I'm no more productive at work. I produce in a week the same amount of code I used to produce in a day before the pandemic.
Am I alone to feel work-from-home made things worse?
Readit NewsReadit NewsAm I alone to feel work-from-home made things worse?
I managed pretty well. I'm a naturally introverted person, which is perhaps a good trait to have in this situation. I'm already used to spending a lot of time by myself and I have things I like to do. This is key, I think. I spent long hours making DJ mixes in Ableton and playing records on my hi-fi. That's a creative place for me and it was very satisfying to have the time to bury myself in it.
I wrote code, not heaps, but I played around with a few things.
I dug up some old/remake computer games (Half Life Black Mesa was by far the best)! I watched a bunch of old films I haven't seen in years, and a few bits and pieces on Netflix. I read books. I went for a 1hr walk every day and enjoyed the sight of trees and the sound of birds. I said a sincere thanks and smiled with my eyes at the people who staff the stores I shopped at once/twice a week. They have a hard job and I think it's important to convey gratitude to them.
I'd be lying if I said it was all fine, there were definitely days when I was bored stiff, depressed or otherwise not in a great place, but it was helpful to remember that everyone was in the same boat, and my sacrifice, along with everyone else's, are what is going to pull us through.
Keep your chins up. Especially you guys in the USA. What a mess you have to fix over there. I hope this year is productive.
It bothered me how compliant everyone was with the draconian lockdown. While I was happy to go along with the initial response, when the government started the 2nd wave through incompetence I outright refused to follow any of their directions.
There was no enforcement on the 5km rule or the "ring of steel" btw. Consequently I'm one of the few people in my company not burnt out.
So far the only state that seems to know how to competently handle covid without stripping freedoms is NSW. They take the bulk of international flights and manage outbreaks very well.
All every other state in Australia seems to know how to do is knee jerk to closing borders and stripping freedom of movement at the first sign of a new case.
Protesting by not wearing a mask, or breaking the distancing rules, isn't doing you or anyone else any good. The science on how not to spread a respiratory virus is grade school level.
The lockdown was extremely hard. My vices tripled and I am still trying to reign them back in. I've had a low key depression since June last year and still trying to shake it.
As the parent comment said, they were an introvert, there are lots of people who aren't. (me)
In my little suburb, it looks like 10 small businesses had to shutdown while all the mega stores were allowed to continue operation.
I feel sorry for anyone who had a less than average housemate, stuck in a place with people for that long causes tension regardless if you like the person.
I don't see any problem with people who broke the rules. The government told us from the start that we were just flattening the curve but then without telling us extended the lock-downs in some attempt for an elimination strategy.
I personally don't think anyone in the world will ever know or feel what happened here in Melbourne so I expect to be down-voted also.
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Just going to add what our stage 4 lockdown looked like which kinda lasted for 2 months at it's worst.
- 8pm-5am curfew (you have to be at home)
- no visitors
- 5km radius (this lasted for what felt like 6 months)
- you had to wear your mask as soon as you left your house (this went for months, we still have to wear masks in shops (even though we have zero cases))
- you could only go to the super market once per day, and you had to go by yourself
- you were only allowed outside for exercise for 1 hour (with 1 person)
- lots of shops forced you to give your details over and some demanded that you sanitize your hands (these are two things I didn't want to do for my own reasons)
- no gyms, hospo, group events, activities etc
- increase of police powers, fines around $1600
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We also locked a bunch of social housing people in their apartments for two weeks. They didn't even have balconies, just small ugly windows. I hope someone eventually gets sued for that decision. -> https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-25/coronavirus-melbourne...
That said, I probably agree with you that Victoria's lockdown was a bit too harsh. I live in Melbourne and had to sit through it too, and I broke the curfew, 5km radius and 1 hour exercise rules frequently.
I do wish that the response was consistent across all states. I also am pretty grateful that we've come out of the whole thing as well as we did.
