Working From Home. Torture
Discussion
Woodrow Wilson said:
geeman237 said:
I'd like to break out and be self employed doing something involving classic cars; my passion, but it would be a big leap of faith in terms of income etc.
Yes. Many people are able to derive enough satisfaction from their work, whatever that may be or how dull/repetitive/boring that may be -In some cases that repetition and order appears to be what satisifies them. For whatever reason, some people are not able to do this.
For example, although not sitting a desk all day, the thought of painting & decorating or tiling every day for decades fills me with horror.
Doing something more enjoyable, varied and changing direction once "established" seems a big risk, typically lacking in remuneration, and, at the moment, there appear to be even fewer options.
I was working from home from May 2015 until January 2020, I started to really suffer with the isolation and issues it caused. So in Jan I took an office space out and it was wonderful. Happyness increased, productivity increased, family life improved.
Then Covid and I'm back at home.
I think some people think WFH is a blessing, wait until you have done a few years of it before arriving at a conclusion.
Then Covid and I'm back at home.
I think some people think WFH is a blessing, wait until you have done a few years of it before arriving at a conclusion.
Hoofy said:
One trap we fall into is the match our outgoings to our income (or exceed it!!!). Can you pare back your outgoings? Do you need the family David Lloyd membership, the £1000 iPhone/£50pm contract, the £3000 annual holiday, the £50k PHP PH car, the £120pm broadband TV package, the 3 kids in private school etc?
Christ, you're doing better than me!In all seriousness though, no not really. We've only recently got on the property ladder (new build) and we've been bled dry by trying to kit out the house & garden. While we're nearly there, we're still a good few thousand away from making it perfect. If was to start out in a new career now, I'd be earning half as much, maybe even less. I can't see how anyone could live on that.
My career will always be in IT, I just need to find that niche & environment that I enjoy enough to not get me in the rut OP finds himself in (as have I, on more than 1 occasion).
Woodrow Wilson said:
Gameface said:
Well paid and working from home while hundreds of thousands will be losing their jobs.
You won't be getting much sympathy.
I acknowleged that in the first line. You won't be getting much sympathy.
I'm not looking for sympathy, just fed up of an unsatisfactory/under-achieving 20+ years of clock watching and the past 6 months of working at home.
You have one life, live it well, if you are trapped by a big salary work out your priorities......
Hoofy said:
One trap we fall into is the match our outgoings to our income (or exceed it!!!). Can you pare back your outgoings? Do you need the family David Lloyd membership, the £1000 iPhone/£50pm contract, the £3000 annual holiday, the £50k PHP PH car, the £120pm broadband TV package, the 3 kids in private school etc?
That would be a deep trap, and many do fall into it.We don't live like that, certainly not to those sorts of levels, other than maybe holidays over the course of a year (and my wife's home improvement ideas). I'd certainly need to be looking down the back of a lot of sofas (and not just my own) to find 3 sets of private school fees!
As others have said, I wouldn't want to be earning less than half of what I currently earn. It would bring about unnecessary hardship and money worries.
Edit: We are not talking a PH entry-level £150K salary + significant bonuses.
Edited by Woodrow Wilson on Wednesday 23 September 13:45
Xenoous said:
Hoofy said:
One trap we fall into is the match our outgoings to our income (or exceed it!!!). Can you pare back your outgoings? Do you need the family David Lloyd membership, the £1000 iPhone/£50pm contract, the £3000 annual holiday, the £50k PHP PH car, the £120pm broadband TV package, the 3 kids in private school etc?
Christ, you're doing better than me!In all seriousness though, no not really. We've only recently got on the property ladder (new build) and we've been bled dry by trying to kit out the house & garden. While we're nearly there, we're still a good few thousand away from making it perfect. If was to start out in a new career now, I'd be earning half as much, maybe even less. I can't see how anyone could live on that.
My career will always be in IT, I just need to find that niche & environment that I enjoy enough to not get me in the rut OP finds himself in (as have I, on more than 1 occasion).
fastraxx said:
The fact that other people are in worse situations rarely helps depressed / miserable people.
