Self employed and working in isolation

kat74

Hi,
I'm self-employed and due to the nature of my work I spend most of my days at home, working on my own. I currently have a long-term contract with a customer and the majority of our communication is by email. This means I regularly don't talk to anyone during my working day .
It's very isolating working like this and I'm getting bored of talking to myself!
I've been investigating renting a hot desk in a shared office but am having trouble finding a suitable one - I've had quite poor communication from the places I've contacted, and they seem want a 6 month commitment, which I'm not sure I want to commit to.
I'd imagine I'm not the only person in this situation??!
Does anyone know of ways of renting a hot desk or similar?
I'm not particularly looking to formally 'network' just someone to say hello to would be nice!
Any suggestions?
Thanks

paulwf

Take over a corner of Costa or Starbucks?

kat74

I do that - then I start to feel a bit cheeky sitting there for too long!
I've now started talking to random strangers in coffee shops as well!

GEEGEE8

lol - cabin fever!

I got made redundant in May and luckily got into uni this Sept, with that and having redundancy insurance I decided to stay at home until I start uni. I did look for a job but nothing happened and the wages wouldn't cover what the insurance does.. anyhow! I've been at home on my own for 3 months now, I'm bored, no-one to talk to, miss my the banter with work mates and the general daily grind..

I totally see where you are coming from. No specific advice to offer though..

paulwf

I worked from home for a company for 18 months and 99.9% of communication with colleagues was via email or instant messaging. I quite enjoyed it especially during the winter when if it was raining I didn't have to leave the house for days. My girlfriend thought it wasn't that healthy to be doing it long term though and I knew some of my colleagues were getting cabin fever from never speaking to another human for days

If you are having problems with serviced offices you could see if any normal shops or offices have some space to spare, all you need is a desk and a wifi connection so they wouldn't have to charge much but it'd be all extra profit for them.

Slinky

I've worked at home for 5.5. years on my own. I do get to speak to customers on the phone for a couple of weeks a month, and network online with other people in the same industry. What I also do is belong to a business networking group which meets for breakfast once a week. Not only does this help with finding new customers for my business, it gets me out of the house speaking to 'real' people for a couple of hours a week who don't spend their life doing the same thing I do, which is nice.

teabelly

Join twitter. There's lots of people on there that work from home. If you follow e_nation then you can join the #watercoolermoment at 11am each weekday where homeworkers chat with each other.

Also if you have friends at home during the day then they might appreciate a phone call or an invite to meet up. Would get you out of the house too.

Also try volunteering as then you get to meet new people but without it necessarily being business orientated.

Savvy_Sue

teabelly wrote: »

Also try volunteering as then you get to meet new people but without it necessarily being business orientated.

Or you could see if your business skills are in demand, say a day a month, with local charities.

BTW I'm sure Starbucks / Costa are used to this. We sometimes go to a local cafe for our line management sessions because there's no room in the office, there's ALWAYS at least one other group obviously having a business meeting of some kind!

kat74

Thanks for the suggestions...
I'm going to do a bit more research on some of these ideas....rather than just sitting at home feeling sorry for myself!
But there's some things here that I'd not thought of, so thank you !

downshifter

I wonder where you live? It might be worth checking, maybe through something like enterprise nation, if there is anyone else in the area who feels the same. You could both then work at their house one month, and both of you (or more) work at yours the next. I know of someone who does this, not for the company but more because working in your own home, it's too easy to be distracted.

The teleworker association used to be involved in telecottages where people could go and where equipment such as faxes, copiers,pcs etc were provided for people who wanted to work from home and to find a few kindred spirits. Don't think those happen so much now that everyone can afford their own kit.

My problem is space, I also work on my own but my spare room can't take all the documents I'm working on, I have boxes and boxes up to the ceiling that all need sorting. I had thought of asking around to see if anyone has a spare room or dry shed etc I could use.

Enterprise Nation might be a good starting point for what you need though. They might just have other members in the area who feel the same and want to buddy up

DS

ps I also work in a shop with a small coffee shop, we hate it when people use it for meetings as it ties the place up instead of allowing shoppers who want to take the weight off their feet to sit down. So make sure you choose a large cafe to do this. Also hate the idea of line management meetings taking place in public - what if there's confidential/personal stuff to discuss?

Savvy_Sue

downshifter wrote: »

ps I also work in a shop with a small coffee shop, we hate it when people use it for meetings as it ties the place up instead of allowing shoppers who want to take the weight off their feet to sit down. So make sure you choose a large cafe to do this.

Take your point, if we're there over lunchtime we do have lunch rather than just coffee and if it's too crowded we'd move on.

downshifter wrote: »

Also hate the idea of line management meetings taking place in public - what if there's confidential/personal stuff to discuss?

I'd say "There are things I need to raise but we'll do that back at the office" (there is one space we can use for this, but it's not always free!) Plus I'm not that fussed about complete strangers knowing all my business, it's when another couple of colleagues are having LM at another table and you don't want THEM to hear all your business! :rotfl: