
Working alone sucks - labaraka
http://fleetadmiral.tumblr.com/post/37907736486/working-alone-sucks
======
jasonkester
I met a girl at a party once, and she said something really interesting when I
mentioned that I wrote software for a living.

"I could never do that", she said. "I could never sit alone all day, staring
at a computer and never getting the chance to talk to anybody. It'd be my
worst nightmare."

I hadn't ever thought about it like that. Naturally, as a developer, I think I
have the greatest job there is. Where else could you get somebody to pay you
like fourteen times the median family income to hang out anywhere in the world
you please and solve interesting puzzles all day?

But not everybody is wired the same. Lots of people (most people???) get their
energy from face to face human interaction.

Poor fools, eh?

~~~
codinghorror
Wait what? Who in the world is using a computer today that isn't _constantly_
interacting with people on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, uh.. Hacker News, even..

I mean, you're doing it _right now_.

Today's web is an insanely social place. Compare with computers in 1985, yeah,
you might have a point about social isolation. But today? Absolutely not, no
way.

~~~
kayoone
That still doesnt change "I could never sit alone all day, staring at a
computer and never getting the chance to talk to anybody."

Even by using social media, you are still alone in front of your computer.

~~~
codinghorror
That's meaningless. "never getting the chance to talk to anybody"? I'm talking
to you, and everyone else who reads this web page, _right now_.

Just look around you. Look at all the people who are in real world physical
social situations and _still_ spend most of their time staring at their
smartphone and the stream of social updates from Twitter, from Facebook, from
Email...

Staring at those screens is compelling because they are so damn social now.
It's not some mythical solitary activity like playing solitaire or reading a
book.

~~~
rm445
It's interesting that you can't tell the difference. You are _not_ talking to
parent poster, you are typing text into a box while alone in room. You can't
see his(?) facial expressions, change the subject, comment on things taking
place around both of you. You just type into a box and sometime later you
might see this reply.

Don't get me wrong, communicating on the Internet is great. But for some types
of personality (and pretty much all of us to some extent) face-to-face
interaction is vital.

~~~
dennisgorelik
Experienced writers/readers easily communicate emotions through text.

------
danhou
I can definitely empathize. A few years ago, I co-founded a startup with one
of my close friends - except he had relocated to Shanghai and I in Virginia
living with my parents to save on rent.

We talked or IMed every day, but it definitely wasn't the same as working with
a co-located team. There's no grabbing lunch together or the occasional drinks
after work. It definitely got lonely, and led to some unusual behavior.

By the end of the second week, I'd stopped getting out of my pajamas - it
wasn't like I was leaving the house, so why bother?

We have a dog, who isn't allowed in the house, so I set up a desk in the
garage and worked from there. I'd keep the garage door open all day, for
natural light but also to let the dog run around.

I distinctly remember one afternoon, where I'm cranking away in my
garage/office. Some neighborhood kids were cutting through our yard to get to
the local basketball court, and they definitely paused for a moment to stare
at the unkempt weird hermit guy, still in his pajamas, a bathrobe, and
slippers, hacking away in the garage of all places.

Good times!

~~~
labaraka
That's how I also started. After too many unshowered days eating cereal, I
decided I needed to get an office :)

------
paulsutter
This is a pretty clear take on the cofounder debate. Key quote:

"I don’t have a CFO, COO or other peers with the same overall picture of the
company and incentive structure that I have"

In the early days of Quantcast, Konrad (the other cofounder) and I wondered
why the employees didn't generally have the same sense of urgency that we did.
My friend Bryan asked "so, what do you do when you read an article about a
competitive threat?" and we both answered "we share it with each other". "and
not the employees?", and we looked at each other and said "we don't want to be
discouraging". Bryan said "no wonder they don't feel urgency".

And that's at the core of having a cofounder. Or more importantly, perhaps
that's one of the real reasons you want the initial team of a company to all
be cofounders (YC style). You want everyone in the same boat, with a big bet
on the line, sharing information openly.

I'd love to hear any other thoughts about the real underlying reasons that the
success rates are higher with companies that have cofounders. Most of the
discussion on HN is about the observation, and examples either way. But I'd
love to hear insight into the reasons.

~~~
gsharma
I am curious to know how you cultivated sense of urgency among employees after
this conversation? Did you start sharing more about competition and/or other
information? Did you share it directly or massaged the message so the
employees don't get discouraged? Or was "we don't want to be discouraging" an
assumption?

