
Isolation, anxiety, and depression in the remote workplace - zdw
https://doist.com/blog/mental-health-and-remote-work/
======
eternalny1
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 friends and/or family, or what you would consider an area
"home", that's a problem.

My problem? I have almost all of those issues at the moment. I do have a
work/life balance, but I don't do much with the "life" part. My close friends
have scattered as they got older, had kids, moved around to different states
for work, and I didn't put effort into finding new ones.

I can live wherever I want, but I don't know where I want to live! I can even
move to Europe as I am a dual US/Irish citizen, but I don't know where I would
want to go in Europe!

I have lived in so many states in my life already, I don't have a "home"
really, so that's an issue also.

It seems great, but it comes with drawbacks. I'm working on them, while
working on work.

~~~
ben_jones
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.

~~~
matwood
I know it's easier said than done, but you can't rely on work alone to make
you happy. You have to take that task on yourself. I would even go so far to
say you shouldn't even rely on your spouse to make you happy. They should
complement you.

I would also say that you have to embrace the biggest benefit of remote work -
personal agency. Most remote workers I know (myself included) can for the most
part work when we want to work. I can workout at 10am or go train BJJ at
9:30am. Instead of having to shape my day around work, I can shape work around
my day. The personal agency aspect is the biggest benefit for me, and one that
I would be hard pressed to ever give up at this point.

BTW, working from home should make it much easier to maintain the weight you
want since healthy food options should be easier at home. WFH means I can
throw some chicken and veggies on the grill at lunch for a healthy and cheap
meal.

~~~
katbyte
This is exactly why i will never work in an office again.

    
    
      - I wake up when i want (thou without fail earlier then when i had a commute to dread)
      - i can make a nice coffee/breakfast while getting some work done
      - i work out every day, sometimes multiple times because i can pop to a class by my home whenever i want
      - i often take days off to climb or snowboard/shift my work into the evening
      - seeing friends is easier than ever as i can be social on their schedule
      - i don't always take vacation to travel and explore as i can work from anywhere
      - assuming a generously short commute of 30 min plus 15 min to get ready/unpack on either end thats at least 1.5 hours a day back to do whatever i want with

~~~
cameronbrown
I'm not saying you're wrong, but you can get these benefits from a FAANG-type
company (though like you said, presuming a short commute). I'm personally
planning to do working holidays in other countries every so often.

~~~
katbyte
I’m not sure I’d want to work for a FAANG company thou.. and honestly no
commute is the best, 5% or more of my day back, every work day? Yes please

~~~
cameronbrown
And that's obviously your choice. I personally chose this path since I'm at
the beginning of my career - maybe I'll give remote working a shot one day!
However, nothing seems worse to me right now than mixing home and work life.
Physically separating them gives me a mental barrier between them.

BTW, commutes aren't 'fun', but it gives me a chance to read/reply to my
emails, plan my day, or do some reading, so on balance I do save non-
negligible time.

------
dijit
Article conflates digital nomadism with remote working in general.

Remote work allows you to work from a space you control, eliminate commute and
allows you to be able to walk around to clear your head without feeling guilty
for not being in your seat.

You could use it to travel, but I figure that would be a harder lifestyle and
is not synonymous with “remote work”.

The author did try working from home but the damage to his mental health had
been done I guess. I have the benefit of using IRC for the majority of my
social interaction for the better part of my life. I guess the author is
missing face-to-face contact already by that point though.

Also, I did something similar to what the author did, took a one way flight to
Helsinki from my home town Coventry in the UK.

No friends, no family, no support structure. Only the promise of a job. It was
some of the best time in my life. I was able to live as I wanted to live and
present myself as me without any baggage holding me back. It was wonderful.

Although, I did make more of an effort to really meet people- I went to pubs
in Helsinki and spoke to locals and asked about their history and language and
despite what you hear about the Finns; the ones I met were truly very
friendly.

All I’m saying is that: “your experience may vary”

~~~
pwm
Agreed re conflating. I predominantly work from home, out of a custom built
office in the corner of my garden. I tend to get up early and spend a few
hours goofing around with the family before starting work. I take short breaks
throughout the day to play with my son, eat lunch with my wife or go for a
stroll. I also tend to go in the company's office on average once a week to
get my dose of water cooler chats and group pizzas. This setup is a near-
perfect fit for me in terms of productivity, work-life balance and mental
health.

------
bbarnett
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, about working a
lot, working long hours. And after months and months, become more and more
depressed.

What I suspect is happening is, winter! Shorter days! With shorter days, it is
harder and harder to find sunlight when you just happen to wander outside. In
the summer, at least where I am, daylight lives from 4am to 10pm. I doesn't
matter when I wake up, or when I go to sleep.. if I wander out just once,
there's almost always light.

Further, there's a much better chance of good weather. In the winter, if it
isn't night, it's often cloudy, and therefore darker.

Unless you work away from all windows, this affects the type of light, even
when working inside.

On top of all that, in the winter it is more often unpleasant. You think with
glee, it's cool/cold, raining/snowing, and I work remote! I don't have to go
out into that! Yet, this is a trap, for going out in that is key to your
health... just for the light!

My point in all of the above is -- when you work on site, you have to go
outside, and transit outside, to and from work. This gets in that vital light,
even often in the winter.

It's about the light, it's about blue light from a blue sky, it's about being
outside.

That's what 30+ years of remote work has taught me.

