6y ago
  Where should he socialize? Everything's closed and some have even curfews and rules against socializing anyone outside their household? What options does it leave to a lonely guy like op? Pretty much none.
- dang 6y ago
meheleventyone 6y ago
I don't think WFH during a pandemic is a good point of comparison to regular WFH. It'd be like me judging it by my current situation where we just upgraded our lockdown again very severely. I've got a 7 year old and a 4 year old playing Twister next to my desk right now at 0842! All the things I like doing during the day are closed or extremely restricted. I know this is going to suck! Some of my friends have been stuck at home trying to keep kids on remote learning going whilst working in open plan houses for over a year. This is just not a normal situation.
eecc 6y ago
There's a whole new world of opportunities for co-working, mixed-working out there and they'll explode after this pandemic is over. I had to cancel my co-work subscription when no client would accept my proposal to work remote. When the world reopens I'll never go back. In your case, imagine yourself pleasantly walking to your local co-working space or to any of the urban entertainment facilities that will inevitably proliferate in the effort to capture all the time freed from lousy daily commutes.
vertis 6y ago
It's more likely that we'll end up in a hybrid environment. Previous companies I've worked for already had clean-desk policies. No-one, not even the CEO had a fixed desk. Teams were assigned areas so they knew where in the building to meet, but if you arrived late and all the desks were taken you simply went and found another area (or if you needed to hide to minimize disruptions). In a hybrid-model this becomes even easier, because the hardest thing with the above model is keeping free capacity in a growing company.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you're always with your family. On the other hand, you're always with your family. Fact of life is, many relationships have trouble finding balance between "me time" and "us time". Going to work is, for many, a way to catch a break from their home - with perfect plausible deniability, since it's socially approved and demanded externally. Some people don't need it. I had a co-worker who would come super-early in the morning, so he could leave early and spend time with his kids. At work, we could see his kids were his whole world, and he was always happy. But at that same job, I also had a different co-worker who went out his way to find reasons to stay overtime - he dreaded coming back home. I don't keep in touch with them much, but I imagine the former one was super-happy about forced WFH, but the latter very much not. Add to that, quite a lot of people in cities bought their apartments on the assumption that both partners are working 9/5 at the office and the kids are at school/daycare - this let them buy smaller places for less (or closer to work). Such apartments become living hell when all dwellers are present simultaneously for the entire day, and each is trying to do their work/school. This is not to trade who has it worse - just pointing out that it's not smooth sailing for those of us with families either. There's a tight line between being happy to have people around, and hating their guts for it - this pandemic pushed a lot of us close to that border.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  Optimizing your lifelong estate purchase for a style of life that won't always be there seems crazy to me. Why?! Because you get to buy a cheaper estate -- is that the main reason? But you will not always work 9-5. You actually get to retire one day. Also there are the occasional long vacations when everybody is at home. Etc. The elephant in the room: if you can't tolerate your partner in the same flat/house for longer periods of time then IMO you shouldn't marry them so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I get it that alone time is extremely important. I practice it as well -- my wife too. But what you describe just seems... more like a good roommates' arrangement / contract, and not an actual relationship? Please understand that none of this is meant to offend or generalize. But what you describe is just legitimately baffling for me.
  - RHSeeger 6y ago
pdimitar 6y ago
If I were you I'd take that as a sign that you shouldn't double down on work to give you a social life. If I were you I'd take this as a hint to put strict boundaries between work and personal life and try and have more of the latter.
adamhp 6y ago
There is too much investment into office real estate for it to vanish. I think once things are back to "normal", you'll easily be able to find a normal office job. I would expect the majority of people are more in your camp than the 100% remote camp.

turbinerneiter 6y ago

Being home alone in a tiny apartment, the desk placed next to my bed - that's not the home office I want to spend all my time in. With family and house, sure. But I literally don't have the real estate to make a nice home office. Mixed mode works very well tough, I can go to the office if I want and stay home if I want, so I mostly spend 4 days in the office, 1 at home.