~~~
paulsutter
The single best thing we did in this regard was to have a weekly communication
meeting, like Google's Friday all hands. Our CFO came from Google and clued us
in.

It's an open meeting where successes and challenges are openly described and
anyone can ask any question. Someone from Google could probably give a much
better description.

------
marknutter
Title should be "Working alone sucks _for some people_ ".

I've been working from home for years and love it, for instance.

~~~
brandall10
I truly believe 'alone' is more a state of mind than anything else.

Having recently left a veritable 'Office-Space' like enterprise, with 500
people on my floor you'd think I wouldn't have been so lonely. But being lost
in a sea of cubes and water cooler/misery loves company talk replete with
excuses of why someone can't do something and something didn't get done at
every corner can wear one down.

As a newly minted Rails consultant going on 6+ mos now, I have yet to meet any
of my clients/designers face to face (there's 10 people involved in 2 separate
long term projects). They live on the East Coast and I'm in southern
California. But we're in regular communication... skype/google hangouts,
phone, basecamp, email, pivotal tracker, github.

When it comes to my career I'm feeling amazingly whole when I'm 'virtually'
surrounded with highly competent people who see eye-to-eye than when I had to
grudgingly come into a mediocracy every day. I've never experienced this level
of cohesive team work before... to me it just seems like the physical presence
thing is icing on the cake.

If I get 'physically lonely' heck while working I'll go out to one of various
local cafes I frequent and take my headphones out every once in awhile and
chat up a stranger. Usually we have far more in common than I did with any of
my former co-workers. To top it off I find myself more regularly hanging out
with friends while not working... having a fluid schedule + getting rid of
that time sink that is commuting really opens up one's options to be social.

~~~
icebraining
_“Our language (...) has created the word loneliness to express the pain of
being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of
being alone.”_

 _\-- Paul Tillich_

------
cmwelsh
I have experienced feelings similar to these in the past as a freelancer
working from home. My advice is to join a local coworking group where
freelancers come together to share office space. I have found the social
atmosphere helps everyone get more enthusiastic about their work and allows
for easy collaboration between designers, developers, marketers and
businesspeople.

~~~
labaraka
Good point. I have also successfully experimented with this in the past.

------
rachelbythebay
The update on the bottom of this post really hits home: "it is the lack of
peer-level teamwork towards a common goal that I lack". That made me shudder.

For me, the worst thing in the world is to try and do something in a "team"
which exists in name only. If the other folks aren't willing to run at the
same speed, then it just starts draining the life out of me and the project.
It sounds like the author of this post is in the same situation.

The flip side of this is that when a couple of people agree to really band
together, we can go out and do amazing things. It doesn't even have to be
programming. The nights when I got together with a couple of friends and
decided to "beat the (ticket) queue down" were great. We were all "over it"
and did not like our jobs any more, but the teamwork of getting in there and
showing what we could still do was worth it.

Two or three of the right people could destroy a backlog of tickets which had
accumulated over the span of hours or even days. It would make a dent which
would last for several shifts, and probably rescued more than one ticket which
would have been criminally mishandled otherwise.

The teamwork basically established that more than one of us felt this way.
That's important, since if you're the only one of a kind in any situation,
don't you start wondering if you've done something wrong?

I guess life is easier for those who aren't troubled by that sort of "do I
even belong here" thought.

------
calinet6
Definitely join a Co-working space. They are designed for this.

You may not be working directly with the people you interact with, but you are
all working toward something, and that fact alone helps me be productive.

The diverse community and productive environment of any good coworking space
have untold benefits beyond the obvious. Try it out for an extended time
before you make any assumptions.

~~~
labaraka
I am not yet 100% comfortable giving up our office. But we have some extra
desks and we are located in a very nice part of town. I think offering these
to interesting local entrepreneurs might achieve a similar goal.

