AIBU to HATE working in an office?

[HappyGirlNow]

With loads of other people.. I find it claustrophobic,irritating and depressing after lots of years of doing it.. I think although I'm confident and will be sociable when required I'm an introvert at heart and am finding it harder and harder to deal with being around people so much, all day, day in day out..

I just want to start my own business, work from home.. Although I'll have to deal with other people I'll be able to get away from them too!

Do other people feel like this?

I used to have my own office, which was bloody marvellous. I then shared an office with one person, which was good too as we could get on with things most of the time, but then have a chat.

I now work in a large open plan office and I hate it with a vengance. Its nice to be around people, but we have some really loud folk, pigeon man who whistles and coos and randomly hums songs. . I'm lucky as I can go and work elsewhere if it really gets too much though.

YADNBU. When I went on mat leave I promised myself I would never work in an office regularly again (nor commute into London daily). Nine years on I am a much happier person for it, and the thought of having my own desk in an open plan office makes me shudder!

Working at home not all it's cracked up to be though! I'm just in the process of organising part time desk space hire so that I can get back into the office environment!

I've worked freelance from home for the last 5 years and I am so utterly bored of my own company/the lack of division between work and home life/the lack of communication/the lack of someone anyone to talk to when you're really struggling with a piece of work.

Am exactly on the border between intro/extro on every personality/careers test I've ever done. Maybe for the more introvert it's easier being at home, but if you also suffer self doubt etc it can be really tough motivating yourself alone/particulary if you're selling your services..

Maybe desk hire as a freelancer easier (I hope) as the other people working there are in different businesses = less politics as there would be if everyone working for same firm..

Nope I love office work- I need the structure and the company it provides. I have worked from home but felt terribly isolated. But then I am lucky with the people who surround me, we have ad hoc breaks for a bit of banter and silly humour but mostly people have heads down working. I certainly couldn't cope with having to make or listen to small talk all day.

I HATE working in an office. I have worked in all types and sizes of office and I prefer it if there are only a few people.
I have always found it a really 'false' environment. I dislike office 'politics' and the little groups that form and the endless rounds of 'events' being planned!

I disliked my last office, where the culture was particularly cliquey. It seemed to be the "done thing" for people to have lunch together every day. The fact I didn't want to have lunch with my colleagues every day made me appear unfriendly. I felt uncomfortable about that but.... the job was extraordinarily dull and come lunchtime the effort of staying focused and being polite all the time would become overwhelming and I would be desperate for some down time and just wanted to go out for a walk, to read, to knit, to browse the internet etc. etc.

It's never been an issue in other places I've worked and I used to meet colleagues for lunch or drinks about once a week so there was more to catch up on and chat about.

I'm not a big fan of open plan offices and clear desk policies and as for office politics, snobbery and corporate speak.....

StormEEWeather I fancy finding work I could do from home but like you I feel uncomfortable about the selling one's services side of things.

YANBU

I'm lucky that I'm disciplined with work and won't procrastinate too much. I can imagine it would be a real struggle if you weren't that way inclined. In my work, agencies won't use you again if you miss a deadline, which is always a good incentive!

Funnily enough, my happiest ever job previous to this was a check out person in a food hall. I did it for a year and loved it - always something happening, new faces all the time etc.

I feel more social as a freelancer than I felt in an office. And I feel much more part of my local community than my housemate, for example, who works in an office. Along with the daily dog walk I also volunteer at a local charity shop. My housemate was surprised when we were out the other day as we stopped to chat to so many different people.

I nearly forgot the best thing of all! Going freelance meant I could do what I'd always yearned to do and move to the seaside :)

I quite like the work I do, I just can't stand the people. The corporate speak, enforced jolliness and fake friendships, the competition to be the most popular, colleagues who practically prostitute themselves to get promotion, moronic managers who think they are God. I couldn't work at home on my own all day long but would love to be out meeting people in a professional capacity. Its the spending time with people I cannot stand every day for years and years that does my head in.

Thanks all! Really helps that loads of folk can relate..

The line of work I want to get into would allow working from home but still interacting with other companies over the phone and occasional meetings. So not complete isolation either..

Also, have always wanted my own business to achieve something that's all mine

Oh I need out of here! Need to make this happen - plan plan plan!

YANBU. I did office work for more years than I care to remember. I couldnt bear it. All the gossip and office politics, the misery atmosphere on Mondays, the stress colleagues passed onto each other after dealing with difficult clients, the cliquey group mentality, having to work and at times make small talk with people I dont want to spend any time with. The moody manager whose moods blighted every damn day (she's in a mood so all staff have to tiptoe around her), the obnoxious cow who'd been there since before Jesus was a boy hence everyone afforded her pseudo-manager status & she felt it was cool to be rude to everybody on that basis. The personal comments "ooo youve put on weight*.The dreadful xmas parties all false smiles & whispering bitching after paying thru the nose for the torture of sitting through an evening of this. Although I managed to dodge most parties!

I wouldnt say Im an introvert, but I like to socialise without pressure if that makes sense. Ive worked mainly from home self-employed since 2003 and am 100% happier than when I was in the open plan office hell. I couldnt go back to it, ever.

YANBU. By the sound of it you ALL work in the same shit hole office as me as I could say every single sentence everyone has uttered so far.