NamTaf 6y ago
I am fortunate enough to be able to afford a 2br (65-70m^2 internal) to myself, so I have more than enough room and don't feel cramped. As such, I tend to go the opposite direction - 4 days at home, 1 day in the office out of obligation. Sometimes I just skip that 1 day a week if my workload requires more focus time, as office time is generally me helping more junour staff. I agree though that a mixed mode can be a best of both worlds scenario. If we as a whole continue down the path of more WFH, open shared office spaces may eventually begin to find their feet and fill that 'mixed-mode' equivalent if the company itself does not have office space. I predict there might also be more public spaces such as libraries opening up with work areas for people to get out of home when working. The other challenge is the social component of work, but I think that will change post-Covid too. Being in Australia has afforded me the extremely lucky capability of being able to get out and socialise almost completely freely during the last year, and it undoubtly helps immensely. I think that for people who live alone, working from home will become less isolating when they can socalise outside of work hours more freely again. For example, social sport is a lot easier to fit in to your day when you're not then also losing an hour or more in your day to travel. You can do it and still easily have time to prep dinner or do your daily chores. In short, I think that the shift to WFH due to covid will be a lot easier for a lot more people once the restrictions of Covid subside.
soneil 6y ago
I'm in a similar solution - 1br, 1 living room, 1 kitchen, 2 people - so while everyone's been showing off their fortress of solitude, I've spent 12 months at the kitchen table. Watching people on youtube build stylish and spacious home offices has become our new fantasy porn. I've heard a lot of people saying that companies are going to realise this means they can cut down on their property costs, but far, far fewer mentioning that they're moving the costs for us. We're looking for somewhere with 2-3br so we can dedicate WFH space, and it's going to mean 2-3x our current rent.
- llampx 6y ago
  I think permanent WFH means tons of savings for employers, and meager tax savings for employees. Our costs have gone up substantially in one year of working from home, and the government doesn't allow us to write almost anything off. Whereas an office could write off coffee, TP, cleaning staff, electricity, the whole rent etc, we are stuck with only being able to write off equipment we bought specifically for working and wondering if the tax authorities will come after us for that.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It's kind of a ratchet, possibly still underappreciated. If WFH was to become the norm, the rational thing for a person in your situation to do would be to find that 2-3br place in a location where it costs 1-1.5x your current rent. There's no point in living in cramped, overpriced apartment in the city, that was bought on the assumption that everyone living in it will be out at work/school for most of the day, when there's no work to go to! And once enough skilled workers move away, it might be tougher for the companies to bring them all back, reinforcing the pressure for WFH.

waynesonfire 6y ago

i'm optimistic here; you're not the only one and society will adapt to this new void if WFH persists. we are after all social and want to spend time with other people. covid is still very much among us so don't expect much socializing until people feel safe to leave their basements.

Hendrikto 6y ago

Obviously there are also numerous negative effects. That‘s why I qualified my statement like this. To respond to the point you made: I am a young single guy loving on his own. Still, I do not mind the lockdown so much. Granted, I may not be very representative, but just another data point.

dkarp 6y ago

Is all of that loneliness from WFH or can some be attributed to National lockdowns and limits on social interaction outside your household? In a post Covid world, WFH could involve coworking spaces and cafes. I expect that industry will grow massively over the coming years as we migrate into a more distributed working style. It’s a new way of doing things things and it’s going to take time to adapt and replace the social side of the office.

