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I had this issue and the only way I could solve it was moving to a primarily in-office company. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. Not tr

I had this issue and the only way I could solve it was moving to a primarily in-office company. This was the best thing I ever did for my mental health. Not trying to start a big debate over the whole issue, but just sharing that I felt very similarly to you ("massively affecting my mental health") and that it was solved by doing the obvious: going back to the office. No amount of socializing outside of work or hobbies or 1:1s during the workday sufficed for me.

charlie0 3y ago
It would be interesting to see what happens when all the extroverts self select for in office work and introverts self select for wfh.
- nvarsj 3y ago
  I did the same as DiggyJohnson. And I'm introverted. Even introverts need human connection and interaction. And in my experience, being in an office is easier for an introvert. Being 100% remote for several years was terrible for my mental health. As to why... well, a lot of it was precisely because I'm introverted. As an introvert, it's a lot more draining to do the explicit communication required to work remote effectively. Maybe 10% of people can work effectively over written comms. As a lead, I had to schedule zoom calls and make explicit face to face time to make any of it work. In an office setting, this happens more naturally and is a lot easier. On top of that, I found at a 100% remote company it seems more common for people issues to happen. When you are only interacting over text most of the time, misunderstandings seem to happen more often. I found it very draining to fix these issues. It was much harder than if we had been in an office together, where we could just have a quick chat and fix sensitive topics. It's also more obvious in an office setting when this stuff happens and so you can sort it faster.
  - DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Well said, I appreciate you sharing this. I consider myself almost completely neutral on the extrovert / introvert scale, but when it comes to this topic, there’s a lot of spurious assumptions made about the type of person that prefers to be in office. It strikes me as caricature.

charlie0 3y ago

It would be interesting to see what happens when all the extroverts self select for in office work and introverts self select for wfh.

nvarsj 3y ago
I did the same as DiggyJohnson. And I'm introverted. Even introverts need human connection and interaction. And in my experience, being in an office is easier for an introvert. Being 100% remote for several years was terrible for my mental health. As to why... well, a lot of it was precisely because I'm introverted. As an introvert, it's a lot more draining to do the explicit communication required to work remote effectively. Maybe 10% of people can work effectively over written comms. As a lead, I had to schedule zoom calls and make explicit face to face time to make any of it work. In an office setting, this happens more naturally and is a lot easier. On top of that, I found at a 100% remote company it seems more common for people issues to happen. When you are only interacting over text most of the time, misunderstandings seem to happen more often. I found it very draining to fix these issues. It was much harder than if we had been in an office together, where we could just have a quick chat and fix sensitive topics. It's also more obvious in an office setting when this stuff happens and so you can sort it faster.
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Well said, I appreciate you sharing this. I consider myself almost completely neutral on the extrovert / introvert scale, but when it comes to this topic, there’s a lot of spurious assumptions made about the type of person that prefers to be in office. It strikes me as caricature.