The trials and tribulations of working from home

I've been a contractor in web development for the past 25 years. Up until Covid every job I did I was expected to be on site. They are paying me top money, they want me in the office. I was always fine with that.

When Covid arrived I thought I would be out of work because I was no longer able to be in the office, but the world changed and contractors were still in demand, except now we were allowed to work remotely. These days home working is now a mainstay, particularly in the tech industry. As a senior web developer, I've witnessed firsthand the shift from bustling office environments to the quiet focus of home offices. Many jobs I see advertised are remote. Most will have say 1 or 2 days a week in the office, the rest of the time working from home. If you are a web developer this is very common now. Some jobs are 100% remote.

There are undoubtedly advantages, flexibility, work-life balance, more opportunities, increased productivity, you save money. There are also disadvantages, isolation, overworking (not knowing when to log off), communication challenges, career progression, and finding a mentor for example.

The way things are going it seems unlikely to me that we are going to return to the office full time, if at all in many cases, and there is a part of me that thinks this is bad and the rest of this post is about this.

Firstly, I know that many web developers, like many computer programmers, are introverts, they like being able to program and nothing else. They hate meetings, or offices, or any place they have to interact with anyone who is not a programmer. I get that. Many say that they are happier working from home and are more productive etc than when they were in an office. They no longer have to interact with other humans, or have to share a packed tube, or have to look people in the eye when they talk to them. Cool.

This is the bit I don't get though. With all these benefits of working from home, why are people lonelier than ever?

I'm a web developer and while working from home has some advantages, I don't really like it. I like being in an office. I like discovering that the dude sitting opposite does mountain climbing on the weekends, or the woman to my left runs marathons in under 3 hours, has 3 kids, can play the piano and speaks Finnish, which is amazing. Yes, I know she is Finnish, but even so, that does not detract from the fact that she is multilingual. I also like being home when the kids get back from school.

Everyone you interact with every day knows loads of things that are of use to you and me, except we just don't know. It is these things that sometimes surface during the coffee break, or on the walk to get the meal deal. Remote working has lowered our levels of communication and I don't think the world is a better place for it.

I have been in some boring meetings over the years and I have also been in great meetings where some people came up with some amazing ideas. I have been in a fair few boring Zoom/Team meetings, but I have never been in a great Zoom/team meeting, at least not so far.

I like the trivia of our lives, the things we tell each other over coffee or lunch, or a quick drink after work. Why? because these are not trivial, they are as much a part of us as our jobs. These are also some of the things that build and bind a team. These are the things we would never discuss on a Zoom call, because they are "not appropriate". I'd never ask someone to join me on a 10 minute Zoom while I'm making a coffee, or to join me on a conference call for an hour while I'm having lunch. I've never had anyone tell a joke over Zoom or a funny anecdote. Even the idea of such things sounds a little ridiculous.

But sometimes over those same coffees, these same lunches I have solved problems that have stumped me for hours or even days. Over these breaks, someone tells me about a problem they have been having with the web server that I happen to know the answer to. Or they tell me how to solve an issue because they were a senior Oracle developer before they transitioned into the Business Analyst role. It is often during these periods that we interact with our mentors.

It is during one of these breaks that I found out the reason the project manager was being such an "insufferable fucking dick" (his words) was because he had two young kids and his wife had cancer and he couldn't cope and he was shit scared of losing his job. That happened to me many years ago. Would he have told me that over Zoom/Teams, I doubt it.

I have come to see that I like people, I like being with people, I like solving problems with people. Do people who are now in their 20s and 30s feel this way? Or is this just a generational thing? is it just because I'm an old bastard?

How do we move forward? I don't know, which is a piss poor way to end a post, my apologies, but I think it is something we have to solve. If anyone has an answer I'm going over to Costa for coffee at 3 if you want to join me for 10 minutes.

Bryan.