Remote Workers Can't Stop Working
Remote employees are experiencing a loss of structure and control over their work lives. The flexibility initially perceived as a benefit has led to difficulty disconnecting, decreased productivity, and negative impacts on physical and mental well-being. The lack of visible boundaries creates new challenges around availability and expectations.
SOURCES (60)
“Feels like there’s a ton going on at work (clients, projects) and at home (birthdays, upcoming travel, transitions, new house) right now. I hate to come with a vague question like how do you balance it all? But genuinely what do you do to stay…”
“I’m sorry!!! This is my biggest fear with my remote job. I really hope you can adjust soon and hope you get back to working remotely soon!!!”
“I’ve come to the realization that being a STAHM isn’t all it’s hyped up to be lol. Not working is not something I was used to. It’s something I loved to do. The social aspect was a bonus. Now that I’m 4 months into motherhood the isolation is setting in. We don’t have endless funds to sign up for a bunch of baby classes to keep us busy. That was my original plan but the reality isn’t possible. Maybe one class a week is what we can do, comfortably. So that solves one day a week. But what about th”
People usually just ignore those kinds of reminders after a while.
Already done, the reminders are to do anything adding a water reminder might be a good idea. Thanks!
“Hi everyone! I’m conducting a six question, brief survey for my statistics class to understand the 'work time' habits of remote workers. Whether you’re full-time remote or hybrid, I’d love to get your input on your remote work habits. It takes less than a minute, and your responses are completely anonymous. I’d appreciate anyone who could help out. Remote Work Habits Survey submitted by /u/NachoAmigo808 [link] [comments]”
“So hard to go back when you’ve been remote - worked around the world as a nomad for years. Would really struggle to go back”
“I’ve been back in hybrid for a year and a half. I really tried to find the positives but it does such a toll on me. If I could have my own desk and it wasn’t an open office it might be okay, but the hotel desking is what pisses me off to my core.”
“willpower or endless hours. True productivity comes from strategic work, effective delegation, and understanding your own limits. Learning to prioritize recovery and work smart, not just hard, is crucial for long term viability and avoiding costly operational mistakes.”
“I’m a hybrid worker 3 days in office.. On my office days I complete my full workload so I can slack off on the other 2 days, it always feels like a long weekend.. you’ll find a way young soul”
“I work remotely though the office is two blocks away. It takes 4 minutes to get to work. I have went in a few times to meet a couple people on my team (new hire). Most of the people I work with are executive's and they are always trying to schedule meetings in the office. The worst part, I'm on meetings 4-6 hours a day and half of my team is still remote so we spend half the meeting time trying to figure out how to connect the speaker and TV to the meeting. Like great, glad I went to wor”
“I would put a dollar value on the lost remote days before deciding. Four or five office days can quietly eat the 11K through commuting, clothes, lunches, parking, and less time at home. I would only make the jump if the government role has a clear promotion path and real examples of people moving up, not just vague growth potential.”
“You may never like it, but it does get easier. I’d suggest continuing the search for a remote position and enjoy the hybrid. I had to work fully in office for 8 months after losing my remote job. I settled for a hybrid job because it was all I could get into and it’s soooo much better than being fully in office.”
“For me, it did not get easier. After years of being hybrid we, suddenly all had it taken away and ever since it's been miserable. All of our jobs actually can be done from home, but just because the stupid corporate offices want presenteeism, we're forced into the office now 5 days a week. It's absolutely wrecked my mental health and physical health really. I absolutely hate it and what used to be a fantastic job now sucks. I'm glad I like my coworkers but it's so hard to con”
I don't like to work at all. However Nice the company is however the salary is high. I have been working from home for almost 3 years now. How do I keep…
“Once you get a taste of first class, it’s hard to sit in business class or economy class. The same thing applies to remote work vs hybrid and 5 days a week. I hate every thing about the office except for maybe the people I work with.”
“I was fully remote for five years, got laid off. Found a hybrid job right away with the same pay and position. Only lasted 6 months. Couldn’t handle the commute and wasted time in office. Spent twice as much time working and only got half as much done. RTO is a joke.”
“I worked 4.5 years remotely. Got laid off and accepted the fully onsite offer. Only lasted there 2.5 months. I was miserable. Now working remotely again. I hate being in office so much. I feel you”
“It doesn’t, from my experience. You just kind of learn to tolerate it. But it doesn’t get better especially if you keep comparing it to wfh.”