el_benhameen 6y ago
Exactly. I “worked from home” for several years before covid, but I never worked exclusively at home until covid. I’d usually spend a few hours of a few days a week at a coffee shop, library or park, and not being able to do that during covid has definitely made remote work feel more isolating.
- d0ugal 6y ago
  I have been remote for around 8 years. When speaking to people new to remote (since covid) I always tell them this is the worst version of remote. Generally remote working means flexibility and freedom (to varying degrees). We don’t have that now.
- brailsafe 6y ago
  You're not alone. I just couldn't work without a varied selection of places to work from. I kind of froze, and couldn't bring myself to wake up and go 2 meters to my desk and work all day. The office was worse, but having coffee shops to go to was my previous solution.
- endymi0n 6y ago
  While there‘s truth to that, it doesn‘t bring home my own issue with WFH: It might be okay to much better for individual contributors, but it‘s harsh for me as a manager. Zoom (fatigue) meetings all day, staring at the screen instead of real people and any form of "managing by walking around" and watercooler chats are gone. This might not make a difference if my job was a corporate mess and sucked before already, but for people like me who actually enjoy their peers, it‘s a net negative. I feel completely out of touch with what happens in the company and everything feels super transactional. I mean, nobody opens a Zoom call to just chit-chat about mundane stuff. Well, some do but I‘m sick of taking any additional video call beyond the 4h I’m enduring every day. Sure, we could adjust to an even more asynchronous workflow like the poster child remote companies, but to me it would make this issue even worse. I can see how this benefits introverts and people with social anxiety, but as for extroverts me, I‘m getting more depressed every day.

rvanmil 6y ago

It will probably end with a better balance than right now. I used to enjoy working from home a couple days a week as focus days with minimal interruptions, but doing this all week with a lot happening inside the house at the same time (schools and daycare closed, spouse also wfh every day, grandparents in the house taking care of the kids, 3 different package delivery services at the door etc.) is not that great and I can't wait to work from the office again.

ArnoVW 6y ago
Could it be that working in close proximity of your kids is the main cause of that? We experienced 2 months of 'school at home' with kids 5 and 8, and there is no comparing with the current situation (schools open)

sago 6y ago

I'm wondering to what extent social working has to be within a company. A fitness club I was part of a decade ago had this amazing 'cafe' space that was often used by folks with laptops and the odd bit of chat. It felt social. If work anywhere becomes the thing, is there is scope for work 'clubs'? Or without the fitness reason to be there at all, is it a nonstarter?

hnick 6y ago
It sounds like you are describing co-working spaces that have already existed for a few years. Some are subscription, others are drop in (e.g. if you work from home but want to book a nice room for a meeting). I assume each has their own culture depending on their clientele.
dx034 6y ago
If you work at a bank that's basically impossible. Most people will deal with data to some degree, anyone else in the room needs to be cleared for that data (i.e. employee of the same company). And banks aren't the only companies where that applies, anyone dealing with customer data cannot just use a shared office with people of other companies. If you deal with code that can also apply to some degree. I've often enough seen confidential data on trains/planes because people were working on the go and not using proper screen protectors (in the past those were mostly consultants). Luckily that never included sensitive customer data. The more people work in public places, the higher the risk for data breaches. I love working from home but I think it has to be either home or office for many, cafes or co-working spaces aren't a viable solution and a nightmare for anyone in IT security.

globular-toast 6y ago

Work isn't the only place you can socialise with people. You seem to have a deeper problem if you're using work to fill that void. Do you need help on finding alternative sources?

fredophile 6y ago
On a weekday pre covid many people would spend about half their waking hours at work so its reasonable for work to be a major social component in their lives. I'd guess that other social activities they might have been doing were also curtailed due to covid. As another single person I can definitely relate to feeling very isolated over the past year.
quicklime 6y ago
Work is also not the only place that is shut right now. In a lot of cities, it's not easy to go to meetups or bars to meet people and socialise.

Anktionaer 6y ago

I totally disagree, people go to work at least partly to get away from friends or family.

krageon 6y ago

> lonely single guys like me Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise). If that's pathologically impossible due to fear or something along those lines, you need therapy. Working from home isn't taking a toll on you, it's the problems that already existed but that you have ignored.

