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Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

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Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#21

Post by jcomis »

elliotec wrote: post #18
buboard wrote: post #6

> traveling remote workers Whoa digital nomads by definition choose loneliness, whether they work or not. As for the rest , i think the answer is pretty obvious: coworking apartment complexes similar to those dorm rooms but for adults. We need such spaces anyway , with the rise of people living alone and aging alone. It s time for cities to adapt to our needs rather than the reverse for once, because remote working i…

I lived in one of these in Seattle for a few months. The weird part is, nobody really used the communal areas. The facilities weren't amazing in the first place but I met 1 person in the building the entire time I lived there. We even had a shared kitchen I only saw someone make some Top Ramen on the stove top once.

Thats kinda Seattle in a nutshell though.

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#22

Post by codingdave »

I've been working remotely for almost a decade, and never have I experienced, or had coworkers who experience the isolation and troubles that I'm starting to hear about. But I am now realizing that we also don't define ourselves by our work. We do have families, lives, friends, and hobbies. We are quite busy people with full lives, who happen to sit down for a chunk of each day and do our work.

Maybe that is the key - go figure out who you are, build up your life, and only then start working remotely.

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#23

Post by soneca »

> "Remote workers shouldn’t feel like they have to travel to lead interesting, fulfilled lives. It’s ok to prioritize friendships, community, and your mental health over traveling. It may not look as glamorous on Instagram, but you may end up a lot happier for it"

It's always enriching to read personal perspective from people that live on a bubble different than mine.

I want to start working remotely to be able to avoid commutes and to have more flexibility on how I manage my time during the day. It never crossed my mind that I should be traveling.

I would phrase that it is not ok to not prioritize friendships and mental health over traveling.

But different bubbles offer different peer pressures. It is good to know about them in order to also understand my own bubble better

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#25

Post by arkitaip »

jcroll wrote: post #17

I don't really see why people keep trying to "defend" remote working looking for optimizations in a practice which is fundamentally broken. At what point in our evolutionary history do you think the human animal, which evolved as a pack hunter in a highly socialized environment, was designed to work from home 40 hrs a week? We should be focusing on creating more flexible office environments for our workers where they…

I think you are right, that it's going to take many years before we realize that remote work is on the same level as the open office: sounds great in theory but actually counterproductive when it comes down to the practicalities.

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#26

Post by ctdonath »

johnnyAghands wrote: post #16
buboard wrote: post #6

> traveling remote workers Whoa digital nomads by definition choose loneliness, whether they work or not. As for the rest , i think the answer is pretty obvious: coworking apartment complexes similar to those dorm rooms but for adults. We need such spaces anyway , with the rise of people living alone and aging alone. It s time for cities to adapt to our needs rather than the reverse for once, because remote working i…

No one chooses loneliness.

Define "loneliness".

"Alone" != "Lonely"

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#27

Post by _vuqm »

As a remote worker myself, I agree with most of the points in the article. I lived on my own right out of school and it was a blessing and a curse. It forced me to go out and be social which brought me out of my comfort zone at first.

> I’ve never worked from a real office or even had a “real” job

I really think that a precursor to working remote should be working in an office. I always advise against younger workers to go remote early in their career. There's a huge benefit to being in the office when you're young and have much to learn in your field. Once you've been in the industry for a few years I think it's much easier to switch to a remote lifestyle.

As far as the loneliness of remote work...my 100% remote company is taking a slightly different approach to solve this problem. The more we spoke with other remote workers in coworking spaces, coffee shops, etc...the more we realized that people work in those spaces to get the feeling of human interaction, whether or not they actually talk to people while they're out working.

What we started doing is hosting these "Work Clubs" where we get 5-6 remote workers together at a table at a coffee shop and we all work together for a couple of hours. It's not a networking event, but more of a casual way to meet people while you get your work done. It gets you out of the house and around other people and we got such good feedback from other remote workers that we're looking to help others hold their own work clubs wherever they work.

We're currently hosting work clubs in San Francisco, San Diego, and Portland, and hoping to grow. If you're interested you can find out more at https://outofoffice.app/workclub/remote

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#28

Post by Ididntdothis »

jcroll wrote: post #17

I don't really see why people keep trying to "defend" remote working looking for optimizations in a practice which is fundamentally broken. At what point in our evolutionary history do you think the human animal, which evolved as a pack hunter in a highly socialized environment, was designed to work from home 40 hrs a week? We should be focusing on creating more flexible office environments for our workers where they…

We should also accept that people are very different. I know people who prefer to go to the office whereas people like myself prefer working from home. My ideal situation would probably be a small office close to my home where I can work with a few people. Large offices are definitely not for me. I find them very stressful. But other people find them energizing. So we should accept that people are different and see how to accommodate all working styles.

Re: Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace

#30

Post by barrkel »

EMM_386 wrote: post #13

I am a fully remote worker nowhere near my "office", which is simply where our company is technically HQd. I have never met my boss or any of my coworkers in person. I do highly technical work, on a team that only hires very senior developers who have prior remote work experience. And I can say, it is NOT for everyone. If you do not have a life out of work, if you live alone, if you do not have a good network of real…

I think you're conflating the migrant issue with the remote worker issue.

Migrants have most of the issues you talk about; they're not close to their family networks, don't particularly feel that their current location is home, and where they came from certainly isn't home either.

I did remote work from my home town for a few years, for a US company. The biggest issues for me were not being plugged in to the internal politics of the company - water-cooler conversations and occasional chats after a few drinks don't happen; and not developing a network of local engineers who moved on to other companies, somewhat limiting my career options.

I've since moved out of my home country, and work in the office. I have a different set of problems also in common with what you list, specific to migration.

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