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For me, working alone remotely and Zoom calling all day has totally killed my passion for the field. I’ve always had a percentage of remote work, but with no i

• robertwt7 5y ago
  Same with me dude, I'm getting burnt out just waking up, sleeping, and playing in the same place again and again. Used to have a lot of fun with other people in the office too
  • dgb23 5y ago
    That’s not healthy, can attest. You need a space dedicated for work and you need to get outside once in a while. If it’s all mixed up it can go really wrong over time. I hope I’m not overstepping, this is heartfelt advice from someone who did it wrong for too long.
    • robertwt7 5y ago
      Yeah the thing is my work desk is in front of my bed lol, including my pc for gaming and other stuff. SO it's pretty bad after a while
      • dgb23 5y ago
        I had a similar setup and got sleeping problems, anxiety and worse after a while. Also started to eat there. It all mixes up and you slowly lose structure, motivation and confidence. If you have any opportunity to bring in structure into this, preferably through separated spaces, and most importantly through routine/schedule, start now!
  • holoduke 5y ago
    Find yourself a co-working space somewhere in town. I live in a rather small town, but even here I found a place with about 20 other people. I started 2 weeks ago. I did more than the previous 6 months. I just cannot work at home.
• bamboozled 5y ago
  I felt the same way, I was tired of it all for months, burned out working 14-18 hour days trying to keep up with demand as traffic on the site I work for grew 200% from Covid19 lock downs (people had more time to spend online). I was in lockdown and just worked, stayed home, slept a bit and worked out, probably lived a prison lifestyle. I've moved out of the city and have taken up some more outdoor hobbies which has been good, but more importantly, I just stepped back, now working 4-8 hours a day max. I saved some cash and I've decided that if I lose my job for taking it easy, then so be it. Funnily enough, I seem to be more productive now.
• kace91 5y ago
  My case is pretty much the opposite. Remote work has given me almost two more hours of life a day (that I'd otherwise spend commuting), it made me realize how sleep deprived I used to be, and substantially improved my health - through home cooking, being less stuck to the chair, and having more time for sports. Additionally, it has greatly improved my career, since the advent of somewhat commonplace remote work means that I have access to jobs in areas where the pay is substantially better (up to 3x my current salary). If I end up quitting it will be either to capitalize on those new opportunities or to set in stone my ability to work remotely.
  • k3liutZu 5y ago
    > Remote work has given me almost two more hours of life a day (that I'd otherwise spend commuting) Only that I now spend most of that extra time for more work & I'm behind 1.5 years on all my podcasts
    • norov 5y ago
      Those podcasts must not have been all that interesting to begin with if you're not listening to them on your own time.
      • bluefirebrand 5y ago
        This is pretty much my take when people tell me how much better commuting is on the bus or train. "You can read a book or listen to podcasts" Come on, I don't do those things in my free time, I'd much prefer more free time from working remotely than fake "free time" on the bus.
        • the_only_law 5y ago
          Personally, I use the time for a little more sleep.
  • benrbray 5y ago
    > Remote work has given me almost two more hours of life a day (that I'd otherwise spend commuting) I get this sentiment, but I want to stress to people who feel this way that long commutes are not a problem with our work culture, they are a problem with our car culture. Instead of retreating to our homes in the suburbs, people should be demanding more compact cities with expansive public transportation. Instead of losing our "second place", let's fight to get our "third place" back!
• jrockway 5y ago
  That's really interesting. My feelings are exactly the opposite. Chats with coworkers are a "/zoom meeting" command away. Everyone's name shows up on the screen so I don't awkwardly forget them. My desk setup is exactly how I like it. I can listen to whatever music I want to all day. I can do chores to get away from the screen for a few minutes. No lines at the bathroom. I don't think I could ever work at a non-fully-remote company again. There are challenges, and you have to force yourself to socialize at all, but it's working for me. I always enjoyed working in the office (was never really bothered by noise, I can focus through it), but remote is much better. The time that you get back by not commuting and the ability to start work without being "fully ready" is great. (I have an incremental morning routine now, rather than rushing to shower, eat, caffeinate before sitting bored on a train for a half hour.)
  • peytn 5y ago
    Yeah it’s a lot more convenient, but the parent was talking about their passion for the field. I think most people would agree on convenience.
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      It probably depends on what makes you passionate about a field. Some people value the conferences and getting to discuss fun topics. Others like myself want to disappear into a dark room and code for hours on end.
      • bamboozled 5y ago
        I mean, that's cool, but somewhere, at some stage, people must get together to help you decide what to work on?
        • MattGaiser 5y ago
          Oh certainly, but that is not the part of the job I value. If that is relegated to a board instead of a sprint planning meeting, I am perfectly happy. Others enjoy that part the most and treat the individual work as merely a necessary task.
• peakaboo 5y ago
  We are never going back to normal. I don't know how to make people understand that. It seems they keep believing that if they just go along and do what they are told, things will be normal again. You will see more variants of covid, more restrictions. If you go along with vaccinating and wearing health passes, you will be left alone for now. But you will have to continue to accept whatever they say. You no longer have any right to say no.
  • suction 5y ago
    Seems like we're on 8kun now...
    • serial_dev 5y ago
      I was never on 8kun or any similar sites, but honestly, I have similar thoughts and doubts as the post you were responding to had. I'm not saying we never go back to normal, but I have my doubts about when that happens, and I am afraid it will take much much longer than expected. It was "flatten the curve, and stay at home for a month". It was more than a year ago. Then, it was "only if we had vaccine, things could go back to normal". Then we had vaccines, so we were told to take the vaccine, and once we have a reasonable ratio of vaccinated people, things will get better. In developed countries, basically everyone who wanted, could get a vaccine by now. In the news we already hear about the bad outcomes with vaccinations and the variants, and there is also already chatter regarding the third "refresh" dose. The writing is on the wall. This thing will take a long while.