The Victorian 2nd wave was undeniably a management screw up, and when restrictions were announced I was dubious that it’d even work (thought the cat was out of the bag) but the fact that their modelling forecasts were accurate (to the day!) months out shows they knew what they were doing and for me it seemed worthwhile.
Also, when not complying with what was requested you don't appear to consider personal responsibility and just object. Is that a fair interpretation?
(btw in case it isn't clear, I categorically disagree on both fronts)
I say this as a queenslander, where the overwhelming majority of the state backs what Labor has done, and thinks NSW can go jump, regarding who determines what happens at the borders.
I doubt any Westralian, or Tasmanian, or any of the aboriginal communities (who self isolated day #1) would agree with you over lockdown btw.
Well, I've been looking at the case curves and they only seem to go up, even with lockdowns, masks, curfews and whatever comes next. So if you're implying it's a worthy sacrifice, I can't say I share that view.
I am happy you are doing well with the situation but do wish you guys luck in sorting the lockdown mess ;)
Our hard border policy certainly helped ease the stress fairly early in the piece however, and we all had a (comparatively) easy time after that.
Personally I had some additional stress while working at home - we had a kid at the start of March so it was an interesting time - but luckily for the most part our state was quite insulated from the social impacts of the covid period.
To void burn out, I did a few things which I feel are extremely helpful.
1. Have a room that is a dedicated office. When I leave this room, I leave the "office".
2. Establish communication throughout the day. This means having slack conversations (typed and video) that are casual. It's okay to vent on these calls.
3. Have a defined schedule - Awake at 6am, washed/dressed by 6:30am, Red Bull (or if you like food) and at my desk by 7am. I do work long hours, but I enjoy it because I'm accomplishing something.
4. Work on something that excites you or find joy in your work somehow.
5. Lastly, realize most of the mental stress can be managed with a little mindfulness, learning to accept that you still can grow and find joy even when at home and cut back on social media; or if you're like me, I cut out 99% of social media.
I hope everyone remains positive. Do something today, that makes you better tomorrow.
Sorry for the unqualified snark here, just couldn‘t resist. The realities couldn‘t be more different for different people at this time.
Someone recently asked me whether I enjoyed my Corona free time as well.
I didn’t know what to answer as could not even comprehend the concept.
I‘m missing everything. Time for myself. Silence. Holidays. Physical movement. Sanity.
Work and Noise, non-stop, around the clock. Still falling behind on all projects with limited understanding of single colleagues with more time to kill than Netflix has content.
I love those rascals, but I‘m crashing on the couch every night and barely make it out of bed the next day. Just functioning and surviving.
Never been more exhausted in my life before.
My wife and I are toast by kids'(2&4) bedtime, and can only sit on the couch watching something and reel from the day.
Like Ron Swanson said, I miss silence, and the absence of noise.
This past few weeks I've started work at 6am (it's 6:07 right now) so that I can create some more space during the day and give her time.
I give my son some focused attention / special time in the middle of the day and in the evening. It's important that he gets a good intense dose of me and I'm not distracted when with him. Without that he's feeling unwanted (why does papa work all the time?) and he acts out. He refuses to join us for dinner: "I'm working" he says.
I was burnt out. Right now I'm doing well.
I disagree. I've got more kids than you do (edit: I misread your post, I'm not clear how many children you have. My apology for the mistake), all at difficult ages including a 1 year old. They are one of the few things making COVID seclusion tolerable for me.
The near constant interaction can be exhausting, but it has also been very rewarding. I know my kids better than ever and have gotten to participate in a lot of moments I would've missed.
I find that the narrative I give myself around things like this is very important. If I told myself I was barely surviving my kids I would probably feel that way. Instead I focus on how lucky I am to be surrounded by my family, and that it's a wonderful thing to have unprecedented amounts of time with them. I've perhaps never been happier with my family than I have been during the pandemic.
None of that is a criticism of people who are struggling. Just looking to offer another point of view.
