How my fairytale ideas about remote work collapsed

Insulation

When you work remotely, you are cut off from any society except your own family and pets, if you have any. The number of social contacts is reduced to a minimum, and outings to chat/hang out with someone after work become rarer or disappear altogether.

I like to stay at home, and this negative factor of working remotely had a minimal impact on me. But even I felt it. Rare visits to the office began to evoke positive emotions precisely because of the opportunity for direct communication and contact with colleagues. I myself began to look for ways to interact with them outside of work and think through different activities. When working in the office, spontaneous suggestions to go somewhere to get distracted often arise. In our office, there is a room with board games where you can play with colleagues, so there is enough social interaction.

But there are people who find this isolation hard. They lack communication, they work poorly alone, and they have a hard time with the rhythm of life, where you work and live essentially in the same space. Some of my friends have switched to a hybrid work schedule or left to work in coworking spaces because of this.

And in isolation, you look in the mirror less often and care less about yourself and your wardrobe. Regular outings “in public” make a person think more about their own appearance and clothes. In the case of remote work, by and large, the question is only in choosing a T-shirt or shirt for a call, if you even have them. You will definitely encounter this moment, regardless of your temperament and habits. Do not forget about yourself.

The world will never be the same

To be honest, I have often thought that the transition to remote work has created unforeseen problems for me that I have found difficult to cope with or have not yet found a solution to. Remote work definitely requires a high level of self-organization and discipline. Otherwise, it does more harm than good. If you are not ready to do all of the above and bother with planning your day, organizing your workplace, etc., then remote work is probably not for you, which is also absolutely not bad, it just happened that way. On the other hand, if I had known about all of these problems in advance, I would have approached the issue in a completely different way from the very beginning, and these problems could have been avoided. Don't step on my rake.