I’ve worked from home a few years now, and whilst the upsides are well known I’ve personally found some challenges there too. Have you experienced anything similar? How did you deal with it?
My tale:
When the UK went into lockdown (along with everyone else) in early 2020 I started working from home full-time. For the first year I was with the same team I’d worked with for years whilst in the office, so nothing really changed except my location.
I switched jobs mid-2021 and the new team was much smaller. I work as a software developer, and this team was a grand total of three people including myself. We didn’t have many meetings, only one a week, and except for being assigned new work I never interacted with anyone. It took a big toll on my mental health and I quit after three months.
I took an extended break from software development and started working on a plant nursery, driving tractors and tending plants - it was so much fun, but paid very little and ate into my savings a lot.
Went back to software development last year and thankfully manage things much better. I’m not a very social person, so it was surprising how important socialisation was to my mental wellbeing. I’m now part of quite a large team that speaks regularly, and when I next change jobs I know that this is something I need to look for.
I also have a garden now, so when the call of the wild hits me I go outside and sniff my tomato plants. I do miss driving tractors though.
There’s absolutely a lot of upsides. Yesterday I finished THPS1+2 on my lunch break.
Is there nothing you’ve found harder since you started working from home?
Nothing major to be honest! But I enjoy my solitude personally. The biggest one is probably remembering to move around. In my office I would get up and get water or something as an excuse to let the blood flow, but that’s gone now. So I have a standing desk that I have automatically shift from standing to sitting every 60 minutes.
Which is the other thing: my setup clears anything a work office could give me.
That’s a big one for me too, I’d also get up to get water, or even just walk around to a colleague’s desk to ask a question when realistically I could do it from my desk. WFH I can accidentally go a few hours without moving.
The automatic desk switching sounds great though, I will look into that!