~~~
hodgesrm
Speaking as an employment _provider_ I fully agree nomad != remote. I'm
actually hesitant to employ nomads if they are likely to move without warning
to time zones that aren't convenient for the rest of the team.

For example, one of the things that makes distributed teams work is to have a
small number of very stable meeting times that remain invariant for long
periods of time. The reason is that people need to structure their lives
(e.g., dinner with family) and if you change things capriciously it affects
relationships with families or other things in their personal lives. Having
team members suddenly move and then want meeting times changed for everyone is
a real non-starter for me.

~~~
jpgvm
I have been on remote teams with 2 different types of coordination.

Meeting coordinated, which is usually centered around 1 or 2 weekly meetings
when status updates and some amount of discussion of planning occurs. This
model works best when a large portion of the team is on the same timezone or
there is a physical office somewhere but isn't ideal for nomads or people that
are permanently located in an inconvenient timezone. These meetings often come
at a very high cost so if someone isn't getting value out of them then they
don't feel great about them usually.

The other is async/adhoc coordinated that mostly does synchronisation and
planning through async means like chat, email and issue tracking. This I found
works way better for travellers/nomads and people that generally don't need or
want structured meetings. Especially if you mostly work on long tasks and the
vast majority of your updates are "still doing the thing". If you couple this
with adhoc/on-demand meetings where you grab small portions of the team to
talk about smaller scoped things I find it works really well. Managers (well
less good ones) in particular are less of a fan of this model because instead
of having well defined sync points they need to be continually on top of how
things are changing.

Both have trade-offs, I find the second one works way better but is much
rarer. I experienced my most productive time as an engineer working under such
a model.

~~~
hodgesrm
I'm definitely open to getting better at this so I'm glad the second model
worked for you.

I have run into practical problems with ad-hoc call when working across a lot
of time zones (like 10 in our company). It's hard to slot in engineering ad-
hoc meetings because the slots are limited to begin with and already used up
with other things like talking to customers.

We definitely try to avoid burning people's time. Slack has been helpful for
intermittent communication.

------
marcoseliziario
I love working remotely, I dread the prison of the corporate offices and
commuting hours a day. Probably nothing you can do can cut your carbon
footprint as much as working remotely.

That said, I am over 40, with solid friedship relations built over decades,
have kids, an ex-wife which is a friend, a younger nerdy but social
girlfriend.

Basically, I don't need the work environment for social needs. But once upon a
time, when I was younger, my life was the office, and my colleagues. School
teaches you that you need an organization where you are physically present
everyday to have social interactions, you start working with this mindset,
probably in a different city, it takes a few years for you to realize that
there's life outside work. And YOU WILL learn it after the first layoff in
your life. So, if you are young, I'd recommend starting your life in a office,
but never put all your eggs in the same basket. Look to know people outside
your company, people that don't even do the same work as you do. Travel, do
yoga classes, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reading circles, whatever, but never
believe that you need an office to meet your social needs. You'll need it for
a time, it is good to bootstrap your life on relationship terms, heck, you can
even do it for the rest of your life. But never, even for a minute, believe
that you can't have a social life, friends, meet a significant other without
an office.

------
shrimpx
This same old tired story...

It turns out happiness takes lot of work. Having a healthy social life takes a
lot of trying, failing, and some successes that you cherish.

Some people tragically take their co-workers as their friends and the office
as their social environment. That's really dangerous. You need to go out there
and try, be awkward, fight to make some close friends in the real world.
Office drama and venting over a beer after work is not a social life. Also the
office is not a dating pool. Being depressed that your office doesn't have any
cute girls or boys... oh boy, I've seen it!

Isolation and depression is due to lacking social skill and not having the
drive or insight to develop that skill.

Remote work is hardly related. It's related only because people take the
office as their social scene and of course when they go remote they lost their
entire social scene.

~~~
cthalupa
A lot of this comment isn’t born out in reality. Around 30% of marriages in
the US are from people who met in the office, plenty of people make life long
friends from people they met at work, etc.

I’m not saying that should be the primary place you look for friends or an SO,
but plenty of people are successful doing it.

~~~
blondie9x
This becomes a bigger topic but if those people never had worked together they
probably wouldn't have met and more over is that a initiated out of
convenience or pressure of having to date or hang out with a co-corker because
they are always around and you have to see them frequently or daily?

What happened to meeting people naturally outside of a forced setting?

~~~
cocomittens
I mean if you are somewhere 1/3 of the whole day you naturally get to know the
people you are around everyday. As well as the fact that you already have a
filter of commonality, everyone I work with already has been filtered to live
in the same town, at the same company and is also a fellow engineer. No one's
harassing someone into dating them due to being around them a lot and if they
did that sounds like some type of #metoo situation and probably would get you
fired pretty quickly nowadays. If you don't want to date a coworker you are
free to not date them but I don't see how, for example my coworkers that just
got married have an inferior relationship because they didn't meet
'naturally'. In fact I would consider getting to know someone by talking to
them everyday one of the most natural forms vs meeting someone online.

------
davidy123
I have decades worth of remote work experience. I don't think the problem is
social isolation, as others point out that's another issue, you can experience
isolation (alienation) regardless of your work situation.

But if you want to be more than a gear on a team, the main decision making and
insight is often strictly between local workers, regardless of what gets said
in meetings it's the water cooler or after work beers. If all the decision
makers are in one place and you're not there, you're missing a lot of context.
A few key in-person meetings as required goes a long way to mitigate this, but
for organizations that see cost savings as a main benefit to remote workers
this may be difficult to arrange.

~~~
crustacean
I totally agree with you. I like all-remote teams. I’m wary of teams that are
part remote and part collocated, especially when the leaders are part of Team
Collocated and I’m not.

------
agentultra
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 in a co-
working space. I made friends with other people who worked in that space. I
could walk, bike, or take public transit to the space. I had a mix of friends,
acquaintances, familiar strangers, and strangers throughout my day.

It's better for the environment and for people.

I also know people who sail around the world and live a nomadic lifestyle.
They all face the same difficulties with mental health: they need a village.
The ones who manage to stick it out _build_ a village around their lifestyle.
However it's always a risk and one that should be planned for.

~~~
mattrp
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.

------
unlinked_dll
This article isn't about remote work, but being a social hermit.

In my experience, if you have difficulty making and sustaining friendships
without the heightened social context of a dorm floor/office water cooler,
then you're going to wind up experiencing a bit of cabin fever when you are
removed from those environments.

I had to make conscious efforts to go out, make friends and _do things_
outside work when I moved away and lived on my own. You're responsible for
your own mental health, not your company.

~~~
mieseratte
I have no trouble making and sustaining friendships with or without an office,
in fact only one of my (former) co-workers is an actual friend.

Regardless, something about the isolation of working from home for anything
more than a day here or there is just too mentally harmful for me. A much
lesser form of solitary confinement, I suppose. Even going out and doing
things after work every single day is no cure. I've tried it on and off over
the past decade, with and without a co-habitating girlfriend. With and without
pets. I've tried working from coffee shops, working from parks, co-working
spaces, etc.

For some it's not a matter of needing the office for friends, some people just
need the office environment itself. Something about being there "in the shit"
with your team, best I can tell, rings that mental bell.

~~~
Tempest1981
In an office, I can intersperse social contact with programming. And the
socializing requires almost no effort, since there is more common ground (job,
commute, lunch, etc)

At home, I'm isolated for 8-10 hours straight. By dinner time, I'm mentally
exhausted, making it harder to drum up energy to go out and meet new people.

------
buboard
> 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 is not going away. Its good for workers, good for business, good for
the environment, good for competition, bad for visas and bad for rent seekers.

~~~
elliotec
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.

~~~
jcomis
Thats kinda Seattle in a nutshell though.

~~~
elliotec
Yeah I think that's fair too.

------
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.

------
azhu
This applies most if you're a single-ish young-ish person without a highly
established personal life outside of work. IMO this is a good message to put
out since that's a lot of the crowd being recruited for these positions. When
you're in that spot in life you're trying to "figure it out", and the message
that you'd be free of any ties to a physical office is pushed very
romantically and can be very confusing for establishing an overall life for
yourself. It's helpful to know the other side of the coin so young prospective
employees can make the choice that's best for both employee and employer.

------
_bxg1
I saved up some money and quit my first programming job after a year and a
half to freelance. I only had a vague idea of the work I wanted to do, but I
wanted to have no master and I thought it would be my absolute best life.

Within two weeks I was deep into anxiety and depression. I tried to establish
routines, tried working from a coffee shop, etc. None of it really helped. I
was still fairly new to the city I lived in and didn't have many friends, and
wasn't a social person by nature. I was incredibly isolated.

I started dating someone a few weeks later and that helped. I picked up some
one-off contracts, built a website for a local music store, did some personal
projects, etc. But still, after another six months I was back in a hole. I
wasn't quite so isolated but I still crumbled under the pressure of not
knowing what to do next, not being able to take a break from the working
mentality even though I could barely bring myself to do any work at all. I
ended up taking a desk job just to pull myself out of the spiral.