I've really enjoyed the extra time with my six-year-old daughter rather than sending her off to school. Having her around the house and able to come into my office for random cuddles during the working day is a joy.
He has two adorable little girls; 1.5 years old and 2 months.
His kids are pretty calm, by most standards.. but you can't let the older one out of sight for a few seconds.
I certainly feel your pain even though I don't have kids.
Question: Tell me how much you love going to the bathroom or getting washed now. It's the only time you have to yourself lol
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If this is important (and I agree it is) then we're setting up the vast majority of people for burnout. Most people don't have the luxury of a room they can convert into an office.
For those who don't understand, here's my annecdote:
After the divorce the only thing I could afford in my son's school district is a 2 bedroom^ apartment. I have to pack up "my office" just to serve dinner. We now have lunch from the couch. I'm not complaining, but the idea of a dedicated room is up there with personal island for me.
^ the master is his to give him playspace lacking a playroom
Feel free to write code after work if you like, but to consider it anywhere close to a requirement, even to just help with burnout, is perpetuating a rather toxic view of this particular industry's workers.
I’ve gone the entire pandemic in a 450sq ft studio with my wife and our pets. My trick was to put my desk between a window and a wall and get an $80 room divider. Anytime the room divider was closed it meant one of two things: “Please don’t distract me, I’m busy”. Or “I’m not sitting back at my desk to work until tomorrow”
I love working — prior to my wife moving in, all I wanted to do was code and tinker with different ideas. But I know that isn’t sustainable for many reasons. Having a blocked off space, as tiny as it may be, to “get in the zone” or literally separate me from work has worked wonders for my mental health during the pandemic.
* I used some past tense here because we finally just upgraded to a 1 bedroom after 2 years :)
I grew up sleeping on the floor for 15 years because I couldn't afford a bed. I get it.
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2. It's very hard to do casual check-in with another person.I feel like I'm bothering them too much. I can't get over it. Too stressful. Was way easier in person. Just feel the room and interrupt as needed.
3. I wake up early, take my pre-workout or red bull or 5h energy but just stare at the screen for 4 hours between 8 and noon and can't start.
4. I love the product but I can't start working wihtout others around me.
5. I hired multiple therapists. They put me on meds. I took medical leave. Nothing helped.
For me, work is for work and home is for home or for "work on autopilot"
Without this, I think I would be a lot worse off in this crisis, and I'm a pretty extreme introvert.
If I was in your situation and had to actually bug people to talk to them... Ugh. No way.
Have you asked others if they want to be on an 8 hr/day video call with you? Perhaps there are others that would prefer that, or would do it to help you.
I personally would not enjoy that, but if someone on my team needed it... I'd at least try to deal with it.
Alternatively, maybe you can find a few of them to do it for 2 hrs/day and take the edge off.
I live in a city where an apartment costs 1500 a square foot, so a two bedroom apartment for a single person is barely affordable.
This pandemic has taught me that crowded cities suck.
When I relocated back east, I made it a point to a) not live in the city since it'll be overpriced and I won't be able to enjoy the surrounding area and b) Price per square footage wouldn't make sense if I'm at home 24/7. So I went across the river and pay less for _a lot more_.
I know a lot of people are moving to Austin TX. They get a LOT more for their money. I was lucky to be on a month by month lease when the pandemic hit.
I was fortunate enough that my lease expired back in July so I looked for somewhere a bit further out of the city with more room. I pay a smidge more each month, but I probably at least doubled the size of my place and I have a dedicated office now
1. Realise you're lucky to be in this position to work from home, as opposed to medical staff and being depressed is a luxury.
2. You are not a code machine, amount of code written is not a good measure of how productive you are. Better think of how much you contributed overall or learnt something new that year.
3. Your work is not your life, so focus and even obsess over other things such as hobbies and spend more mental energy on that rather than worry about your job. Your job just pays the bills nothing more.