“I love hybrid. I bring stuff to do in the office that I wouldn’t do at home, so like balance my checkbook/pay bills, etc 😅”
“i did the same thing after 3 years remote, took a hybrid job and it was rough at first. the quiet office is actually the worst part, feels like you're in a library all day. it gets a bit easier around the 3 month mark, your brain just adapts eventually. but i still miss my home setup every day so i keep looking for remote roles on the side”
“For me, it absolutely did not get easier, but I'm autistic, so I get easily overwhelmed. I've had two return to office mandates at two different jobs and each time, I quit as soon as I could. I'm at my third work from home job now, been here for 3 years, and I really hope this one sticks. I genuinely can't stand working in an office environment.”
“Nope, you are always doing to resent not getting something that you had before and are not getting now.”
“I unexpectedly lost my fully remote job of 4 years about 3 months ago. It was honestly a toxic environment with difficult people, but I stayed as long as I did because I genuinely loved working from home and I really enjoyed the industry (I work in a creative field). Since losing that job, I’ve applied to a lot of fully remote positions in my industry and in marketing, but I haven’t been able to land interviews. I’ve had a few interviews for local companies, but most were either fully in-office”
“I had that feeling on two separate (short) occasions in my previous work. Once I solved it by implementing a commuting routine - take a walk or go for a jog, get professionally dressed, pretend you’re at the office. Sometimes a cold shower in the morning. The other time I decided to go to the office, not to be with coworkers, but to help with focus. Both helped me in a matter of days”
“Maybe I'm lucky, but my employer is super chill. No camera on (unless it's a meeting), no tracking your movements, hell, my manager encourages me to hit the gym during work hours when workload is light, and that I'm an adult and I'll get the job done. Idk, I guess find a new job?”
“I swear some companies didn't really adopt remote work; they just moved the office into Slack and my calendar. I like my job and I love not commuting. I'm organized and I do fine with independent work. But the creeping expectation that I have to constantly prove I'm working is wearing me down. It started small: cameras on by default, a 'quick sync' that somehow becomes a 45-minute meeting, people tagging you in a thread that should have been an email, then pinging you five mi”
“I try to. Unfortunately I am on call 24/7 (k-12 tech dir, USA). It is not to bad, though it is draining after 30yrs, LOL. I do make sure my people are off when they are off, so I got that going for us.....”
“I have always had my own office due to my position in various companies. Last year I took a job as a manager in a larger company and was put in the “best” cubicle with my team. I was shocked at how much of my attention and energy went into constantly being attuned to everything going on around me. My hyper-focus super-power was completely used to scan my environment. Fortunately I was able to find a fully remote job. I think if I had to go back into a cubicle, I would ask for a 5:00am - 2:00 pm”
“By my own standards I'm doing well, day and a half and I havent looked at anything yet. But I am notoriously bad for fully switching off from work and I'm curious how others handle it. Yes I'm aware that I should do this more and work is just work etc. etc. EDIT: I think the US calls this PTO, we call it annual leave. Aka when you off work on leave. submitted by /u/safalafal [link] [comments]”
“It’s happening, I’m going back to the office in the fall. I can’t complain too much cause it will be 3 days a week so monday and friday I’ll be home. It’s demanding on another level though and I need some tips. Any systems or things you MUST do for a smoother week when you’re commuting? I’ve been wfh for 6 years. submitted by /u/CoyoteSlow5249 [link] [comments]”
“Does anyone have any tips and tricks (especially for Outlook, iManage, and Word) for getting work done while not at the office? I have a long commute and often find myself firing up my laptop just to send off a single document, struggling to hot spot, etc. On the weekends, it would be nice to feel like I can leave the house or go out to a bar without my computer every now and again. I also seem to have terrible luck with airport and plane WiFi, but I see partners firing off emails from the air a”
“posting this because the conversation is mostly about commutes and childcare, and there's a group of us for whom the office is a fundamentally different kind of problem. i'm autistic. i'm good at my job, genuinely good, the kind of good that comes from being able to hold an entire system in my head and care about it more than is reasonable. in an open-plan office, a huge portion of my available processing goes to the environment. the noise, the movement in my peripheral vision, the f”
“I'm currently working remotely from a car repair shop. I scheduled my day so that i have no calls during the time i'm at the repair shop. There are others here doing the same. One person is taking full on customer service calls for what sounds like a medical insurance company, i haven't heard any specific customer info. It's more about the level of noise, they're speaking loudly and clearly as you would but it feels like this isn't the space for it. Am i wrong for thinkin”
ok so this might sound dumb but it actually works for me so I wanted to share I get home from work and my brain is still doing this thing where it…
“For context, I have an above average day job working remotely from home. The pay, benefits and conditions are good, but the corporate lifestyle is draining my soul. I've never enjoyed working for someone else, no matter how good the job is. Recently, I've been considering starting a good old commercial cleaning business. Something that I could do after hours and on weekends at first until its stable enough to delegate to some employees. The relative risk is practically zero. I have enoug”
“the people who make it work long term usually settle into slower movement than they planned - a week or two per place rather than a few days. constant moving kills productivity faster than the location itself does”
“You should never feel guilty because you are a productive worker who also happens to be remote. It sounds like your friends/relatives may not have a firm grasp of what remote work actually entails. Most of us who have hybrid/remote still stick to a schedule. And if a deadline has to be met and you're working extra hours, it doesn't actually matter if it's in an office or at home. Stop feeling guilty and start feeling appreciative for what you do have, as it could always change.”