Economically I probably could have made that work as a source of income, but
psychologically it was just unbearable.

------
dpods
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](https://outofoffice.app/workclub/remote)

------
Tempest1981
This shocked me:

"to encourage wellbeing: 40 days paid vacation per year: True disconnection is
fundamental to help people de-stress and recharge."

Is this common elsewhere in the world? In the US, it Seems like 10 or 15 days
is the norm, and maybe 20 after 5 years.

What do the FAANG+ companies offer?

Does the 2 months of vacation also contribute to that disconnected feeling, I
wonder?

~~~
marcoseliziario
30 days here in brazil per year. No theoretical limits on sick days as long as
you're really sick, but after 15 days in the hospital, the government pays you
instead of your company (at a progressively reduced scale, of course, if you
make lots of money, it is just fair that the government should need to help
you less than someone who makes minimum wages).

~~~
lbschenkel
One thing which is important to clarify is that in Brazil, once you take your
vacation, it gets "spent" during the whole period that you are off, including
weekends and eventual holidays.

In Europe (or at least a good part of it) vacation is "spent" only on
workdays, not weekends or holidays (which is fairer, you wouldn't be working
on these days).

So in Sweden, where you get 25 days compared to Brazil's 30, you actually get
roughly one week more vacation per year. This is not evident at a first glance
just by comparing numbers.

~~~
tasuki
This is super strange. Does Brazil force people to take vacation contiguously?
What prevents one from taking Monday-Friday off and then the next Monday-
Friday off? What if you want to take Thursday and Friday off and then spend
the weekend vacationing - how many vacation days does that take?

~~~
lbschenkel
It "works" because, legally speaking, it's the employer who decides when you
can take vacation. Apart from some edge cases, the employer has the option to
give your full vacation in one go but it also has the option to give it to you
in two different periods (at most). No period may be smaller than 10 days.
They have to notify you of your vacation period at least 30 days in advance.

In practice it really depends where you work.

In some jobs you will have a lot of latitude, and the employer will let you
freely choose and only veto it if it's really disruptive (like everybody else
in the team leaving at the same time). This is what I had experienced, working
in IT.

I suspect that in some lines of work, like the service industry, you might be
totally out of luck and have zero choice on the matter.

~~~
tasuki
That makes a lot of sense - thanks for the explanation!

------
davidjnelson
I’ve noticed the key is lots of zoom one on ones. It’s so productive and fun,
and you don’t feel lonely. Also, meditation helps a ton - it’s easy to feel
lonely in a crowd if the inner experience is out of whack, regardless of the
external situation. Shared whiteboarding software is also great.

------
jpgvm
Personally I have had a very different experience since I left to travel and
work remotely a few years ago.

I was already working remotely and yes at the time I was struggling with
depression and loneliness. Given what I have experienced since I don't think
remote work was at all the cause of my problems which were much deeper seated.

Leaving all of that behind and living out of a suitcase changed a lot of my
perspectives on what I valued in life. I was by no means obsessed with
material possessions before but enforcing a life of minimalism brought me
understanding of what things actually make my life better vs just cost money
and take up space. I had to think more critically about how I want to spend my
time each day as oftentimes I had limited time in each place and with each set
of people I had been lucky enough to meet. This meant I pushed myself to go
out and spend quality time doing things I enjoyed and with people I liked
because by putting smaller finite timelines on things I was motivated to do
them.

I still have friends I just don't see them in person as much. Often times
people would be travelling through the region and I would simply pack up and
go hang out with them - this was awesome and I have done it many times over
the last couple of years. I treasure all of these memories and hanging out at
a bar after work can never compare.

This lifestyle has been amazing for me and has allowed me to climb out of a
very dark place personally. I still suffer from depression - I probably always
will. However I think this lifestyle has offered me better tools to deal with
it.

Things that are hard though:

\- Timezones

\- Building professional relationships

\- Keeping in shape

\- Jetlag

Those are constant battles but compared to my personal demons easily managed.
:)

If anyone is thinking of taking the plunge I highly recommend it. You don't
have much to lose, you can always go back home but it just could change your
life.

------
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...](https://www.jonashietala.se/blog/2019/10/18/we_moved_away_from_the_city/)

------
deevolution
I think a great antidote for this, specifically for people who are lonely, is
to move into a multi bedroom apartment with 3+ other people or even find a
coliving space. There are some of these on NYC and from my experience it's
comparable to living in a dorm - which is the kind of healthy experience the
author says he missed most. You get to meet and interact with a variety of
people on a daily basis, some of whom could lead to deeper connections. Plus
its cheaper than a studio or 1br apartment!!

------
oldboyFX
When I was younger (~18 yo), I always dreamed of leaving my small central
European country and moving to the States, Canada, or somewhere in Australia.
I couldn't imagine staying at home. It simply wasn't exciting enough and I
didn't see my future here.

My buddy and I used to hype ourselves up and talk about our future plans,
which country we'd move to, in which ways we'd survive (our brightest idea at
the time was driving cabs in Sydney, haha).

A couple of years later we started doing web development and got our first
gigs. Now that we had some cash in our hands, we decided to — for a start —
move to Berlin.

My buddy moved right away and got a job in local startup. I followed him a
month later and had a remote US based client. I arrived in January. It was
quite cold, often raining, and all around kind of depressing. I didn't know
anyone and lived in a small apartment with a bunch of hippy roommates I didn't
vibe with. Since I worked remotely I didn't have any coworkers to hang out
with. I ended up renting an overpriced desk in a hipster co-working place
where everyone kept to themselves and pretended to work. After a month I
started getting depressed and it affected my work, so I bought a one-way
ticket and moved back to my home country.

Shortly after moving back, I finally found my flow. I co-created a passion
project with another friend
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8547351)),
started increasing my contracting rates, found higher quality clients, etc. I
rented a small apartment in the city centre, hung out with friends and family,
and basically loved my life (still do!). When I wanted some excitement and a
change of scenery, I would jump on a plane and do a road trip abroad.

My buddy who didn't work remotely stayed in Berlin, made friends with some of
his co-workers, expanded his social circle, and all in all had a great time.
He then proceeded to get married, moved to San Francisco, worked at a FAANG-
like corp, got divorced, and in the end moved back to the home country as
well. Not (entirely) because of the divorce, but because he craved real
friendship which he couldn't find in SF.

I guess the point of this story is... Being lonely sucks and having friends
and family close is important? Yeah.