I hate that incessant phrase have a good weekend which can begin as early as Wednesday. I want to ask, WTF happened to Thurs, Fri etc. Is the weekend the only bit of our lives that has any point. And it just sounds so false, it's all SSDW anyway (Same Shit Different Weekend)

Bloody hell I sound awful, can you tell I had a bad day at work?

Whenever I get the urge to go back, rose tinted specs and all that, dh says want anything from Pret? Have a good weekend? Luncj? And I decide no thanks.

Practice misanthropy on a regular basis, it saves you having to have all those tedious convos about the fecking weather. You only have to do it a few weeks and they all leave you alone and start to fear you.

I worked for a local authority in a huge open plan office (50+ people) for 3 years before kids and I hated it - so unproductive, found it impossible to concentrate on things like report writing with a constant hum of conversation going on around me. Since kids I've worked very part-time in libraries - much more enjoyable. I enjoy having colleagues and would find it hard to work from home all the time but I literally cannot think of anything I'd hate as much as going back to Mon-Fri in a large office (except maybe having to muck out pigs every day? )

nickEcave I clean litter trays in my volunteer job at the cat sanctuary and that's much more satisfying than the work I did in my old job. I suppose the key is that while I am not precisely a fan of cat poo, what I am doing makes a difference that I can appreciate, to the lives of our gorgeous furry guests.

Not at all unreasonable - I am glad that I now have office work but not in an office! I did 16 years in a financial environment, talking corporate bullshit and being forced to tow the line and be on the right side of office politics. Desperately dull. I now have a part time admin job in the NHS, there are a team of 6 of us part timers (usually 2 on at a time) working on the hospital ward alongside the medical staff. Love it. All the benefits of office life (lots of contact with other people in the team) without the backstabbing and bullshitting (all us admin are the same grade, so no need to pull rank) and feeling that you are doing something real, helping to be part of a fantastic service rather than pushing paper around and trying to sell products.

YANBU. Im grateful to have a job but oh boy office work is extremely tiresome, draining and sucks my soul away. It chips away at my happiness. That sounds extreme but I've done it for 20 years now. I feel that office work got worse once people stopped using phones and speaking to each other, and started emailing every little thing to cover their tracks. People are so defensive now. And staring at a computer all day. It used to be more varied before we were so reliant on computers (I remember spening a few hours happily chatting while sealing envelopes for a 'mail out'!). I hate the boring staff meetings about things that I really don't care about (hmm where should the new photocopier be located? let's discuss the options for 40 minutes).

I would like to be in a job where I'm physically kept busy. Or where I am helping people and doing something truly worthwhile.

However, the hours suit me and the people are decent enough, and I don't know what else I would do now. At least I can get a coffee whenever I feel like it and I can swap my days around if needed. But surely life must hold more for me?! I dream of owning an old-fasioned toy shop selling lovely wooden puzzles and quality toys.

Jacked in office life around this time last year after decades of it, couldn't take it anymore, now work from home and only get paid for what I do, so that's enough motivation to keep me from procrastinating, can work in my dressing gown, work all funny hours if I want, have a break, come back to it, it's bliss compared with the office life I came to hate

Reading this thread it seems there are quite a few of us who agree on the awfulness of office work - perhaps the people in the offices we all work at are actually sitting there hating their colleagues and wishing to god they were elsewhere!

YADNBU. I did a careers questionnaire at school and the results said "you wouldn't last a week in an office"! And it was right, I hate it. I love the work I do though and only do 3.5 days a week in the office, working from home the rest of the time. So in a way, I don't last a week in an office and never have

But it's ridiculous, people talk so loudly, eat loudly, interrupt me every five seconds. I need an office for one. On the moon.

And yes, I'm very much an introvert, quiet and proud of it.

But not proud of the fact that every time a particular colleague comes in the room, I can't help thinking to myself "I hate you"

oh god me too, Ive been back three days and the first two were ok , but today once again I managed to piss n my boss off ( I dont know how , but it seems i always do it ) .

i promised myself id really make an effort this year but three days inand I just want to leave again.. ,

a big open plan office but I have to spend a lot of time doing reports . spreadsheets etc and need to concentrate . My colleges have clients and so are on the phone all the time.. or going on about their work and how good they are..

I'm just not good in social situations I think. I dont get the jokes and I dont watch much TV so I dont get the conversation either .. someone said recently she thought I might be borderline aspergers .because I quite i like to read rather than socialise (and supposedly i'm very intelligent - well, they think I'm the strange brainy one at work but this is probably because i dont watch TV!) But its true I'm just not good in social situations I think. ...so I'm beginning to think she might be right ..

Our place has flexible working policies and I used to have a boss that would let me work compressed hours which was great , but for the last few years new bosses haven't. Now I have yet another one, who has been put in because the last left , and cuts mean that she wont be replaced . thid one is is really into 'presenteeism' .. (and It doesn't help that she doesn't understand what i do either).

Yes I agree totally with who ever said bout paying off debts and saving for leaving.. thats what I'd really like to do also .. i dont have many debts , but I'd have no idea what to do afterwards .. Id really just like to stay at home and read all day !

oh well its god to vent...

whomovedmychocolate Iadmit I had to look it up (see im not brainy at all!) but I did laugh at the definition of misanthropy here. Thanks ! you just made my day