If you are en entrepreneur interesting in a space in Old Montreal, leave your
contact info here and I'll contact you.

~~~
calinet6
That could work great. I know a local co-working space here in Boston does an
office-space trade as well. Maybe get in touch with one in Montreal and see if
their members have any interest or if they offer a similar service.

------
bobmacw
Many many years ago, I tried to do solo musician as a career - I write,
practice, and perform the music - and in addition to the crushing poverty, the
solitude was really hard. When I ended up working for a software company, I
remember telling people, "Gosh I wish there was a Lotus Development for
guitarist-composers." (I'm dating myself...) In addition to the lack of social
contact, there's the lack of externally provided structure - schedule,
resources, breaks, milestones. I just think it's hard to be a one-person
anything.

------
wallflower
If you work at home alone and you need human interaction, get a dog. It will
force you to get outside and interact with humans.

I met a young person once who was successful (multi-millionaire) and had sold
several companies. In the post-sell lull, he said that until he got a dog - he
didn't have a daily routine - since he didn't have to really work. Showering
is a habit that quickly can fall by the wayside if you work from home alone
too much.

------
bluethunder
I have been in a similar situation and also read a bit of psychology and the
inescapable conclusion that I have come to is that this is exactly why you
need a cofounder.

Humans crave regular 'peer' level feedback and gratification - this is an
evolutionary trait and is extremely critical for your happiness which is in
turn critical for optimal work performance. Almost anyone who feels otherwise
is wrong.

The key point is that even if your startup is doing well and making tons of
money you will still not be happy because of the lack of 'peer' level
feedback. So in that sense getting a co-founder is a bigger objective than
making your startup profitable.

The only other two options are:

1\. Your company grows real fast and you are able to hire a couple of CXO's.
This might take a long time and its not really in your control.

2\. Raise funds and hire a couple of peer level CXO's - this is easier said
than done as premature scaling is the number one cause of startup mortality
even assuming that you can raise funding in the first place.

The good part is that if you understand this simple fact, you can start
figuring out a solution which I guess you have already begin.

------
lsdafjklsd
I have never had a real life developer friend or someone to talk to.

I got my BFA in illustration in 2010 and decided to get back into web
development (I got an associates in digital media 3 years prior and was into
web development in high school). So the landscape of development had changed a
ton, I stumbled on to middleman and SASS.. so I was getting acquainted with
modern tools and techniques. Then I was lucky enough that a marketing company
in my town hired me to help out with html emails and photoshop collateral.

They had a VB .NET Webforms guy that they would outsource application-ish
websites too. At this time I was watching the google python videos and reading
books about django / rails. I learned about heroku and in my spare time I
would build and deploy simple apps like questionnaires with an active admin
backend. Basically, my company let me take a stab at one of these application-
ish projects and it went really well so I got to do more and more. That was a
year ago, and now I work solely on large Rails / backbone projects hosted on
Heroku. In all of this personal growth I still have not met another developer
who I can talk to or learn from, it's crazy. It makes me sad because I don't
have someone to share the excitement with, or someone who I can learn with. We
have had this AD out for another developer for months and get very few
responses. If you're in NH and like this stuff send me a message :)

~~~
thirtysixred
If you're close to the Portsmouth area check out: <http://alphaloft.com>. They
have regular talks and meet ups.