~~~
robocat
One thing I noticed about travellers was they can be put into two buckets:

#1. The lost. Running away from problems at home (or travelling for vague
reasons).

#2. The motivated. Going to a country with purpose to do stuff.

It sounds to me like you did #1, and if you do it again perhaps you need to
find a drive for #2.

~~~
oldboyFX
The main issue, I think, is the fact that I was already fairly successful when
I decided to move. I was working remotely and it didn't really matter where I
lived. If I moved a couple of years prior the story might have been different:
I'd have something to chase.

------
adamzapasnik
I've been working remotely for some time already. Currently, I'm the only
remote worker at my client's company as I'm living in another country. Kind of
nomad style, but I'm living with my wife's family.

As I'm more of a consultant than an employee, I see it a bit differently. What
do I mean? Well, I'm trying to turn my side projects into something profitable
and hopefully one day, into a company, where I'd be able to hire other people.
I choose to work remotely to save time and to skip commute and so on to be as
productive as possible not only for my client but also for the time when I'm
building (with my SO) products.

I think, as far as it's your choice and you know what are the possible
problems on the way, you should be fine. Treat yourself better. Go outside
more (not only shopping), visit some parks. Do some hobbies and spend more
time with your family.

So far I haven't known anyone to be forced into remote work. If you start
working remotely, be serious about it, otherwise you're gonna face issues.

One more thing, don't listen to people that nomadlife/travelinglife/remotework
is some silver bullet to whatever problems you have. It's not. It's hard and
it's not pretty.

------
infinity0
A lot of the comments in this thread are a bit self-defensive and unempathetic
to the problems described in this post.

This post, and many unrelated others in general, are talking about their own
experiences. They don't seek to deny other people's experiences; and being
slightly too general in their wording so that there might be an implication
that their experiences apply to everyone, is a mistake that everyone makes and
is an intrinsic part of natural everyday language. Pointing this out, and
seeing others point it out, gets really tedious after a while, not to say
uneducational and uninformative.

Personally, I've definitely been through a similar thing that this article
describes. Remote work is indeed very draining indeed for the reasons
described. If you have some ways to make it work for you, just say and state
them, there is no need to say "the article is wrong / too general, actually
it's only true when specific circumstances [X, Y and Z] apply that didn't
apply to me", this adds nothing to the discussion and makes it sound like
you're denying other people's experiences.

------
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.

------
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

------
vfc1
I bet he is right that its harder for younger people. Having a family means
having a routine built-in, you take your kids to school and go pick them up
always at the same hour, play a bit, make dinner, bedtime, etc.

For younger people, maybe going to the gym almost every day? I bet that there
are shared workspaces with people in the same situation in a lot of large
cities at least.

~~~
gabriel-uribe
As a young person working remotely, I just realized the value of that this
week; breaking up my workday at the climbing gym has helped me feel less
isolated. I enjoy my solitude, but I still need to socialize during work hours
somehow. While there aren’t many people at my climbing gym around noon, those
who are there also seem open to chatting or being a climbing partner.

There is also a cafe upstairs which is convenient for lunch and the second
half of the workday.

------
abnercoimbre
Decoupling work from building connections in meatspace is important. The tech
for remote work is improving, and it's saving people in office costs, commute
costs, and helps you find talent almost anywhere.