      • MattGaiser 5y ago
        > once we have a reasonable ratio of vaccinated people, things will get better. In developed countries, basically everyone who wanted, could get a vaccine by now. A lot of the problem is that "reasonable ratio" and "everyone who wanted" are not the same number. The number I think of for reasonable ratio is 4 out of 5. Vaccination stalled well before that.
        • 5y ago
• Aaargh20318 5y ago
  My experience is the exact opposite. Having to be around people all day has been slowly draining the will to live from my soul for years. I dread the return to ‘normal’. Another thing that I hear a lot is people complaining about a lack of work/life balance due to work from home and again here I feel the exact opposite. It has always felt really strange to me to confine work and the rest of my life into separate blocks of time and space. Going to an office, and spending an 8 hour block of time just on work, then going home and spending another 8 hour block on personal things before sleeping seems really unnatural and unhealthy to me. With WfH I can blur the lines between them. When I’m stuck on something work related, I can just do some mindless chore around the house and that usually ets my mind unstuck. There is nothing more stressful than sitting at my desk in the office while beings stuck with nothing to do to take my mind off it for a while other than browsing the internet. It just feels more natural and way less stressful to me to naturally flow from work to personal stuff and back.
  • MattGaiser 5y ago
    Yes, it was so amazing to just get to restructure my life as I saw fit to achieve what I needed to do. That and just being able to do things in parallel was extremely valuable. Laundry could be run during the day. Same with the dishwasher. I could be around at 1 to put ribs in the oven for dinner. No more having to schlep down to the post office for missed deliveries. It was quite fun while it lasted as I prefer to be able to blend everything I need to do into a single list.
  • mikeyjk 5y ago
    > There is nothing more stressful than sitting at my desk in the office while beings stuck with nothing to do to take my mind off it for a while other than browsing the internet. Go for a walk? Talk to another colleague about the problem or present them with a related theoretical?
• smackeyacky 5y ago
  In Australia we had been barely touched by Covid until recently. My work generally involves a lot of rural road travel and talking to farmers and I really do miss that. Can't say I miss the air travel too much, it's the random stuff that happens when you are on the road that I miss more than anything. Listening to truckies on the UHF, blasting music or just motoring with purpose, listening to the FM Radio with a schedule to keep and sometimes not knowing exactly where you will be sleeping is damn fun sometimes. Talking to random people in pubs in small towns, sometimes digging through their cast offs in op-shops. Sleeping in a swag in the tray of my ute if I had to or nothing else was available. Small town, rural Australia is always an adventure. Now - at home in a make-shift lab and coding. I still talk to people but Zoom just isn't the same. Supply chain issues are giving me headaches and relying on transport and post to get my gear out to people is frustrating and time consuming in a way that throwing it in the ute and driving isn't. I had high hopes we would basically be back to normal this year but Delta has killed that for the moment.
  • herodoturtle 5y ago
    That first paragraph was so much to read. You write beautifully.
    • smackeyacky 5y ago
      Thankyou!
      • herodoturtle 5y ago
        That first line was meant to be "so much *fun* to read" Gosh what a terrible omission! Glad I added in that second line.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • chrischapman 5y ago
    Yep. Gotta agree with herodoturtle. That first paragraph gave me a better insight into small town, rural Australia than anything I've seen on TV. Also... > Sleeping in a swag in the tray of my ute Loved that. It''s so good it could be a line in a song. Nice writing!
• dustinmoris 5y ago
  I think that is a very self defeating attitude by someone who didn't even bother to try and improve their situation. You don't have to be the sad lonely remote worker if that bothers you so much. Remote work has definitely HUGE advantages allowing people to find a much healthier work life balance and has undeniably a net positive effect in comparison to what we had before, but I agree, 100% remote and never stepping out of your house again and meeting other people is NOT healthy at all. Good news is, nobody forces you to live like this though. I have signed up for a co-working space where I live. WeWork offices are littered around the world. It costs only $199 or something like this to get a flexi hot desk where you can go to any WeWork in your country. I go into a co-working space at least once or twice a week. I sit next to other people who also work and we chat, socialise, we still play ping pong during our breaks and we stroll out to a pub afterwards. Most co-working spaces even organise weekly/monthly social events which makes it even easier to connect with other people. If you feel isolated because of remote work, then it's not because of remote work, it's because of your own choice to not help yourself. It's like a child crying that their trousers are wet after repeatedly pissing themselves instead of going to the bathroom.
  • ljvmiranda 5y ago
    Good for you, but I don't think it's fair to pass judgment on someone's situation without knowing the whole picture.
    • dustinmoris 5y ago
      No, it's tiring to see increasingly more people just overcomplicate some of life's simplest things. If a person misses social contact then there is a really really simple solution to that. Unless the OP is currently in prison they should get off their arse and step outside their home and just start meeting people and talk to people if that is what they want. It worked like this hundred of thousand of years ago and it still works the same way today.
      • oblio 5y ago
        Most people have a super hard time socializing in arbitrary locations. That's why places where people freely socialize sell massive amounts of alcohol, alcohol reduces inhibitions and I imagine the stress level of interacting with someone for the first time. Most life partners come from (frequently forced) proximity, same for best friends: kindergarten, school, university, workplace, etc. Pontificating about what people should do doesn't help with what people have actually been doing for hundreds of thousands of years.
• MrScruff 5y ago
  I'm the same. I don't think people realise how much of motivation is socially derived from your peers who you like and respect.
• drewcoo 5y ago
  That's 3 passions in one post. Are you a manager or HR? Or both? And does that correlate with wanting to be live and in person?