What I hate is being lonely. They're shutting down our offices for cost savings. As such I've basically been straight work from home.
Working from home reminds me of the isolation of being homeschooled. I love having the flexibility to work remote on certain days, for example when I need to bang out a bunch of code. But, having a place to interact with people is invaluable for me.
I imagine countless others feel the same way, hence why companies still see offices as having value. So, for all the remote work evangelists on here: what do you do to counteract isolation?
As someone who has worked from home for over 2 years now, I have found the best way to counteract loneliness for me is to have weekly scheduled time with friends to play board games, hop on and play games at night with friends, and to sometimes go sit in a crowded coffee shop. I have also been remote calling some other friends at work to just shoot the shit, and work on our separate things while in a call. Between those things, it usually sates my need for social interactions. As a side thought, I have noticed that creating a dedicated work space as apposed to working from the sofa or any other place in the house has helped reduce the amount of loneliness or isolation I feel for some reason.
That being said, sometimes I do still find myself feeling a tad lonely at times and is something I still am figuring out the best ways to manage. I still believe that the benefits of remote work still vastly outweigh a typical office job and it would be very hard for me to give up my current situation.
Personally, I've found a good coworking space helps with this. I don't work directly with anyone there, but having people around from similar disciplines that you can chat with/have lunch with has been so valuable for me.
I have ADHD. I used to be the same as you. Now that it's treated I can write code in a busy cafe. I too didn't understand how people could be productive in a cafe. But apparently all our minds work differently (that's totally non-sarcastic, I'm always amazed at how hard empathy is)!
Working from home reminds me of the isolation of being homeschooled. I love having the flexibility to work remote on certain days, for example when I need to bang out a bunch of code. But, having a place to interact with people is invaluable for me.
I imagine countless others feel the same way, hence why companies still see offices as having value. So, for all the remote work evangelists on here: what do you do to counteract isolation?