Admittedly some real trust has to be established between employer and
employee, and this is still a tough problem to solve generally.

For work I literally use the phone to make calls and send texts to co-workers.
There's also conference call software, chat apps, and e-mail. They each offer
a different flavor, and you use them as needed and under your terms
(usually!). Company flies me down every quarter. It's worked really well for
2+ years.

Now, building and finding communities on your own can feel overwhelming, but
it's possible. It's been incredible being able to decide to co-work at a café
on Friday with close friends. The same satisfaction from being at an office is
there, and without the uncontrollable work-related interruptions.

------
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.

------
tomp
> Openly acknowledging that there can be serious mental health issues related
> to remote work. People are not alone in these struggles, and there’s nothing
> “wrong” with feeling anxious or depressed.

> Encouraging people to use sick days for mental health when they need them.

It's nice that a company actually cares, but I feel there's a way to push this
too far... Like not _everything_ is a "mental health issue". You feel sad,
unmotivated, anxious about your future some days? Well everyone does, it's
called being human (and not a psychopath)! I sometimes get the feeling that by
encouraging indulging in these (often ephemeral, fleeting) feelings encourages
a victim mentality of helplessness and doom... maybe we should be encouraging
resilience instead (not in the "be strong suppress your feelings" kind of way,
just as a middle ground).

~~~
bluntfang
>a victim mentality of helplessness and doom

This isn't what accepting that you have mental health issues look like. This
is what happens when you don't have support to handle your mental health in
helpful ways.

------
chiefalchemist
I'm on a fully remote team. I do like the convenience of not wasting time with
rush hour commuting and such. That being said, the next time I have the
opportunity to negotiate an added perk I'll be hoping to get a small budget
for a local co-working space. Once or twice week would be perfect.

------
sweetheart
There are a lot of very, very good points in this article, but I can’t help
disagreeing with the opening, in which the author talks about (or at least
quotes Seneca on) the impossibility of making meaningful connections while
living abroad and moving around.

Moving out of my home country and forcing myself to get comfortable meeting
strangers was not only the most important thing I’ve done for myself, but gave
me a handful of incredibly close friends I didn’t have before, and I was
happily working remotely for a company in another country during that time.

It’s not for everyone, but don’t let this article dissuade you from trying it,
if you can. Meeting people from all over the world, and learning a new
language, all while working remotely was life changing in a way I didn’t think
possible.

~~~
kpennell
I hear you and agree and disagree. I've definitely had my life changed by
moving/traveling abroad. At the same time, I just kept going and going and now
I've spread myself too thin and have acquaintanceships all over.

------
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

------
blunte
i love remote work. i’ve done it for most of the last 12 years, and some of
that time was spent traveling.

i hates most of my office years (the other 14). most offices had bad lighting,
poor ergonomics, open office plans or low wall cubes, blasting AC, and always
a few employees who loved to check voicemail over speakerphone.

regarding loneliness, i know some people who can be lonely in any situation.
and then there are people like me who are rarely lonely, enjoy solitude, but
also maintain a few long lasting and meaningful relationships.

perhaps the big difference between me and the author is age. spend a decade or
more in sucky offices and remote work feels like heaven. i’ll work my ass off,
12+ hours a day, if i can choose where i work from day to day.

------
jaequery
I’ve been working remotely for about 2-3 years now but due to a new job I will
be working at an office now starting tomorrow.

It is a terrifying feeling to say the least. I am trying to be optimistic and
hope to get over it quick.

Working remotely have been amazing and was a life changing experience for me.
It was good in that I got to see the world as it is for the first time. Being
able to drive out or walk around the town at any time or anywhere is the most
liberating feeling you can have. Prior, I was working in office for over 8
years so I had no idea there was a bustling world outside of the office.

So yeah it is scary to be going back but I am going with the mindset that
being able to socialize will be worth the trade off.

~~~
buboard
Good luck and report back to us in 3 months!

------
confidantlake
I work 1 day a week in the office 4 days at home. I am much happier and
healthier. Every lunch I go for a run, something I could not do when I was at
the office. I am getting more sleep as I wake up later do to no commute.
Overall it is much better.

------
hodgesrm
My company is 100% distributed. We have people between California and Moscow.

We try to employ people who have a motivation to work remotely--ability to
travel, desire for more flexibility to be with family, reduce commute times,
etc. For people with those motivations, remote work can be a real benefit and
actually gives us an edge in hiring.

I've been working remotely fully or mostly for the last 12 years. It's great--
I can structure my time to ensure I get enough exercise, take naps when
necessary, and generally avoid the constraints of some artificial 9-5 clock.
It's not for everyone, but at this point I would hate to have a full-time job
in an office.

------
ropable
I've recently started listening to the Happiness Lab, a podcast by a Yale
professor called Dr Laurie Santos which covers scientific research about
happiness: [https://www.happinesslab.fm](https://www.happinesslab.fm)

Some of early episodes touch on the highly-counterintuitive beliefs that
pretty much everyone has with the relationship between happiness and direct
in-person contact with other people (namely that they'll be happiest if they
never have to talk to another stranger again). It's worth listening to and
reflecting on.

------
johnnyAghands
"the ambitious side that’s never satisfied with the way that things are and
the human side that wants to be content and happy" I found this line very
relatable -- as with almost everything in life, balance is key. You would
think we would know this by now, but it's usually the first thing to suffer.
Anyways, I think it's great these topics are brought to the forefront --
instead of being siloed and almost taboo to talk about openly. We're
surprisingly closed minded when it comes to mental health issues...

------
jcroll
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 can come in and _work_ with their
coworkers regularly