“Same , any time I don’t have meetings literally all day and don’t have to wake up at 3:30AM to rush any admin stuff before meetings start, my brain sees an opportunity and almost collapses in relief, and I wind up unable to finish what I want”
“This is a bit of a rant, but I didn't really know where else to vent about this. I've been working a fully remote job in software development for the past few years now. I work from home pretty much every day, and as a result I'm fully in control of my schedule (unless I have Zoom meetings) and have a very good work-life balance. My previous job was in the office 5 days a week and I hated it, so I worked very hard to get myself out of that situation and find a job that lets me work f”
“I have a hard time getting out of kitchen mode when I'm not at work. My wife and I both cook for a living and went to a top culinary school. Date night, vacations, etc. Its not crippling, but its like I cant stop thinking in work mode. Id say im a pretty passionate and curious guy in terms of my work, I enjoy watching an efficient kitchen hum along smoothly, while we are out to eat. Especially, if somewhere new. For example: On vaction in florida earlier in the year. At local mom and pop sea”
“I actually organize and declutter my work inbox more frequently. I’m going into the office before was such a pain and a distraction because I’d have to pack up and leave for a drive. At 5:30 now I just clean up and organize myself before the next day because I’m already home. And it allows me to have a proper Headstart in the morning as well. Before then, I would just be late and then walk into a mess of an inbox.”
“I disconnect my computer at the end of every workday and put it in a laptop bag as a hard stop to my day. It started because I have a cat that likes to chew on cords (she is a polydactyl kitty that is drawn to them lol). In the 6 years u have been WFH, it has become the equivalent to my commute home. When my laptop is out, I am at work. When it is stored, I am at home. It has helped a lot to have that clean break.”
“You may be a type of person who actually enjoys jobs where you work from the office over ones where you work remotely. There are some benefits to working from the office especially on the social side. If the pros outweigh the cons for you, you may want to consider trying to find an in person office job.”
“An indirect lighting desk lamp is definitely one of them. I've been using the homelist one, and I only turn it on when I'm working. It helps me switch into work mode and separate it from my personal time. I also prefer indirect lighting because it's much more comfortable than direct lighting. The light doesn't shine straight into my eyes, so I get a lot less dryness and eye strain after sitting in front of my computer for hours.”
“I've been working from home for about a year now. At first, I naively thought all I needed was a computer, a cool external keyboard, a desk lamp for some extra light, and a cup of coffee to keep me going. Over time, I realized that things like the environment and decor of my office, the height of my monitor, the comfort of my desk lamp, and even the height of my chair can have a huge impact on productivity, especially when I spend 9–10 hours a day in this space. To make my workspace more com”
“I’ve managed to land myself an extraordinarily flexible 4-day a week IT management job, and have earned an enormous amount of trust from the organisation over the past decade. I’ve become something of a repository of global systems knowledge, so I have all-but guaranteed job security. With a one-month-old at home, that feels invaluable. The issue is that I make roughly half what I could make elsewhere, and I’m quite limited in what technology I actually get to work with. I worry that I’m mortgag”
“Recently accepted a new role in my current company with a 10% increase in pay and promotion. My current role has been remote the last year while we wait for our new office to be ready. Wasn’t a permanent remote, but was basically going to stay remote for another 6-9 months. My job is a total dud, I didn’t have a seat at the table and I think I was losing brain cells by not using them. I’m a motivated person and huge people person, so I was craving a team (I’m a team of one with occasional partne”
“I work from home and I forgot how badly a commute affects you. I recently moved and had to commute to my gym 3 days a week but it was 35 mins away. By the time I got to the gym I was exhausted, irritated, stressed, cortisol spiked, and just not ready to work out. I only did this for 3 days a week before I quit that gym and relocated to a gym 4 mins away. The point being, I used to BEGIN and END my day with a commute like this. How awful. Talk about starting your day on a bad note. My heart goes”