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Ways to Beat the Telecommuting Blues?
hungryfrog writes "After a few years in a typical office environment, I began working from home full-time as an independent contractor (web programmer) a couple months ago. My former employer is throwing me enough jobs that finding work is not an issue. Many people would consider this a dream work situation, but I'm starting to have my doubts. I like the relative freedom it gives me, but I'm finding myself rather starved for human interaction. Being in the same apartment to sleep, eat, AND work every day definitely leads to cabin fever. Have other people experienced this? What have you done to deal with the situation? Does dividing working/living spaces help (my apartment's small, anyway...)? I know of a few folks who have actually rented office space just to get out of the house. Is the cost worth it?"
How about leaving home when you aren't working?
You can go places, do things, see people (assuming you know people worth seeing).
I'd rather work at home and enjoy life elsewhere, than work in some office and then come "home" and not want to do anything at all.
That's just me.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I've been working as a freelance web developer for about a year and a half. The first year was spent at home. The first couple months were great, but after a while I started going a bit stir crazy and it wasn't long until I was miserable. I was surprised to learn that I truly do need to be around other people once in a while. My worklife situation soon became intolerable, but I had no way out of it. I would sometimes go over a week without seeing ANYbody other than the food mart attendant across the street. I found myself going days without showering.
Eventually I realized I was slowing going mad, which I decided wasn't going to help my career. So I now share office space with a client. They're in a really cool part of town that's close enough for me to bike to. This lets me get out of the house as much as I want, plus I get some exercise, but I don't have to go to the office if something is better done at home. It's totally great. I feel so much better about work, not to mention myself.
You might get lucky if you have a good client with some extra office space. Whatever happens, try to get out of the house as much as possible. See other people often. Loneliness can really start to suck after a while.
"Molest me not with this pocket calculator stuff."
- Deep Thought
Most of us in my company have been working from home since we began back in 1995. We do Linux consulting and programming, for reference.
The freedom is great, as you mention, but if done wrong it can definitely lead to problems. None of us have children around the house, which I suspect can change things drastically. I've heard others say that if you have children, you pretty much HAVE to have an office and make it well known that you can't be bothered there except for an emergency.
Anyway, back to my story. We've found that having an office can really help. With more than one person working from home, we found it was required, otherwise it was too easy to get distracted by other people. If you're home alone, this may not help as much, but some people find that "going in to the office", even if it's just down the hall, helps you concentrate.
As far as the lack of human contact... I've found several things that help this. About 2 years ago we found a coffee shop that claimed to be wired. We ended up bringing an AP with a modem to dial in to get some net. About 8 months after we started going there about once a week, they put in a high speed line and their own AP. We now go 2 to 4 times a week and call it "our office away from the office".
The coffee shop is interesting because you can develop friends there, often with much more diversity than in your office, but in general people also leave you alone because they don't know you, or they came to do something as well. Even a few high-priced beverages cost far less than a dedicated office. For a change of scene, try a different coffee shop. You can hardly throw a stone without hitting a coffee shop with an AP in it these days.
Another thing we've done is started hanging out more with our identified communities. In our case, that's largely other geeks, but you get the idea. Going to more LUG meetings, including meetings that we probably wouldn't normally drive to after a day in the office.
Also, I started a meat-space group called Hacking Society 2 years ago and we now have several regular chapters. The idea is that we meet once a week in a regular place to work on various topics. The Boulder, Colorado chapter meets in a coffee shop, we meet in an office here. It's a good way to spend some time with a bunch of good folks. You should start a chapter in your area. ;-)
As far as the question of an office. We had office space at one point. It was a nice change of pace, going to the office, but we had really nice space. My office looked out down main-street in our town and everyone walked by. It was fantastic, but cost $1400/month. We made good use of it, but it was way too expensive. I've often thought of getting some part time office space, but it's never been a high priority for me.
Also, it should be noted that we have developed rather good communication skills. We have an IRC channel open for the company which we use for a lot of the "office chatter" stuff. We also heavily use e-mail. We have phones as well, but mostly that's used for client contact. We all prefer the electronic, less intrusive mechanisms.
We did have problems with one employee we hired who quit because she couldn't "stand sending e-mail or IRC messages to someone in the same room". The rest of us couldn't stand being interrupted in mid-thought because she came up to us, for something that could wait 5 minutes until we checked IRC or e-mail. That just didn't work out.
There are all kinds of different people, and the above works well for us, but obviously didn't work well for at least one of the people we hired. It's important to find out what works for you, but those are some of the things I've found.
Sean
Working in a cafe's OK but can be kind of distracting. I also found it helpfull to make sure I didn't spend all the morning in my bathrobe - get up, get dressed, read the paper, have coffee then start work.
(this doesn' t apply so much to the consulting situation ... but ...) Working at home you basicly get to avoid most office politics ... the downside - you tend to lose most office politics - unless you have a boss who will really go to bat for you. You also have to make sure you go out of your way to introduce yourself to your coworkers. At one job many people thought I was a consultant, while I had actually designed the main product they sold - I'd go and do trade shows just to get to meet them.
While it was great to do this - going back to a 'real' job was wonderfull I found I really didn't appreciate how important the social side of work
despite my personal experience wasn't about the computer field, I had to spend two years at home working for appliance to one of the French "grande ecole". The work rythm was exhausting, and I couldn't afford to work at home.
My first logical reaction was to go study at one of the Paris public library. This is a great place for socializing, for people in there are all in the same state of mind, ie working hard, but willing to take some enjoyable breaks. So at some point you *have* to meet some people, because this is bound to happen. I met some of my best friends there.
Furthermore, there is such a crazy atmosphere created by all these people working, just like a huge bubble of thoughts and reflexions (the feeling also relies on the physical disposition of people inside the library : in my example, there were 3000 people in each room, with a 10 m tall ceiling, plenty of space and light, and 50 people tables : amazing). It gave me a tremendous incentive to study hard.
Obviously, the prerequesites is that the library be quite large, and quite enjoyable, and that you have a laptop (but this is affordable, compared to the alternative of renting a work place). If you live in a populated area, it should be OK.
I now remind this time as one of the most exciting period of my life.
You should give it a try : it's free, enticing to work, full of exciting people. And of course nothing prevents you from having a break for lunch with your friends, girlfriend, dog, real doll, water puppet :)
Regards,
Jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
I've had jobs where I didn't integrate into the local culture. I'd always go read a book during lunch, and didn't go out afterwork with my coworkers. Ended up leaving in about 2 months.
;), so its important to develop a strong relationship with your office family.
Starving for human interaction is a problem not just from working home.
My next job was ultra moronic, but I made an effort to meet and great everybody around me. I grew quite attached to them, and I even looked forward to going to work. People spend 1/3 of our time working, 1/3 sleeping and 1/3 recreating
I also find computers to be a giant vacuum for my social skills(and my libido too) When I have to code heavy for weeks, I find myself uninterested in socializing, which in turn leadsd to me having boring conversations, which leads me to be even more uninterested in socializing. A cycle that feedbacks very quickly.(and my gf gets grumpy with me)
I guess what I'm trying to say is working in front of a computer is very destructive towards you social life, and working at home is also harmful there(Never doing it again) And the less human interaction I have, the less happy I am. Even though I hate talking to morons!, the simple action of talking about the weather, lunch and football in the end makes me much happier.