~~~
Ididntdothis
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.

------
aSplash0fDerp
And here I was getting excited about the benefits of async communications with
remote working from another article today:

[https://doist.com/blog/asynchronous-
communication/](https://doist.com/blog/asynchronous-communication/)

Solitude, "time alone with ones thoughts" or personal time is not everyones
cup of tea, but depending on the individual, if thats your wheelhouse, the
lack of distractions is priceless in regards to productivity.

------
ahnick
What's the consensus on co-working perks/incentives? Should employers be
breaking that out as a reimbursement for expenses or should they just bake it
into a salary? I feel like too many individual perks/incentives suddenly get
the company deeply involved in how work is being performed. As an employer I'd
much rather workers just work how best they enjoy and pay them a fair wage.

------
yoz-y
> Articles about the remote work lifestyle have tended to focus on drinking
> piña coladas on the beach, traveling the world, and otherwise enjoying a
> life that inspires envy in your social media following.

Did they though? I have the impression that the last dozen of articles I've
seen on remote working on HN concentrate on the negatives. Mainly because the
positives are rather obvious.

------
kpennell
I really appreciate this discussion and article. I have struggled so much with
anxiety/depression from remote working. I've tried so many things to help it.
The only thing that helped was finally finding coworking spaces in
Berlin/Oaxaca where there was some interaction. For whatever reason, I just
could not click with any of the Oakland, CA ones.

------
quicksilver03
Is it true that most remote-first companies only hire people who have already
significant (>1yr) experience working remotely? That's the impression I have
reading this and other HN threads about remote work.

It's sort of a catch-22 situation, not dissimilar to the one beginning
developers find themselves in when looking for jobs that require experience.

~~~
jarofgreen
I don't know about "most" but we are remote first and no we don't. We do ask
people about it during the interview tho, so I guess people who have done it
before will be at an advantage. But we certainly don't require experience.
Research a lot so you can talk about it during interviews, I guess, and good
luck!

------
o_____________o
The other thing is finding decent salaries. Companies that advertise remote
work usually want to drop 80k+ from your salary.

------
lifeisstillgood
For me the big lesson is it is possible to structure an environment for
"accidental sociability" \- the most obvious one being individual rooms in a
shared house - but there are plenty of other examples

\- and this is something I suspect that happier more productive _socities_ as
well as companies will embrace

------
mavdi
Again another article of “It applies to me, therefore must apply to everybody”

If remote work isn’t working for you, don’t do it. I’ve done everything this
dudes done but it has been the happiest time of my life. One would perhaps
dare to think, different people react differently to the same things.

------
cgb223
Can anyone who’s remote but in a non-engineering role share there experiences?

I’ve always wondered how a highly social job like a Product Manager, or
Salesperson could possibly work remotely when you need to have a ton of
meetings and face to face contact

~~~
meddlepal
I've known a lot of remote sales people and they usually work a geographical
region and spend time on client/customer sites or golfing.

------
alephnan
> When I was 23 years old ... packed a single suitcase, and booked a one-way
> ticket from Denmark to Taiwan.

I’m wondering if OP knew the local language or made an effort to, and the lack
thereof could be the explanation for social isolation