4. Find online ways to socialise such as playing online games. If you're introverted that should be enough to satisfy your social needs.
I know rationally that you're correct but it's damn hard to keep that in mind when you're depressed.
I used to drink it daily and it destroyed my body. Also, Red Bull is quite expensive!
I was working around this once by drinking red bull, which I found lifted my emotions temporarily, but after it wore off in 4 hours I crashed way harder into despair. This effect built up over time and fortunately I noticed it and stopped using it routinely.
YMMV - just a friendly warning of how it affected me.
Once I finish this case, I think it's time to go back to water and coffee for 6 months. :)
Partly because we have "real coffee" here in Portugal (expresso, a cultural import from the Italians via the Cimbalino series of coffee shop hardware, IIRC), partly because a long mug is better suited to winter, and partly because I am back working 90% with British folk, to the extent where we can compare blends...
But, overall, it suits me better. Takes longer to drink, does not mess with my stomach in the mornings, and smells great.
(Mind you, we do not consider American-style coffee to be "coffee" in the strictest sense of the word, because it's too processed/diluted/mixed).
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You end up really not using the PC for anything else than working because in your free time last thing you wan't will be in the front of that PC.
I sold my gaming PC and bought a Xbox to spend my free (I used my laptop to work at the company so I'm just using that laptop to also work).
I'll emphasize on 3. Manage your expectations with your direct reports. Let them know in order to stay sane you are going to have set schedule to manage stress while wfh. I do this with everyone I meet at work to set those expectations onset. It has helped tremendously.
- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/10/29/2200
My recommendations (which are very much like yours):
- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/03/05/2230
Some venting on remote challenges:
- https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2020/07/11/1830
I messed up sadly on that one.
Point #4... not everyone has that choice.
Item #4 - I fully disagree. Some choices are scary to actually make, but are healthy. For instance, my mom stayed with her abusive husband for many years because she had Stockholm syndrome. If you had asked her why didn't she leave during that time, she would say "I didn't have a choice". Ask her now, and she will tell you "Fear - fear of not knowing how things would work out."
Sometimes the hardest choices to make are the impossible choices.
Are you listening to the others venting too?
I'm convinced that a large part of the stress people have been feeling this past year is due to dehydration and lack of proper nutrition.
I ended up moving to Taiwan a few weeks ago. Zero COVID here, and was surprisingly easy to immigrate (coming from someone who was dealing with the US immigration system as a Canadian). Working at a fun startup back on the consumer product side instead. Went to a bar for the first time in a year last week and was able to just sit in a coffee shop with 10 other people this morning. I'm still teaching myself to read/speak Chinese but it's totally worth it.
Anyone with experience with TypeScript/React interested in tagging along to Taiwan, send me an email (my email is in my hacker news profile). I'm actively hiring engineers now. We're a distributed team across many different countries but a few of us hang out in Taipei together at a coworking space. It's the best of both worlds, I'm able to WFH when I feel like it but still go to a public space to be around people
I get the impression there are more black Africans than black Americans there. I recall some issues on mainland China with people violently scapegoating disease on them and anyone with dark skin. In most countries I've lived in nationality carried more weight than simply color.
I just want to go to music festivals lol, Ultra Fest are you kidding me!?
I would expect much less of this from younger people, as Taiwan is probably the most socially progressive country in East Asia. That said, Taiwan is pretty homogeneous, so a foreigner of any color will be a rarity, and I suspect Africans are relatively uncommon among foreigners. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#Foreign... for an actual demographic breakdown.
My impression is that Taiwan embraces multi-culture and multi-race better than China—though both are dominantly Han. As for Black experience in Taiwan, especially Taipei, you may be interested in [1].
[1]: https://international.thenewslens.com/article/141610
FYI for anyone interested, if you make $67,000USD a year, you can go to work in Taiwan too: https://taiwangoldcard.com
All in all, living standards seem very high, I haven't seen much homelessness in my day to day (especially compared to USA), but I've only been here for a month so maybe I've been in a bubble.
