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More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

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Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#21

Post by pawelwentpawel »

jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

After working from home alone for about a week I start to feel less and less motivated too. For the couple past weeks I was working on my own project and to keep my energy levels up I rented a desk in a almost next door coworking space. It is definitely boosting my productivity and is great for networking too.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#22

Post by jtraffic »

xeromal wrote: post #9
Androider wrote: post #6

"Nearly 8% of programmers now work from home, following a staggering increase of nearly 400% since 2000." Could working remotely reach a tipping point where it becomes the default? I could see it happening in the next 20 years, the advantages are too numerous. Most of the downsides are typically related to the inherent friction between onsite and the offsite workers, meaning companies that start out as remote-first w…

The biggest downside to me is decreasing the ways to make a friends and being social. I worked remote for about 8 months and I got bored seeing the same room in the day and the night. Of course not having a commute is an amazing thing and environmentally friendly, but I felt very disconnected from the world. I think once working from home is the norm something will have to exist to allow for meeting new people beside…

I had a long conversation about this with my Dad yesterday. He is an attorney who spent years working in fairly large organizations. Now he works from home most of the time.

I like how he explained his experience. He said that working from home removes many of the day-to-day negatives, such as a boss on your case and having to wake up even if you feel terrible. On the other hand, he said working from home also removes many of the positives, in particular, working with other motivated people.

I've tried for a couple of years now to get a group to work on side projects. The idea was to use video calls to meet and then work in a decentralized way. I've found it to be very difficult to keep the motivation high. Projects just starve to death. I wonder how different it would be if we had met in person.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#23

Post by rz2k »

Confiks wrote: post #3

In less click-bait-y headlines: "A record 2.6% of American employees now go to their jobs without ever leaving their houses". In more absurd headlines: "A record 2.6% of American employees now transfer to their jobs INSTANTANEOUSLY."

Did the title change?

"More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs" sounds like context, rather than click-bait.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#24

Post by wrigby »

jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

I'm relatively extroverted, and I can relate to your experience really well after working from home for the last year. The isolation and lack of human interaction can be downright depressing, and I've been led productive than ever.

I'm curious to know if people with families have a different experience with it than single people. I'm a single guy in my mid 20's, and I suspect that if I was married and had kids at home the experience would be more positive.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#25

Post by douche »

pawelwentpawel wrote: post #21
jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

After working from home alone for about a week I start to feel less and less motivated too. For the couple past weeks I was working on my own project and to keep my energy levels up I rented a desk in a almost next door coworking space. It is definitely boosting my productivity and is great for networking too.

I feel exactly the opposite. Working an entire week at the office will have me so demoralized and burnt out by Friday that I have to go get away from everyone in the woods for the weekend.

The most effective mix for me is going into the office on Monday, and getting all of the meetings and planning and face-to-face busywork out of the way, and then working from home the rest of the week. It's easily 2-3X as productive, and I'm just so much happier.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#26

Post by CydeWeys »

jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

I'm with you in regards to how my mind responds to working from home (not well).

Humans evolved as social animals. Everything we've always done has been in groups. When you are growing up, you spend most of your waking time in the company of other people (school). The ones who don't, who are homeschooled alone, turn out "weird". Until the modern advent of telecommunications, working has meant being physically collocated with other people. Spending most of your waking hours alone at home is an unusual thing to do; we're not adapted for it, and it's tough.

100% telecommuting doesn't work for a lot of people, maybe even the majority of people. It definitely doesn't work for me. Coworking spaces are one solution, but I only have a short commute anyway, so I'm just going to go into the real office.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#28

Post by dota_fanatic »

douche wrote: post #25
pawelwentpawel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After working from home alone for about a week I start to feel less and less motivated too. For the couple past weeks I was working on my own project and to keep my energy levels up I rented a desk in a almost next door coworking space. It is definitely boosting my productivity and is great for networking too.

I feel exactly the opposite. Working an entire week at the office will have me so demoralized and burnt out by Friday that I have to go get away from everyone in the woods for the weekend. The most effective mix for me is going into the office on Monday, and getting all of the meetings and planning and face-to-face busywork out of the way, and then working from home the rest of the week. It's easily 2-3X as productiv…

Agreed! That's an ideal kind of setup.

Total conjecture but the people who I have seen struggle with WFH are the same people who don't have a social group outside of work, so WFH ends up meaning no social life and they become very lonely and isolated as a result.

For people who do have that social group, they tend to want to get the work done as quickly and efficiently as possible so that they can then spend time with their family and friends, ie the people they want to be around, not the people they have to be around to make money for their employer => themselves.

With family and friends you can talk about life and have fun. With coworkers, often you talk about work or things indirectly connected to work...

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#29

Post by delinhabit »

wrigby wrote: post #24
jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

I'm relatively extroverted, and I can relate to your experience really well after working from home for the last year. The isolation and lack of human interaction can be downright depressing, and I've been led productive than ever. I'm curious to know if people with families have a different experience with it than single people. I'm a single guy in my mid 20's, and I suspect that if I was married and had kids at hom…

I work from home a couple days a week, to avoid the fairly long commute to the office.

I definitely think seeing my family around during the day is a big plus. I mostly start really early (around the same time I would normally go to take my bus), so I have a nice 10-15 minutes break with my kids, before they go to the daycare. My wife also just started a bakery and works from home mostly, so I have the opportunity to take small breaks during the day and spend some time with her.

Last but not least, I am more productive and on average create more value when I work from home, just because I start my day doing what I like the most and commuting.

Obviously, this is just an anecdote and everyone's case is different, but I think if you work from home and you're not alone, it shouldn't be as depressing and/or demotivating.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#30

Post by grangerg »

I've been working from home for 10 years; our entire company is a virtual office. For me, there's far more positives than negatives, but every personality is different. Some people can't handle it. Sometimes work invades personal/family time, and sometimes it's the other way around.

I miss the social, in-person part, but I spend more time with my family. And we have enough calls, IM's, and occasional in-person meetings that I'm satisfied. But then again, I've also been known to not go outside for a full week and it doesn't phase me. ...which reminds me, it's Spring. I'm going to go take 5 to lie down in the grass in the backyard and watch the clouds until my next meeting starts. :)

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