To feel sad that the world of work as we knew it has gone forever?

[Youngatheart00]

My work confirmed today we are moving to 100% remote working and will only get together a few times a year for team meetings. I find this so sad. I loved my working life - I know realise so much of that was down to the people. Now all I do all day is stare at screens and give myself a migraine.

They are justifying it by saying ‘most people’ want this despite me never seeing any such survey. It’s a blatant cost cutting exercise.

Anyone else fed up and lonely?

I’m recently diagnosed autistic, and I can’t tell you how grateful I a, that remote working has been normalised. My job is so much better without the colleagues around! I can have a bit of a joke in the team meetings or email for interaction, but I can actually get my work done without every person I pass asking me how my weekend was.

Just catching up on all the responses!!!

I didn’t intend for this to get ‘tribal’ if I’m honest. We are all entitled to our own views and preferences. But posted as I was feeling the emotional hit of something that was meant to be a temporary fix to a crisis becoming permanent. And yes, I am mourning an old life. And yes, my work life did compensate for ‘failings’ or inadequacies in my personal life.
I expect if I did have a 2.4 children standard issue family at home I might feel different, but I don’t, which I’ve had to make peace with.

I’m grateful to mumsnet for being my social circle in these times / new reality tbh! We aren’t meant to all agree, all of the time. The amount of debate created has shown the strength of opinion on the topic of WFH. There’s no right and wrong.

Still feel a bit lost though....perhaps as others have said I can find some upsides once lockdown eases. It’s just like my life as I knew it for many, many years ended suddenly and I’ve got delayed shock a year on!

I would hate being a permanent home worker, a mix of the two is ideal. How do these companies expect to train new employees?

Virtually all my colleagues are now at home so I can go in and be alone at the office, so I do. That way my work stays at work.
I hate working from home. I'm not much of a people person as such but even I smile, really smile when someone from another office says good morning to me now. It seems special to see another face. YANBU OP and I am sorry it is so hard.

As it's just me, I walk to the office for an hour and I get in when I like. It sometimes feels like the end of the world. But I'm outside and not working in my spare room. I think it can be mentally crippling to stay inside and work from home for some people.

@Youngatheart00 - I've been reading the thread with interest and clearly some people prefer to WFH while others don't. It's also not automatically about having kids etc - a lot of parents (me included) loved going to the office because that was us getting some adult time. I actually feel that parents while partially finding it easier when it comes to the commute etc might end up feeling a bit more lost without their 'adult' identity. If I didnt have kids - then I certainly coul join a club and go during the day, catching up in the evening or even meet up with my friends once we're all done with work. However, because I've got kids - I actually feel even more cut off not only from random social interaction but also from my identity as an adult other than being a worker and a parent. These are literally the only two roles that am able to occupy right now and it wont change once the lockdown ends.

And once this is over - I might even start another thread on mumsnet about how best to create a brand new social life whilst WFH. Clearly, a lot of people think it's not the end of the world and I would love to get tips on how to go about it. Right now, I literally know a couple of mums who live near me and thats about it. But I live in London so it's not all that unusual for people to live very far apart once people get kids.

@InCinemasWednesday

I don't have a career as such, it's not my identity and I have lots of stuff I like to do outside of work I simply like getting up every day and going out to the office. I like my short commute, I like my colleagues, I like the chit chat and banter, the tea breaks and just the change of scenery. Everything is 'flat' at home every day, I control my environment completely and there is no chance of anything unexpected happening and for me that's very dull, for all my workday interactions to be happening through a screen I'm missing the richness of life, I'm only using 2 of my senses, sight and hearing. I'm missing spontaneity and unexpected daily interaction, seeing weird stuff on my commute, talking to people on the train when it's delayed. I'm not sure if that makes sense, I feel that life sat at home from 9 to 5 on my own is a very 1 dimensional experience and I really feel for people who have been forced into workplace this way when they didn't want to.

This is EXACTLY how I feel. It is all very flat and lacking in points of interest, excitement or even annoyances. I want to live the full bandwidth of life, not just listen to one middle of the road station

@Youngatheart00

Just catching up on all the responses!!!

I didn’t intend for this to get ‘tribal’ if I’m honest. We are all entitled to our own views and preferences. But posted as I was feeling the emotional hit of something that was meant to be a temporary fix to a crisis becoming permanent. And yes, I am mourning an old life. And yes, my work life did compensate for ‘failings’ or inadequacies in my personal life.
I expect if I did have a 2.4 children standard issue family at home I might feel different, but I don’t, which I’ve had to make peace with.

I’m grateful to mumsnet for being my social circle in these times / new reality tbh! We aren’t meant to all agree, all of the time. The amount of debate created has shown the strength of opinion on the topic of WFH. There’s no right and wrong.

Still feel a bit lost though....perhaps as others have said I can find some upsides once lockdown eases. It’s just like my life as I knew it for many, many years ended suddenly and I’ve got delayed shock a year on!

OP you sound lovely and I'm sure your colleagues will be missing you as you are them. I have no advice other than to say that I hear you and feel for you and you are completely justified in feeling lost and discombobulated.

Sad?
I’m sad that my mum passed away with COVID yesterday and my life will never be the same.

All the rest is insignificant and can be fixed independent of how “sad” it is.
You haven’t seen what SAD means yet really...

It does depend on the nature of the job/work. The colleagues can potentially have plenty of social gatherings. Nothing stopping them. My daily commute is 2.5 hours in total. I'd scrap that in an instant

He is very capable, he has been in the tech support and call center since in the late 1990’s

But being at home when I have families, not all of the have filter, they swear a lot, every other word can be a cuss word and my house echoes through the house.

But still, people can twist anything out of context.

Just read another shooting, I can say one thing, it is nearly impossible to do mass killing when everyone is home

Look around for another position that has an office location. One of the benefits from WFH is you can be a lot more proactive just make sure you are using your own laptop.

I too am sad - you don’t need to have self esteem problems or lack of fulfilment at home to also enjoy going to work. Why is sadness now a competition on MN? my father will die in a nursing home in the next few days and I am also sad about that.

@iwannafurloughmydp I’m so sorry to hear about your mum.

And @LHReturns your dad too, that sounds tough.

Certainly no sadness competition. This year has been tough in so many ways, and it will gradually get better, but we are most definitely not there yet

Don’t worry, those who refuse to return back to the office. You’ll work from home with your laptop.
Schools will close and all learning will be done virtually. No need to send kids to school when their parents work from hike. No need to spend millions on school buildings when kids can learn from their laptops.
Funerals and weddings can be done virtually. No need to travel to the other end of the country for a wedding you don’t want to go to !
People can meet partners online and have a fully virtual relationship. No physical contact!
All high street shops will close as we all shop at Amazon.
Well all can become robots who never leave the house.
Eventually we all lose our social skills as we all live virtually.
Welcome to the future that people seem to want....

@Hearwego you make a very good point re schools. There seems to be a general acceptance that a social setting such as school is the best place for kids to be socialised and learn. But somehow it doesn’t apply to adults who can be shut away in a box room 40 hours a week, 46-48 weeks a year and just get on with it?

Your vision of the future reminds me of the Disney film Wall-e. In the future humans have forgotten how to interact f2f even when side by side and permanently exist as a slumped flabby mess in a la-z-boy chair with a screen attached to it. I feel a bit like that now (switch the comfy chair to an office chair)

The loss of social skills really resonated with me. That is such a depressing thought.

There was a really interesting interview on radio 4 the other day. Basically the gist is that WFH will actually evolve in to local working. So small office spaces will crop up in small towns and rural areas for people to access instead of working from their homes or commuting to large organisations. People will do a mix of actually in their home, local office spaces and head office spaces.
So there’s actually lots of potential for revenue generation and employment as well as socialisation.

It’s a big cultural change so it will take a few years to evolve from what we have now in crisis mode to a planned and truly flexible model. Most people are not going to spend decades in their box room. Give it time.

YANBU OP
nor dramatic
I’d be gutted in your position too

Aside from the social aspect, the detrimental effect on teamwork and collaboration will be substantial IMO (depending on the nature of the work) it’s so short sighted of these firms to close down offices to save themselves a few quid.

We were ‘allowed’ in to our office recently for a couple of meetings as we were working on a large bid. We went in as we were nearly at crisis point with trying to pull something together - the project team just couldn’t seem to make any progress despite us having daily video conferencing.

When we went in to the office, we bumped in to another colleague who we got chatting to and happened to mention what was happening. In about ten minutes, he had articulated what had gone wrong and suggested some remedial measures that set us on a completely different path (and worked very well!)

No way would we have thought to call him and ask his advice. He wasn’t even on my radar as I didn’t know him that well.

That’s just one example.

@Wherediditgo so true. Screens just seem to stifle creativity. I can tell people in zoom meetings aren’t fully focussed - especially when there’s more than say 3 or 4 in the meeting. People are multitasking, going their emails, scrolling mumsnet, checking social media, just hoping the meeting will finished . And the dominant people dominate more than ever.

I miss being ‘in the room’.

I particularly loathe the thought of employees having to pay for local office space from their own pocket. The work is do is of a confidential nature so shared co-working space wouldn’t work for me.

There’s a big difference between WFH full time in lockdown and WFH when the world opens up again. I’d be happy to WFH full time assuming I can still go for face to face meetings with clients and team members where it makes sense. Be that at costa or in a client’s office or a flexible meeting space like IWG.

It is a big adjustment to make OP and you’re right the human connection really is lacking over zoom etc I’m sorry that you’re feeling so down about it 😕

There will be lots of benefits long term I’m sure (no commute) but right now it feels like your “working lifestyle” has been taken from you and that’s ok to be sad about

There’s a big difference between WFH full time in lockdown and WFH when the world opens up again.

Which is the key point. I love WFH in theory but it's not as great when you're at home all day every day. When you have the chance to go to the gym/pub/restaurant/cinema after work (or just the coffee shop/pop round to a friends house) and have a more socially active weekend, it'll be far better.

I'm too exhausted after a week of commuting/sitting in an office all day to even want to do anything more when I get home than unwind and chill out. WFH is less energy zapping, certainly if you're more introverted anyway, but being stuck at home all the time is.