It works for me... I always think back to my days as a pot wash when I was a teenager for 10 hours feeling like my fingernails were going to fall off and how grateful I am now to do spreadsheets 9-5 five days a week instead (as monotonous as it is).I'd be happy to have a job. Lost mine back in March, ruined by Lockdown. No chance of work any time soon, and I am quite literally crawling the walls.
Really struggling with anxiety/depression at the moment, and I've noticed myself losing interest in the things I used to enjoy. Hate to admit that I might have to get some help.
All the best to anyone else feeling the same.
Really struggling with anxiety/depression at the moment, and I've noticed myself losing interest in the things I used to enjoy. Hate to admit that I might have to get some help.
All the best to anyone else feeling the same.
TrackDays29 said:
I'd be happy to have a job. Lost mine back in March, ruined by Lockdown. No chance of work any time soon, and I am quite literally crawling the walls.
Really struggling with anxiety/depression at the moment, and I've noticed myself losing interest in the things I used to enjoy. Hate to admit that I might have to get some help.
All the best to anyone else feeling the same.
Yet thousands of people are happy in their new jobs, why not you?Really struggling with anxiety/depression at the moment, and I've noticed myself losing interest in the things I used to enjoy. Hate to admit that I might have to get some help.
All the best to anyone else feeling the same.
Gameface said:
Well paid and working from home while hundreds of thousands will be losing their jobs.
You won't be getting much sympathy.
He gets my sympathy. 25 years of effort to realise that he's unfulfilled. Life's got to be worth more than that. I've met people in large corporations in thier mid 40s planning to stick it out for another 20 years because there's a final.salary scheme pension. Totally pissed off with the job, unfulfilled potential, hit a career ceiling due to ability or ambition or something. You won't be getting much sympathy.
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
Maslow's hierarchy of needs suggests that's he's missing the top 3 legs. When he went to a workplace he had friends he could talk to, but now he just should be happy that he can pay the bills?
Well yes. But perhaps he could start looking at what else life could offer him. Extra study, a new hobby, some charity work, who knows?
I've just started a new contract after 14 weeks "off" and mostly I'm working from home.
I don't like it much. I don't like remote meetings, I don't like not being able to informally chat about work with my co workers and the boss. I don't like the fact that my wife asks me how many hours I've really done today. (5 If you are asking), but at least.i am doing something ive never done before and having to use my brain and ingenuity to work out the answers. And at least it will pay the bills.
I'm in much of the same position.
Remind yourself of the positives:
Saving cash until this all blows over.
You don't have to listen Sharon in accounts talking about how amazing her holiday was or her new diet.
You can sit in your pants all day (be careful if doing Teams meetings).
No need to iron shirts.
You never miss a parcel delivery and you are on first name terms with the Amazon driver (be careful about your pants).
You don't have to share a toilet with Geoff from sales who pisses on the seat.
You are an eco warrior - deodorant is killing the planet.
Remind yourself of the positives:
Saving cash until this all blows over.
You don't have to listen Sharon in accounts talking about how amazing her holiday was or her new diet.
You can sit in your pants all day (be careful if doing Teams meetings).
No need to iron shirts.
You never miss a parcel delivery and you are on first name terms with the Amazon driver (be careful about your pants).
You don't have to share a toilet with Geoff from sales who pisses on the seat.
You are an eco warrior - deodorant is killing the planet.
TrackDays29 said:
Evoluzione said:
Yet thousands of people are happy in their new jobs, why not you?
Sure looks like it. And it's not easy to get work as a contractor right now, especially up north. It was hard enough before Coronavirus hit.Woodrow Wilson said:
I backed the wrong horse when I made education and career choices 25 years ago, but changing direction seems virtually impossible at the moment.
Ditto here, but more like 30 years ago and the pay is s
t in my case. Just got to soldier on I guess. Prefer working from home though.Woodrow Wilson said:
Yes, I'm know that I'm lucky to have a fairly well-paying job, to be healthy and all that.