You could always head over to Boston there's a ton of web development stuff
happening there and regular meet ups.

~~~
lsdafjklsd
Wow alpha loft is an amazing resource, thanks!

------
pathy
I am currently writing a paper relating to this topic. (Nothing special, just
part of a university course)

We are studying Seats2meet.com, a company providing co-working spaces in The
Netherlands, or rather one of their co-working spaces, BounceSpace, where its
free to work but you have to "pay" with your social capital.

What we have found so far is that it is mostly (early start-up phase)
entrepreneurs and freelancers who attend the location we have studied. They
say that they cannot focus well at home and having the possibility to interact
with is great beneficial to them. The fact that the location is free is of
course important, especially for start-ups on a tight budget.

The idea behind the concept is knowledge sharing but while there is certain
amounts of knowledge sharing going on it appears that most are looking for
human contact, and sometimes the human contact can help them out - good.

The academic literature suggest that teleworkers, and it appears entrepreneurs
though the literature is quite weak on that subject, are often feeling
isolated due to lack of face-to-face interactions such as informal meetings,
lunches and "water-cooler conversations" with colleagues.

Our focus is mostly on knowledge sharing and social capital but I think many
entrepreneurs could benefit from more interactions with others, rather than
just hacking away at home.

P.S. Check out Seats2Meet/BounceSpace if you are in Amsterdam and looking for
a co-working space, they got some collaboration with Appsterdam and such. Not
to mention good coffee!

------
code_duck
Except for the lack of distractions, I don't like it. Same with working with
people, in reverse.

I work as both a programmer and a glass artist, and similar conclusions apply.
Working in group environments is inspiring, informative, invigorating and
synergistic, but brings up all sorts of problems one doesn't encounter in
solitude. I'm trying to find the right balance.

------
tchock23
This post hit close to home for me. I have had very similar work experiences
as the OP (having done both a startup with two co-founders and management
consulting), and found that the biggest factor is whether you are introverted
or extroverted. He notes that he's extroverted, which is likely why he hates
this method of work.

As an introvert, I don't mind long periods of alone time as long as it's
occasionally punctuated by social events. However, I tend to avoid the local
networking events like the OP described because I find them to be full of
blowhards and vendors pushing a service (YMMV). Instead, I prefer smaller
group gatherings with people I trust.

I'm trying to decide if my next startup is going to be solo or with co-
founders, so this is weighing on my mind at the moment. I find that the
biggest drawback of solo is the sense of loneliness, and I'm trying to balance
that with the considerations of equity, creative control, etc.

------
readme
>Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am (hyper?)active, extraverted and
social. Sitting in front of the computer alone all day is as sub-optimal as it
gets for my character

A more appropriate title would have been "Working alone sucks for me"

I love working alone. Politics are non-existent or scarce.

------
sbrother
One word: coworking! As a freelance developer I struggled with this for a
while (getting depressed working at home, and getting tired of reduced
productivity at cafes) until I joined a good coworking space. I realized that
while working alone wears me down, I wouldn't trade working _for myself_ for
anything, and being around a group of people who feel the same way is awesome.

For me at least, coworking is better than working at home in every way I've
considered. I'm much more productive, it's not as isolating socially, and
professionally I've even found new contracts through people I've met
coworking.

------
timedoctor
I've been working at home and travelling the world for over 5 years with our
whole team completely distributed, managing over 30 people remotely for all of
this time. I've seen it doesn't work for some people. If the person doesn't
have a partner, is a bit too introverted, they can get into an anti-social
pattern and not communicate enough, not get out of the house.

My experience is that this is the minority, maybe 5% maximum 10% of people.
The majority love working from home and the benefits of greater flexibility
and not having to travel to and from work each day more than compensate for
any downside.

------
forgottenpaswrd
Working alone sucks(if you are extroverted).

I had the opposite problem, I started working in sales with tons of people. I
had no time for myself, meditation, solitude or thinking, just meeting people
or being interrupted on the phone constantly.

People could not understand that I wanted time for myself(most of the human
population is extroverted).

It was great for some people, but not for me. Now I work(at home) in
engineering mostly alone with my dogs at my side and I am so happy. I am
thinking about problems most of the time without interruptions. I see people
when I want. For me this is great.

~~~
trafficlight
I'm definitely introverted, but sometimes I do find it helpful to be around
other people while working. Which is why I'm starting a coworking space in my
hometown.

~~~
contemplative1
Have you found any pitfalls trying to start a co-working space where there's a
lack of an existing community? Did you do much research?

~~~
trafficlight
This remains to be seen. I just signed the lease on Monday for the space and
we are doing cleaning and some minimal construction right now.

I live in Helena, Montana. We have a very small startup/tech community here,
but we do have a lot of people who telecommute or freelance for out-of-state
clients. Ideally, we'll get a mixture of these people. I think the diversity
is what's really important.

Outside of Helena, in Bozeman and Missoula, there is a much larger startup
community that's really starting to take off. I try to drive down for meetups
a few times a month and participate in as many things as possible.

So far, the initial response has been overwhelmingly positive. Rent is really
cheap (my father-in-law owns the building, that helps) and I'm not trying to
make a living off of the coworking space itself. It won't take many members to
get the space self-sustaining and I'm confident that we can get there quickly
even with the small population.

Our website just went live yesterday. <http://theshophelena.com>

------
jaymorg
I have been working from home for almost four years now. I don't consider my
self an overly social person, but it's beginning to take a toll on me.

I live in a small city (~80k population) with absolutely no tech industry and
don't have any close friends that are working programmers with similar
interests. I tend to have a lot of ambitions, which make it even worse when
you have no feedback system to discuss those ambitions.

