We use a small slack bot I developed called the watercooler [1]. It pairs us up two and two for short non-work related chats. Helps break the monotony and isolation of the home office
Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Counter balance: I have also been WFH for the past several years. I enjoy it and prefer it to working in an office. The thing is, WFH is not for everyone. Some people will thrive in it, and some will not, and that's OK. Don't try and force yourself into a pattern that doesn't suit. Once the pandemic is over, revert to the work environment you enjoy most. In the meantime, if you feel lonely, try always-on voice comms…
> try always-on voice comms with your teammates while you all work as usual What software or hardware does your team use for this?
On-prem Skype for Business lets you do this. But tbh any of the gamer orientated voice-comms platforms would work if you don't have that sort of thing as part of your work platform.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#33Nobody else here seems to have any children. Sometimes I would like to have more social isolation, because, believe it or not, two teenage boys at home can be rather annoying from time to time.
> believe it or not, two teenage boys at home can be rather annoying from time to time.
Given it's summer (in the US) and school's out, those teenage boys may be thinking the same thing about their parents! ;-)
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#34So, I consider myself very fortunate because we have three little kids and it’s been a built-in social dynamic (if exhausting at times).
That said, the garden has been one of the most calming, literally grounding things since this began. We’ve all gotten a lot out of it. Something about taking care of a living thing. The scale could range from a tiny bonsai tree in a container, to a row of vegetables if you have space for it.
Edit: I realize this doesn’t answer the question directly, but it’s been soothing so figured I’d share it anyway.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#35Online gameroom for coworkers would be great.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#36I know it is probably not healthy but I am very much enjoying this social isolation. I suppose that makes me an introvert, but, I love spending time with my young son each day. Someone said 'hell is other people'. Although I don't think that is strictly true, boy, this has been a nice break. I feel fantastic.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#37> However, I quickly started to miss the small everyday interactions with my co-workers.
I work for a small company, and the coworkers in my office were all pretty anti-social to begin with. So I went from not talking to them in the office to not talking to them remotely.
I do have a couple people I enjoy interacting with from work, but they live on the other side of the country, so it's always been me talking to them over the phone. That's kept up pretty much the same.
As to the rest of the isolation, we had to adjust a fair bit for that, but it's ended up we've just gotten to be better friends with our neighbors. I read somewhere that it's cruel to keep kids from seeing any other kids, which is sort of how I felt to begin with, so it gave us a convenient excuse.
Basically we went from always visiting with people 15 miles away from home, to always visiting people 100 feet from home. It hasn't been too bad honestly.
Plus we've started skyping with family members on the weekends, which has been nice.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#38Try some investing or prediction games
oraclerank.com kaggle.com
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#39At work I have scheduled meetings with no agenda. If we have nothing to talk, it's a short meeting. But it turns out that there's almost always something worth discussing. Without such scheduled meetings people might not think it's worth initiating a call or sending an IM and potentially interrupting someone's flow. At home we FaceTime people we normally drink beer together and do it remotely. Two or three families i…
I recently started working remotely for a Swedish company.
There has always been a tradition of taking a short break without agenda in Sweden. (non-work related is fine too).
Now that it is remote, its simply done in a video chat and it works equally well.
Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with social isolation while working from home?
#40Being married (plus cats) is my solution. Plus, plenty of multiplayer games and discord for my downtime.
Seriously though - having an emotionally intimate partner in the home is a fantastic way to get through just about anything that life can throw at you. Married or not, same or different sex, sexual or asexual, it’s a very valuable connection that I don’t regret forming.