I am a US-born Taiwanese-American who lives in San Diego most of the time, but we spend most winters here in Taiwan to visit relatives and try and get mandarin language immersion for our kids.
Since we're all WFH and remote school anyway, we decided to spend an extended period of time this winter to ride out the pandemic.
If you're able to do so and are interested, I'd highly recommend it, since like the OP I have enjoyed being able to go out to eat dinner, hang out at coffee shops, etc.
To answer a few questions that have been raised so far:
* Unfortunately, Taiwan is now closed to non-residents. You are not able to come here on a visitor's visa anymore. However, as another poster mentioned -- it's relatively easy to apply to get a Gold Card (https://taiwangoldcard.com/). As long as you can document income above about $67k USD/year (the actual requirement is to be above $160k TWD / month), you should be able to get it. The process is normally supposed to take about 30 days... but since there has been so much interest in the program over the past year, I believe the process is now taking 45 ~ 60 days.
* If you have a spouse / children that you want to bring with you, the process will take even longer -- you can only apply for your spouse/kids resident visas after you get the Gold Card. This process usually takes an additional 2 or so weeks.
* Everyone who comes in is required to undergo a 21-day quarantine restriction. It's a 14-day strict quarantine (where they monitor you and call you at least once a day), and then a 7-day "self" quarantine after that. (Although there are rumors that they may increase the restrictions on the 7-day period)
* For the specific question about race -- if you are African / African-American, IMO you likely wouldn't see much in terms of direct, hostile racism. OTOH, I would imagine that you would likely encounter racialism -- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/racism-and-racialism-are-_b_6... is a good article distinguishing it.
There's a lot more I could post about the experience about coming out here and what life is like once you're here (especially as a software dev / digital nomad) -- but in the interest of brevity, I'll stop for now. But if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.
It took about 4-5 hours of my time and 8 weeks of waiting for the government to approve it.
I got really lucky. I had a friend of a friend who I moved in with. He found his apartment through an agent who speaks English. Send me an email if you end up making the plunge and I'll connect you with our agent.
If you're considering a similar move: just do it. For real. It's not going to get any better any time soon internationally. It's easily the best decision I could have made. If you're worried about money either get a remote dev job or even just teach English here, there's a million schools around. It's incredibly cheap to live here compared to metro USA ($3000 USD/month gets you an upper class life, all in, including dining out, gym, drinks etc. You'll probably spend less than that if you even remotely budget). You can live a great life as a single person on even less than that.
I have only been around family for the entirety of the last year, and as much as being close and connected with them is, not being able to go out to eat or do anything else does take it's toll.
I have been staying connected with friends and strangers online through things such as discord, etc. and I would have to say it has helped tremendously. Getting regular interaction with others even if it's just over audio or video goes a long way through all of this.
The idea is to stand in for the breakroom and the happy hour.
https://bash.video
(We're all ex-Kongregate - I was CEO).
Maybe you can find a way to break into this kind of mindset / market. Kongregate had a lot of great content, this implies you have a good team. I really wish you luck, we need things like this.
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This. I've been trying to make people understand this part. It's not the working from home on it's own.
I'm burned out from the lack of social contact, though. I don't mean coworkers; I'm glad I don't have to interact with coworkers beyond Zoom. I mean the lack of family-and-friends get-togethers; the inability to pop down to the pub for a quick beer with friends; the lack of new friendships made because of the distancing; having to treat everyone and everything as though they're radioactive; the constant doomscrolling. Everything non-work-related is stressful and hollow.
Work from home would have made my life better under other circumstances. I'd have gained all the commute time back; I'd be living near family, friends, and activities that I enjoy; I'd be far from cities that I dislike. I have some of those things, but in this perverse alternate reality, I feel like I'm being teased and can't have it.
