Posted on 07/08/2024 7:44:18 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
No, there's nothing as isolating as working in a korporate office where you dare not trigger anyone lest they complain to Human Resources.
Coworkers are not your friends and never were. People who used coworkers as a pseudo social circle are self-absorbed and use others for their personal gain. Remote workers who complain about social isolation need to get a life, not force their coworkers to play a role.
We had some great neighbors in North Idaho. He worked remotely many years at Symantec. Made a Silicon Valley salary and North Idaho house prices and cost of living. He flew to SJC once or twice a month. He was a sales exec and worked remotely LONG before the pandemic hit (as do most sales execs).
He retired a few years back and they packed up and moved to Tennessee to be closer to the kids.
I worked from home 32 hours a week and I got more done than if I was in the office. But, as with many AF bases, all it took was one commander who viewed remote work as a bad idea to screw that up, and they did. I was fortunate to have to retire when I did (due to Covid/Long Covid) but I thoroughly enjoyed remote work.
When I worked from home, there were stretches when I went for days without leaving the house. It was not intentional, it just worked out that way. While it was nice not to have a commute, I’m not sure I liked having cabin fever.
The other thing is that if your wife knows you are home, she will make all kinds of requests of you. It does not matter whether you are working or not. Having to refuse these actually put more stress on our marriage.
Mr. FF has worked remotely for many many years, with a couple of different companies. We always had an office in our home for him wherever we lived. In earlier years, he would travel to locations that needed his expertise, but when he was in town, it wasn’t necessary to go into an office. He has always been a self starter.
Fast forward to 2019 when he started his latest job. The company he works for now has commonly had remote workers. They were ahead of the game when the pandemic hit.
After having watched this for the better part of 20+ years, here’s how it works, at least for us.
Have a designated space for work, and set a reasonable schedule that you can live with. Stick to it unless there are very unusual circumstances that cause you to alter that.
My husband sometimes gets caught up in his work. He’s always been this way. He doesn’t like to let his boss down, bit he has learned over the years that it’s not right to cheat his family either.
Now when it’s quitting time, and I don’t hear him shutting down, I use an old recording of The Three Stooges that says, “How ‘bout a beer? … Why soitenly!” Sound of a beer being poured. Hubby hears and gives a quick chuckle. He knows it’s quitting time. It’s just a gentle reminder that tomorrow is another day, and his work will be waiting for him in the morning.
It took us many years of trial and error to get to this congenial method. I don’t bother him during his work day, unless it’s urgent. He takes a break here and there to stretch his legs. When evening comes, we take a walk together to transition from work day to home life. He often tells me about his day, the good, the bad, and the mundane. I let him know what’s going on in my world. We discuss dinner and maybe future activities that are on our calendar.
We have a really great work/home life balance. We feel very blessed.
Remote work was bad for me. I hated it. I like structure, and I didn’t have any working from home. I wound up going in five days a week, which was fine with my boss. Everybody else came in two days a week. Everybody is different. Flexibility no remote work is good.
How long have you been at it? Mr. FF says the first two years were an adjustment period, where we both had to learn each other’s body language and maybe even hand signals, but we’ve been doing this remote stuff for about 20 years.
Our kids were still in grade school and high school when he first started working remotely. Now we are empty nesters. It’s been working great. Just talk with her.
Neither of you can read each other’s minds.
“”Cupertino to Palo Alto””
We grew up just North of Palo Alto. We remember bicycling through orange groves in San José. Cupertino was a lovely, quiet area. We were so proud when Reagan was our Governor. We did not always have enough money, but we had each other. Trips to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Sometimes, even though we didn’t have money for the Santa Cruz rides, we just played in the water and sand.
Later on, when I was studying archeology, I learned that the Native Americans believed that they lived in Heaven. They believed that they must have done well in a previous life to earn such an existence. Archeologists estimated that each person only had to ‘work’ about 20 hours a week to feed themselves. With all the game to hunt, and the ocean / San Francisco Bay full of food, life was good. The natural air conditioning of the coastal winds and fog blowing into the Peninsula South Bay made it ideal.
I remember when they built Hwy 280. It has long, banked curves, and there were so few cars, some people drove like it was a European autobahn. Later on, every time a house was sold, the developer would scrape the house, and build four houses where one stood before.
In 1976, it was cold enough that it snowed, and the snow remained on the ground for a few days. I have photos of the snow-covered hills above the Stanford Linear Accelerator.
Amazing times.
you really hit the target. Lots fewer trumped up sexual harassment lawsuits.
I live in Seattle and work for a company in Florida. I’ve only met the CEO in person and really have no reason to actually meet the others. I LOVE it - no office politics, no distractions. This is the antidote to 15 years dealing with the BS at Nike.
During COVID I moved from the big city, where big box stores were being burned and looted, to the smallest, more rural Tennessee town that I could find. No regrets at all!
Before COVID, I worked from home and on the road for more than ten years in a research job. I reported every day by email, text, and phone, with meetings in office as needed, usually once every week or two. My commute to the office was about five minutes. I worked harder than ever, but the task and schedule flexibility gave me better quality of life.
I liked working from home prior to retiring. I did not miss the 40 mile round trip commute each day. I did miss contact with some people at the office but not others.
In the 4+ years that I’ve been remote I experienced all the positives and none of the negatives. It doesn’t “blur” my work-life balance or performing cooking and cleaning tasks at home. If anything, it has freed up a lot of time for me to cook and clean. Loneliness? No. I don’t look to socialize at work. As a White Male and thus target numero uno of any HR department, socializing at work would only leave me vulnerable to possible BS claims against me. So at work, I’m all business. I don’t curse and I don’t even joke. The only things I will discuss aside from work are the weather and my dogs.
There are simply no downsides to me from working from home. The upsides are massive.
My biggest issue with working from home was that my desk was ten steps from my refrigerator.
I drove 120 miles round-trip every day for 25 years. I was able to retire in 2021 because of my generous father, who is very hard on us and never mentioned that he was saving all his money for our inheritance. I’m very grateful when I worked from home for the year in 2020. I was just as productive if not more productive Than when I’m in the office however there’s something I can’t put my finger on it, but there is something good about having had that experience of going to the office every day despite the crazy commute you still have the routine working from home and I actually get used to get dressed and sit at my desk and and really Work a lot more than I was in the office when you’re working from home you’re on all the time I would work well past 6 o’clock, which was my cut off time and start sometimes at 7 AM. I think it’s a mixed bag. I think there are pluses to working in the office. I’m glad I experienced both and now I’m glad I’m retired Worked in that company for almost 40 years. God bless you.
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