Lately I've been considering applying for jobs in the Bay area, but I'm not
sure I'm qualified enough to get a job worth moving my family for.

~~~
contemplative1
Sounds like a strikingly similar situation to mine:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4905386>

------
tedmiston
I'd like to consider this through the lens of motivation.

It's a social motivational problem. I experience the same thing is some
classes in the case where grades are too easy to get / there's no challenge,
and when there's no push for creativity.

When the prof presents a leaderboard or favorite features in projects
afterwards, or offers bonus for implementing more challenging additions, it
multiplies my own motivation significantly. Even in grad school (CS), most of
my course projects have been too easy IMO.

------
nitingarg
These are exactly my feelings in last one year after i left my job and working
solo from 2+ years now. While i love the work & freedom and comfort as i am a
natural loner/introvert, sometimes it sucks real bad. And unfortunately, we
don't have much of work at cafe & co-working culture here.

And with the time i have lost interest in "social media". It feels like i am
talking to projections of characters and not real people.

------
hiperlink
How I wish, how I wish you were here...

I mean, You, you, the clever, normal people. But for now I'm sharing my
cubicle with two really clever (they can get the job done quickly, elegantly,
etc) guys, who are both loud racists, one of them scientologist (although the
later that did not caused any problem yet). And there's no chance the change
offices.

So. I would give both of their arms if only I could work alone a day a week.

------
fmavituna
Interesting. My experience is almost the opposite of this. CEO of a small
distributed team with 10 people, I spend half of my day on Skype talking with
the team.

I actually socialize more than my previous office job (penetration testing) in
an office with 20~ people.

Best part of it when I want to be alone to focus on something all it takes is
setting my status to DND which you can't effectively do in many offices.

------
anujkk
I believe it depends on the personality of person. I like to work in an
environment where I am able to do my work alone, in isolation, have full
control over process and schedule, and interact with others only when
necessary. It's not that I hate interacting with people. I like to socialize
but not when I am working.

------
contemplative1
Isolation doesn't matter if you're absorbed in your work since your work _is_
your world. If work stagnates (a project, a startup or a job) that's when it's
felt.

The trick is to _always_ love what you do and to feel part of something
whether it's guaranteed to succeed or not.

I'm finding this out slowly.

------
pacomerh
I love the fact that a developer can work anywhere, while working on client
projects thats totally fine and cool. But when you're doing 'cool stuff' or
your own ideas. I found that working with someone else is another world. The
energy that flows back and forth is incomparable.

------
Chirael
I don't have much experience at this level (CEO), but I've always had the
impression that this is partly why CEOs join the boards of other
companies/organizations (including non-profits), to find camaraderie with
peers, give back some of their perspective/experience, etc.

------
rsobers
> I should emphasize that it is not physically being alone (i.e., not enough
> contact with other people) that bothers me, it is the lack of peer-level
> teamwork towards a common goal that I lack.

I wonder if Roger Federer feels that way?

------
gnaritas
I don't work alone; I work in blissful solitude. Alone is a word for
extroverts.

------
return0
I guess many indie developers and freelancers with an office-work history have
the same issue. If you have the time, an appropriate option might be to go
back to school or do some postgrad studies.

------
zee007
I worked alone (from home) for 4 years. Left a very high paying job mostly for
that reason. I thought if it continued I'd kill myself.

Now I am working on my startup with other smart people and man, I love it.

------
darkstalker
I think totally the opposite. Working in group most of the time degenerates
into procrastination. Also I find a lot harder to concentrate into problem
solving when someone is talking to me.

------
dschiptsov
Tell that to Philip K. Dick, J. D. Salinger, Ken Kesey, Orhan Pamuk, Albert
Camus, George Orwell, to name a few..)

------
labaraka
Seems from the comments that coding is an activity particularly well suited to
working alone.

------
thoughtcriminal
Thanks for sharing this. You are definitely (ahem) not alone.

One thing I heard from a friend (in a church talk) was that if you want a
beautiful life, you need to find beautiful things and bring them into your
life. This struck me as obvious but somehow I never clued in before. _I need
to actively create the life and living environment I want._

I hope this doesn't sound like browbeating because it isn't. I don't know you
but I absolutely relate to what you're saying.

Good luck in creating a better life for yourself and enjoy the journey along
the way. I will try and do the same.