One of the biggest downsides to the past year is the lack of vacations. I took a week off for a break, but spent it at home doing nothing. There's no way I'm getting on a plane before I'm vaccinated, nor going to a restaurant or bar, and I'm not keen on staying in a hotel.
I don’t want things to change. (Except all the deaths. Let’s do see to that.)
/s
I also hope for a life that has less requirements for my physical presence for pointless activities/niceties work-related or otherwise.
1. Planned a 1-hour prank on a coworker over Zoom
2. Left work early to play golf all afternoon
3. Had a beer at noon once or twice
4. Worked on a side projects for about 2-hours during "lunch" one day
5. Worked from a lake house I rented for 3 weeks
6. Worked from the beach one day
7. Finished all my assignments in a 4-day work week and spent the entire day Friday reading books
8. Ate extremely lavish takeout for breakfast or lunch
When you look back on this time, you'll be glad you did these things you would never otherwise do in an office.
Those are rookie numbers! It’s not mischief until you’re having that beer at 8AM with your corn flakes.
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Reminder that if you're in a lockdown or want to help prevent the spread of Covid, stay at home. Travelling to and using holiday homes still contributes to the spread even if you maintain social distancing.
No judgement on lesinski, I do not know the guidance or prevalence of Covid where they are, but this thread is explicitly about lockdown environments so I think it's important to re-iterate that these are sadly not suitable things to do for many of us.
I'm one hundred and ten percent on board with wearing masks and being cautious about what to do, but it's been a year of this already. It feels like renting a lakehouse for some much needed mental health recuperation is at the bottom of the barrel as far as risk factor goes. Considering California is seeing 30,000 a day Covid numbers, it feels like "stay home" when 50% of the country doesn't give a shit anymore is like throwing a cup of water on a house fire at this point.
Curious to hear at what point does your mental well being become more of a concern? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years of lockdown? while you have people in Florida going to nightclubs then flying elsewhere? I'm starting to feel like one of those people tying themselves to a tree with a "save the planet" t-shirt while other people walk by and laugh and continue to ignore the damage and live their lives. I'm not trying to sound defeatist, but I am seriously at a loss here.
It's a virus and doesn't spread outside very easily, especially during even a little wind.
Telling people to stay indoors is damaging to their physical health, damaging to their mental health, and is more of a political action than a scientific one.
Get outside as much as you can, go for walks, mask up if you walk through crowds or indoors.
Look at Norway, they have very low numbers, but are not anywhere near this paranoid.
Honestly, it’s annoying but I don’t worry too much. Everyone is in the weird place now, and it’s not forever, so I don’t beat myself up if my productivity is slightly down or if I don’t feel super perky.
There was one particular instance that really stood out to me last weekend. I ran into a friend of mine for the first time in a while who asked "How have you been?" to which I replied "Well, it's hard to say -- the days kinda just blend together". He responded, "Yeah, same". And we sorta just left it at that. Sure we could've talked about specific work troubles or the media we've consumed lately or whatever, but it felt like we already had this understanding of what each others' lives have been like in isolation since they're largely identical, so why try to fake the "normal" conversation in abnormal times?
I should add I do have other friends I'm closer to with whom I have regular conversations about the minutia of quarantine life, but with this particular friend it was like "Well...we got nothing right now, let's agree to talk once life becomes interesting again".
It's just different right now. I'm worn out. I feel dull. It doesn't matter if I crank for 8 hours or drag a day out to 16. It all feels the same right now.
I wouldn't attribute it too strongly to WFH just that outside of work life is limited, cant travel, socialise (properly - not zoom).
Work tends to blend from day to evening, I definitely work later into the evening but I guess its my choice and partly because there's not much else to do (Netflixed out!)
Exercise helps. Reading. Eating well but allowing treats now and again (this is important).
I have booked some vacations for later in the year as something to look forward to (do this if you can, there will be a rush to the door when were in a better state and firms will not want everyone out at the same time).