eecks 6y ago
Well right now you can't because of the virus..
chairmanwow1 6y ago
I don’t think this is fair or helpful to OP. Isolation is not fun for a lot of people, myself among them.
glemmaPaul 6y ago
I'm close to 100% disagreeing with you
coddle-hark 6y ago
> Just like every other human being you can socialise with the people around you (unless you live in the middle of the desert with nobody around, in which case I apologise) Or, you know, if we’re in the middle of a global pandemic.
Natfan 6y ago
Sure, let me just pop down the pub. Oh wait, everything is closed, because we're in a global pandemic.
Dma54rhs 6y ago
Where should he socialize? Everything's closed and some have even curfews and rules against socializing anyone outside their household? What options does it leave to a lonely guy like op? Pretty much none.
dang 6y ago

meheleventyone 6y ago

I don't think WFH during a pandemic is a good point of comparison to regular WFH. It'd be like me judging it by my current situation where we just upgraded our lockdown again very severely. I've got a 7 year old and a 4 year old playing Twister next to my desk right now at 0842! All the things I like doing during the day are closed or extremely restricted. I know this is going to suck! Some of my friends have been stuck at home trying to keep kids on remote learning going whilst working in open plan houses for over a year. This is just not a normal situation.

eecc 6y ago

There's a whole new world of opportunities for co-working, mixed-working out there and they'll explode after this pandemic is over. I had to cancel my co-work subscription when no client would accept my proposal to work remote. When the world reopens I'll never go back. In your case, imagine yourself pleasantly walking to your local co-working space or to any of the urban entertainment facilities that will inevitably proliferate in the effort to capture all the time freed from lousy daily commutes.

vertis 6y ago

It's more likely that we'll end up in a hybrid environment. Previous companies I've worked for already had clean-desk policies. No-one, not even the CEO had a fixed desk. Teams were assigned areas so they knew where in the building to meet, but if you arrived late and all the desks were taken you simply went and found another area (or if you needed to hide to minimize disruptions). In a hybrid-model this becomes even easier, because the hardest thing with the above model is keeping free capacity in a growing company.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

It's a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you're always with your family. On the other hand, you're always with your family. Fact of life is, many relationships have trouble finding balance between "me time" and "us time". Going to work is, for many, a way to catch a break from their home - with perfect plausible deniability, since it's socially approved and demanded externally. Some people don't need it. I had a co-worker who would come super-early in the morning, so he could leave early and spend time with his kids. At work, we could see his kids were his whole world, and he was always happy. But at that same job, I also had a different co-worker who went out his way to find reasons to stay overtime - he dreaded coming back home. I don't keep in touch with them much, but I imagine the former one was super-happy about forced WFH, but the latter very much not. Add to that, quite a lot of people in cities bought their apartments on the assumption that both partners are working 9/5 at the office and the kids are at school/daycare - this let them buy smaller places for less (or closer to work). Such apartments become living hell when all dwellers are present simultaneously for the entire day, and each is trying to do their work/school. This is not to trade who has it worse - just pointing out that it's not smooth sailing for those of us with families either. There's a tight line between being happy to have people around, and hating their guts for it - this pandemic pushed a lot of us close to that border.

pdimitar 6y ago
Optimizing your lifelong estate purchase for a style of life that won't always be there seems crazy to me. Why?! Because you get to buy a cheaper estate -- is that the main reason? But you will not always work 9-5. You actually get to retire one day. Also there are the occasional long vacations when everybody is at home. Etc. The elephant in the room: if you can't tolerate your partner in the same flat/house for longer periods of time then IMO you shouldn't marry them so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I get it that alone time is extremely important. I practice it as well -- my wife too. But what you describe just seems... more like a good roommates' arrangement / contract, and not an actual relationship? Please understand that none of this is meant to offend or generalize. But what you describe is just legitimately baffling for me.
- RHSeeger 6y ago

pdimitar 6y ago

If I were you I'd take that as a sign that you shouldn't double down on work to give you a social life. If I were you I'd take this as a hint to put strict boundaries between work and personal life and try and have more of the latter.

adamhp 6y ago

There is too much investment into office real estate for it to vanish. I think once things are back to "normal", you'll easily be able to find a normal office job. I would expect the majority of people are more in your camp than the 100% remote camp.