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Comment by iguanayou | Hacker News Reader

As a remote worker, I would really enjoy a coworking space at least 1-2 times per week, but the hour commute and the expense just are not worth it for me. I've been working remotely for two years and absolutely go stir crazy, and even into fits of depression, when I'm not really pro-active about getting out.

I've been volunteering with a community theatre this year, which gets me out of the house after work most week days. My mood goes up about 10x when I do this. During the month or so downtime between plays though, things start going bad again.

I'm also involved with some other meetups/clubs and do piano lessons. Putting together a deliberate schedule of "outside activities", at least for me, is absolutely necessary to make it work.

And I would still never go back to working in an office!

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I am in the same situation. People tell me all the time how lucky I am to work remotely, and I was excited when it started. But it definitely has some drawbacks that I didn't expect, especially in the mental health department.

Webex/Hangouts/GTM is fine for 90% of the banal, communication meetings. But it really fails for any design meetings that need a whiteboard. I have tried getting my team to use some alternatives, but there is always some eye rolling, and it never sticks around. It doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit. Also I haven't found an app that can compete with the tactile feeling of a physical board.

Also I feel like I miss out on the "water cooler" talk. Any sort of communication I have is very formal. My team doesn't like using chat casually, so it really hampers my ability to form relationships with them.

Finally, time management is an issue. When you have an office, its much easier to turn on and off. When I am at home too many mornings start late, and too many evenings run long.

I think the surface hubs may change that - the experience is almost better than a real whiteboard. They are hilariously expensive though.

Microsoft is in a really interesting place as far as workplace collaboration goes. Between the Surface {Hub,Book,Pro} lines and their enterprise messaging technology, it really seems like they just need to fix SharePoint.

I do wish that Microsoft would have standardized on thunderbolt 3 as opposed to the surface connector, but between power and all the compatability problems I suppose I get it.

I don't think it's a problem that can be solved by more technology.

    It doesn't help that the majority of our team is onsite, so any alternative is 100% for my benefit.

This really seems key. I've done various sorts of mixed telework/onsite teams, and it never works well. I think either the whole team should be onsite, or the whole team should telework. Anything else will leave some people out of important interactions.

You can even mix on a day-to-day basis, as long as you follow the same schedule. One office had a general practice of everyone in the office Mon-Thur, and then everyone teleworked on Friday. It was great.

The office I'm in now, though, has some people teleworking one day a week, and working four 10s so they're off completely on Friday, and some others working five 8's, in the office every day. It's murder to schedule a time when everyone has access to the same interaction tools.

I have been working remotely for 7 years now and I honestly don't get that vibe. The opposite.... Xmas is a time to dread some terrible jolly meeting.

I have a friend I meet for beer on a Thursday every 3 weeks, Family and the Missus occupy the rest, and the sliver of time I have remaining goes to personal dev / gaming.

I don't recall ever caring about being lonesome, so I don't think I got used to it as such.

Everyone is different for sure, but I too would never go back to working in an office!

When I get really stir crazy I find it only takes about 4-5 hours in a co-working space to remind me how good I have it.

Seems you are doing the right thing. I used to work remotely for a long time. During that I did a ton of non-work stuff. Now I work in a cube farm and I am way too tired in the evening to do anything. In addition, most of social interactions at the company are bullshit like meetings and politics.

One thing I did for a while was to rent a little office with two other freelancers a few bicycle minutes away from home. That was the best setup for me. You go out in the morning but still control your work environment.

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