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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

#81

Post by shabuta »

I’m glad someone is bringing awareness to the negative aspects of remote work / digital nomadism. It’s been romanticized far too much and encourages too many people to take for granted the structures of an office and fixed work times to provide healthy social interaction and reinforced purpose.

From all the different comments here, viability of remote work clearly varies by personality and personal life state. I’ll just share my story a bit for what it’s worth.

I own my own company and now I work remote. I am actually pretty outgoing and effective at making new friends by jumping into groups / activities solo. That said, I did not think about the need to make extra efforts when making the shift to not having an office with built-in community. My initial reaction was get my home setup with all the coffee/food/workstation so I wouldn’t have to leave (how efficient!), but now I realized that exacerbates the negative aspect of isolation. If you don’t have a family or friends pulling you into activities (older friends with families of their own are not going to be inviting you to activities regularly), things can get quiet pretty quick. I definitely miss the team lunches, happy hours and office off-site days (hell I end up crashing some of my friends' company offsites now). As for work balance, I’m quite self-driven but without a set schedule, it requires mindfulness and discipline to keep work flow in a healthy balance. This is an ongoing effort for remote workers, whereas for most colocated jobs, it’s just built-in when you show up.

I love my work so I don’t intend to find a job (although I have seriously considered it and will continue to keep it as an option) but if given the choice between a remote job working for someone else and being colocated with a kickass team, I’d go with the team 100% at least for this single stage of my life. It’s a lot easier to feel engaged with your work, have a healthy work-life balance (depending on the company), and have healthy social interactions.

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

#83

Post by ben_jones »

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…

Are you me?

Some of my personal anecdotes going through the exact same circumstances (I'm also currently applying for dual US/Irish citizenship):

1) I hate working out. I don't want to do it. But when I do, I feel momentously better afterwards. I have not worked out consistently in the last 12 mo.

2) I hate cooking and cleaning up after cooking. I don't want to do it. But when I do, I feel better afterwards. I have not done significant amounts of home cooking in the last 12 mo.

3) Despite being a severely introverted individual I've become the person to push for more outings within my (small) social group. And I feel better afterwards.

4) I've gained about ~20 lbs in the last 12 mo.

5) I am tremendously comfortable with my current remote work and decent salary but I am not at all happy in a general sense

6) I worry my career is stagnating as I near my 2 year mark in this role. Hearing about the salaries my colleagues are getting at other companies contributes to

7) I've been using Tinder for casual dating. Recently I realized I really, really, don't want to use a Match Group product as the cornerstone of my dating life so now I'm trying to do it in more "natural" ways, but due to the above I find myself not being a great candidate.

Overall, working remotely has contributed greatly to a sense of depression and anxiety I carry almost every day. However I've been dealing with it long enough that I think I have a good sense of it, I'm doing better these past few months then the rest of the year combined and have clear goals (like the working out) that will help me do better.

I hope these points aren't too candid, I just figured many in this community could be going through the same things and hearing a shared story would help.

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

#84

Post by greggman2 »

these two paragraphs stuck out for me

> One study found that people with a “best friend” at work were seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs. Furthermore, those who said they had friends at work felt more productive, stayed at their jobs longer, and reported higher job satisfaction.

> At the end of another two-year study that focused specifically on remote work, over half of an experimental remote group decided not to continue working from home 100 percent of the time. This despite the fact that they were a full-day’s-worth more productive per week, took less sick time, and were 50% less likely to quit than their counterparts who stayed in the office. Why did they come back to the office? They felt too isolated.

that matches my personal experience and wishes. The best times of my working career was working with people who became my best friends. Sadly the last that happened was 12 years ago and now that I'm older it seems much harder to make close friends with coworkers

I know everyone is different but I find it interesting that so many on HN and else where actively try to avoid making friends and work.

ymmv

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

#85

Post by tim58 »

biztos wrote: post #74
b112 wrote: post #49

As others have said, in this thread, there are a lot of mixed issues in this article. Living a nomad/traveling lifestyle =! remote work. Loads of people remote-work from home, but change nothing else in their lifestyle. I've been working remotely my entire life. 30+ years now. One thing that is key, is looking at the blue sky . Being outside occasionally. You will note that the article talks about work/life balance,…

My solution to getting out of the house and into the World is to go to the gym four days a week, in the middle of the day. So I effectively work a split shift. With my team dispersed globally and me being in the "middle" time zone, it's actually a benefit to the work itself. Plus it keeps me sane and somewhat healthy and guarantees at least a tiny bit of social interaction. (I realize this has its own logistical chal…

I worked remote for 3 years and I did midday gym visits. It helped.

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

#86

Post by blahblahthrow »

ericmcer wrote: post #69
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…

The ideal remote work situation to me would revolve around the ability to travel, want to go to Hawaii for two weeks? No big deal. People who talk about using a remote job to move to X city seem a bit detached from reality in my opinion.

As someone who has this flexibility, it's expensive and not that fun to go work in a hotel in a strange city for a couple weeks. I'd rather have a week off to ignore work and immerse myself

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

#87

Post by lawn »

I wrote about my experience of moving away from a city in Sweden and moving to a small community[0].

And although the article focuses on digital nomad, I see the same problematic with the move we did as I both starting working remotely and moving away from my friends. Finding a social life, or "rooting down", is to me the most important thing for me. While I do talk with coworkers a bunch I do need to supplement it with social interactions outside of work.

[0]: https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2019/10/18/we_moved_away_fr...

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

#89

Post by mattrp »

agentultra wrote: post #19

I did work remotely for around 5 years and I loved it. No surprise to me but most people need a village to be happy. That means having neighbours, familiar strangers, a regular routine and social bonds between all of those things. Remote work doesn't isolate you from the village. I think it should be the predominant way of working. It can encourage villages and less commutes. When I worked remotely I found an office…

I started a company in 2008 where all the founders were remote. We didn’t force location on anyone but gradually we settled on three offices where gatherings took place and people who were local would check in. Eventually the company developed a unique office culture in each and you generally identified as belonging to one or the other. I liked the way it developed because we didn’t enforce a set of rules, we let people be adults. The ones you knew that were more preoccupied with marathon training rather than getting things done worked their way out of the company pretty quickly anyway — usually they were so detached, forcing them into an office wouldn’t have mattered. As for me, I lean remote especially when I need to stay focused. But I do like the ability to see a new office and be a part of a larger in-person community.

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

#90

Post by artiscode »

I've been working fully remotely since 2012, except for one year when I had to go to the office every day. Points described in the article are valid, quite a few have occurred to me, but loneliness is the nastiest one I've been struck by. With that being said, I was so happy when my wife was let go from her job... Sure, extra income always helps, but having a human being around me helps a lot. I will sit down at my work desk, a designated place for work and work only, at around 9am and often wouldn't come out of my cabinet until 6pm, but taking the occasional coffee/pee break and seeing another person feels so much better! I started talking to my cat while my wife was still working, it helped, but not a lot. I also started having so many bad habits, like skipping meals, not doing any physical exercise or vaping at my desk, with my window open, not even bothering to go outside on the balcony. Humans are social beings and choosing to be alone is way different from being lonely. I don't think anything good has ever come out of loneliness.
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