------
fareesh
There is really no reason why you cannot have a vibrant social life as a
remote worker, or as a digital nomad. The latter is much harder but it's a
choice that people make and I would assume they make it knowingly.

~~~
icebraining
> I would assume they make it knowingly.

I think this is a dangerous assumption, and why OP wrote the article. People
often make choices based on assumptions and bad information. Like not knowing
that they _need_ a vibrant social life to feel well, because they simply never
lacked one.

------
etagobla
I've been sort of jumping between jobs, many of which are remote, and others
which are in different places from home base.

You need to CALL friends, not text. It helps significantly.

------
mikkelam
I just quit my remote job which was quite a career boost due to isolation,
anxiety and depression. I am definitely not going to be doing that again.

------
snthd
(2018)

Neat to see hn grouping previous submissions across 3 different URLs ("past").

Canonical URLs FTW.

------
m0zg
I work mostly remotely (although I do visit my clients every now and then),
and many of the pitfalls in the article are real, and I had to deal with some
of them.

One is the ability to work whenever the hell you want. For me this led to
working in the dead of the night. I'd start at around 7PM in earnest and
finish by 4AM (!). If you have a family, this is not a sustainable situation,
so I had to fix that. It was surprisingly difficult to fix - I'm a night owl
naturally, my best work is done late in the day, the later - the better. But I
go to bed at 12AM now, which isn't too bad.

Another very real issue is the separation of work and life. That I dealt with
by only doing work in one place at my house. I have a separate "work" desk,
and a separate set of hardware there (computers are provided by clients), and
I don't do work anywhere else. I also have different login keys on client
hardware and SSH password login is disabled, so I can't log into them from my
personal laptop even if I want to. Finally, I have a separate GSuite account
for work Gmail, and Chrome profile, and there's no "work" chrome profile on my
personal laptop. This solves the problem reasonably well, without the expense
of renting an office, and time sink of adding a commute. This would have been
an intolerable situation if I had small kids or a needy spouse though. I'd
have to rent an office then.

WRT "mental health" issues, I feel like I'm doing all right on that front. If
anything, visiting the offices is more stressful than not going anywhere. It's
much noisier and much harder to focus when I'm there. But I suspect the
transition would be a lot less clear cut if the office arrangement were more
humane, like it was at, say, MS in early 00's - individual offices where you
can close the door, library noise levels. I had one of those as late as in
2009. It was heaven compared to what you get now (including at MS). I kept my
door open most of the time, but when I needed to really focus, I had the
option of doing so.

I think one important thing is to keep a conversation going with whoever
manages you and with your direct teammates. You don't have to get into
everyone's face, but a low traffic, async Slack channel is pretty
indispensable IMO, as is the brief weekly report on what's been done and what
remains to be done. If this is not done, it could appear that you aren't doing
much: people won't naturally make the consistent effort to go and look, and
even if they do, it's often not easy to see the difficulties you've
experienced. I.e. you could spend a few days debugging a gnarly issue in TF
2.0 (of which it has a surprising number), and the fix might be one line. That
could very easily appear like you've been slacking off most of the week if the
only info the other side has about the fix is a brief blurb in the PR.

Finally, another issue is that I feel like remote is more suitable to the kind
of work which is not speculative in nature, and where you can deliver results
of a predictable size at a roughly even cadence. With some of the best work
I've done in my career that hasn't been so: delivery was very uneven, and I'd
sometimes not submit anything for weeks on end just because I was thinking of
(and prototyping) how best to do what I was trying to do. I imagine that'd be
problematic in a remote arrangement, especially if you change a steep hourly
rate, like I do.

If someone has found a solution to this last problem, please share.

~~~
dredmorbius
Excellent points, corresponding strongly with my experience.

When I've shifted to night schedules, it's almost always been because daylight
hours impose too many interruptions. _Even very slight distractions can be
hugely distruptive, particularly over time._ These range from ringing phones
to various street and environment noise (traffic, voices, landscaping
equipment, construction), conversations or activities elsewhere in the
household or building. Conversations _by those you know_ are exceptionally
distracting, far beyond all apparent proportion. The low chatter of a cafe can
be tolerable, but a significant other, manager, or co-worker having a quiet
converstation nearby will grab your attention, _because it could be
consequential_.

If you don't have full control of your workspace, you've got the added issues
of insufficient working room, things not remaining where you put them, and
disagreements over organisation and environment (hot/cold, light/dark, windows
open/closed, music/none, metal or classical, etc., etc.). Dominion matters
tremendously.

The long-term vs. speculative projects issue is one that seems to hinge on
trust and communications channel quality. In-person, in-office work benefits
by butts-on-seats and the fact that your manager can personally and directly
verify you're working on what you said you would be. Creative and speculative
work is tremendously uncertain _and_ hard to express / quantify, both as to
possible value and any potential progress being made. This is one of a number
of problems under the domain of what I call "manifestation", effectively, how
directly manifest, tangible, or perceptible a thing is. While direct physical
labour is immediately tangible (holes enlarge, wood sawed, big rocks become
little oens), intellectual challenges _don 't_ lend themselves to ready
visualisation or perception. A huge amount of workplace fads over the past
half century (and before) have sought to address this. Most poorly.

Finding a manager (or client) who has a good grasp of this might help. I'm
really not one to claim solutions, though I think I've a handle on the
problem.

And writ large, this is _the problem_ with remote work: it's not manifest.

------
rihegher
Out of topic but do anyone know an online community of remote workers?

~~~
buboard
I'm working on one: [https://reworkin.com](https://reworkin.com) . I do think
there are some discord/slack channels too. There's also nomadlist but it's
mainly about nomadism

~~~
rihegher
Thanks! I've just registered

