WORKING FROM HOME - MISSING SOCIAL INTERACTION

geek84

Good evening folks
For those of you working from home due to the pandemic, do you miss the office environment and social interaction?
If so, what do you do in order to resolve this? Have you joined any online groups to social with?
Thanks in advance for your response

elsien

I still get out and about but don’t see colleagues as our office has now been closed  - this has made team building  difficult - all I know about some new starters are their name. 

My employer had encouraged some informal teams chat groups once or twice a week; we are also encouraged if we are in the same vicinity to meet up for a coffee if practicable. I’ve also arranged to meet up during lunch breaks although that’s been more difficult geographically.
But with like minded colleagues then it is doable with a bit of planning. 

Other than that, work and life are separate and my social life is not work related. 

OrbitHeadache

geek84 said:

Good evening folks
For those of you working from home due to the pandemic, do you miss the office environment and social interaction?
If so, what do you do in order to resolve this? Have you joined any online groups to social with?
Thanks in advance for your response

I have just started working from home recently and find it fantastic I am not one for small talk discussing what someone had for dinner or what movie they watched so home working suits me to the ground and long may it continue.

Working from home it's actually easier to contact colleagues and communicate with them via Microsoft teams.

Also as the previous poster has said I try to keep my personal and work life separate so dont go out my way to try and make friends at work who I communicate outside work with.

Dakta

As an introvert in IT I never thought I'd miss social interaction in any capacity, but actually yeah - my job is quite high stress, stakes are high, decisions have to be made and sometimes all the options have negative consequences somewhere. I have missed the banter as it kept some of the stress at bay, and just bouncing something across a desk is much easier and less formal than 'calling someone' about it.

As I've been working from home and due to natural turnover I got the the point where I'd not even met most of my team, and whilst I got on with them through the online channels everyone was a bit distant and standoffy, not rude or anything but just kept themselves to themselves as if they didn't really know anyone as to be fair most didn't.

This started to grate, and it actually started to affect me along with some other work stress, in fact I realised the loss of interaction might not have been all a bad thing as I learnt things I didnt know (and someone on the team who i confided in tried to weaponise my missing of the social apsectby 'accidently' excluding me from  a planned event)  and the end I changed teams, actually found myself in a better role but the new team are more technical and even more introverted, meaning that particular aspect is worse not better.

At the moment I'm knee deep in getting myself up to speed with the new role, and i'm too busy to worry about the social side, but I do miss it but i'm trying to keep a bit emotionless about it, work is work not play and whilst interaction is good it's not mandatory.

Everyone needs a bit of interaction though, and as I don't do much in my free time sociially (more sit here coding or writing music etc) I've made an active effort in the last few weeks so i've joined a local model engineering society where I can give rides on a small scale family size railwya to the public, also in the process of trying to sign up to be a volunteer at a local heritage railway (amazing how many dont have someone who can check their emails lol) and joined a few internet forums just to lurk and post on topics I'm into.

My office is now open to attend, but my manager in particular has told me he's leaving it down to us, I expect none of us are going in and i probably won't until that changes.

74jax

My social life was never through work, so that part never altered.  I was a PA and my director was UK wide, so I have never had daily face to face interaction anyway.
I much prefer it, I was never one to discuss what I did at the weekends etc and purely saw those I worked with as colleagues.
My hubby's work have weekly online 'meets' with various activities. You get sent a mystery box, could be baking or crafts and you choose to log in or not. An outside trainer talks you through the activity. We did some, not many - Christmas cake, Easter eggs, wreath. They good to keep in touch, but in your own time so he doesn't do many, if at all - it tends to be me.
His work - computer gaming - is very hot on keeping in touch, but as his team are worldwide, it makes no difference being in the office or not. 

MovingForwards

I don't miss the office and the interactions were people passing by who felt like they had to say hello.

Teams is a PITA and was never used before the pandemic. I don't sit with my headset on, just in case someone decides they want to call. I find it quite rude to dive straight into a VC without a quick email first giving me a chance at getting set up for it. I've only had a couple and said to give me a few minutes advance warning after they did it. 

General socialising isn't something I do, I've already spent all day with these people when in the office, or at their beck and call while at home. My free time is valuable and mine to do as I want.

Farside71

If someone messages me and wants to speak, I normally say give me a couple of minutes regardless of whether I need them.  In the office you expect  the phone to ring but at home it feels more like I need to make sure I'm ready - no distractions like pets or children or a wife hoovering etc.

I hate Teams with a passion, its awful for trying to multitask and switching between different parts of the application.  The innovation it brings is killed for me with an awful interface.  External messaging was much better before they integrated it all into Teams.

But anyway, I understand where the OP is coming from.  As the most experienced person in my team I don't feel  I miss the office that much.  I don't enjoy passing on knowledge remotely as it would be much easier for me and the other person in the office, but there are so many things about the office I found distracting and annoying.

elsien

I do dislike it when people video call me on teams when I’m in the middle of something, much rather they phoned first. 

I can put my work phone on silent and ignore calls if I’m busy. A teams call flashing up on screen feels much more intrusive. Particularly when your colleague them leaves the camera off anyway. Don’t see the point, 

Marcon

elsien said:

I do dislike it when people video call me on teams when I’m in the middle of something, much rather they phoned first. 

I can put my work phone on silent and ignore calls if I’m busy. A teams call flashing up on screen feels much more intrusive. Particularly when your colleague them leaves the camera off anyway. Don’t see the point, 

Get your colleagues better trained - i.e. make it clear you won't be answering video calls without a prior invitation from the person who wants to talk to you. Sticking a post it note over your computer's camera also helps to ensure you can't be 'watched' without knowing it (or just have the sensation you are/might be...).

Brie

Whilst I am not really friends with anyone I work with I am friendly with a number of people.  And I miss just having different faces about.  The team I work in is mostly significantly younger than me and it amuses me to see/hear what they are getting up to.  Also I miss the connections one can make between bits of work, random conversations that are too trivial to mention in emails but when put together with several other trivial bits adds up to something meaty.

As for teams/skype/webex.....I have struggled with all of them but have come to realise it's a blessing for them not to work 100%.  Our systems work kinda inside and outside of a cloud and I normally work inside the cloud.  But teams & skype seem to only work properly outside.  because of this I miss a lot of team/skype calls unless I happen to see the pop up at the beginning of them.  Also because I don't have a headset and have a special IT setup I don't have my laptop sound or camera on so there's no spying on me!    I would like it if webex worked a bit better but have coped so far.

Catplan

elsien said:

I do dislike it when people video call me on teams when I’m in the middle of something, much rather they phoned first. 

I can put my work phone on silent and ignore calls if I’m busy. A teams call flashing up on screen feels much more intrusive. Particularly when your colleague them leaves the camera off anyway. Don’t see the point, 

Not just you but reading down the comments and people saying teams is a pita etc in the paid version you can set to do not disturb if you are focussed on a task as opposed to available not sure if you get this with the free version. If I’m on do not disturb and someone calls it doesn’t get answered. I will let them know when I’m available, it’s all about finding ways that work for you, teams and zoom have in the main eased the way to wfh. I don’t mind a video call and am more than happy for team members to call me to discuss / check mostly they do message to say first. I do try to be available more so for team and we did have a couple of overly demanding colleagues in other depths but that was fairly easy to resolve, just a polite discussion really.