6 months in, working from home, doing a job I am unsuited to, don't enjoy and I was already bored with at the office -but at least I got to see people.
It's fking tedious.
No obvious way out that doesn't involve poverty.
I backed the wrong horse when I made education and career choices 25 years ago, but changing direction seems virtually impossible at the moment.
Ho-hum.
Keep the job, use the money to do what you love in your spare time, and who knows, maybe it'll turn a profit......6 months in, working from home, doing a job I am unsuited to, don't enjoy and I was already bored with at the office -but at least I got to see people.
It's f
king tedious.No obvious way out that doesn't involve poverty.
I backed the wrong horse when I made education and career choices 25 years ago, but changing direction seems virtually impossible at the moment.
Ho-hum.
The whole "career" thing is a lie, "find a job your passionate about" is a lie, most people will NEVER achieve this whilst working for someone else.
It's taken me a long time to work this out, many years of hard work, blood sweat and tears, doing something your passionate about for someone else, is a great way to start hating the things you love.
As an engineer I've invested about £15'000, I've built myself a workshop and I do the things at home which i'd never be in a position to do for an employer, I do electronic design, mechanical design, one off projects and tonnes of DIY, anything I want, I don't need a piece of paper from a top tier university to tell me I can do it and I don't have to throw my friends/colleagues under a bus to forward my career.
Edited by lyonspride on Thursday 24th September 00:43
I do think that it can be very hard to work from home especially if you are doing work you don't enjoy, as just the social aspect of being with co-workers where you can all have a good gripe over coffee or a beer.
I do have great sympathy for those who have lost jobs through no fault of their own. I recall when I was young when my father was unemployed and the pall of anxiety in the house with my parents not sure how to pay the bills. The inability to simply go out and find a job in the way one did pre-Covid is very tough.
All of my work these days is on Zoom or Microsoft Meetings or any of a host of other platforms. I am a bit concerned that once this all ends ( and it will), the habit of WFH and remote meetings will permanently reduce the normal meetings that require travel.
This is the first time in my adult life where I have had to be in the same place every day. I am not in any way suffering the real problems of others, so I definitely do not need any sympathy, but life is a hell of a lot less interesting than at any time I can remember.
I do have great sympathy for those who have lost jobs through no fault of their own. I recall when I was young when my father was unemployed and the pall of anxiety in the house with my parents not sure how to pay the bills. The inability to simply go out and find a job in the way one did pre-Covid is very tough.
All of my work these days is on Zoom or Microsoft Meetings or any of a host of other platforms. I am a bit concerned that once this all ends ( and it will), the habit of WFH and remote meetings will permanently reduce the normal meetings that require travel.
This is the first time in my adult life where I have had to be in the same place every day. I am not in any way suffering the real problems of others, so I definitely do not need any sympathy, but life is a hell of a lot less interesting than at any time I can remember.
I know someone works in finance and has been working from home since April, they said it's ten time worse than being in an office. The boss is a cock, they are supposed to work together as a team but he's demanding they do this project then when they phone he's off to the golf course.
I think what is driving people mad is that they are almost tied to their home office/desk and the employer expects them to almost work into the night, the work/ life balance has gone. If your single and have no kids then it's far worse.
Everyone knows that in employment having children is like having a gold plated Uzi.
Just pull it out and wave it around when you want away early, want a day off, pull a sickie, going on holiday the next day etc etc. I worked with a guy who took the absolute pee, every week his kid had a toothache, tummy ache. When you ask about it the next week he almost forgot, because it was all a pack of lies.
I think what is driving people mad is that they are almost tied to their home office/desk and the employer expects them to almost work into the night, the work/ life balance has gone. If your single and have no kids then it's far worse.
Everyone knows that in employment having children is like having a gold plated Uzi.
Just pull it out and wave it around when you want away early, want a day off, pull a sickie, going on holiday the next day etc etc. I worked with a guy who took the absolute pee, every week his kid had a toothache, tummy ache. When you ask about it the next week he almost forgot, because it was all a pack of lies.
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