In London, the social element of my role was huge. There would be events and trade shows both in the city and around the world, from Las Vegas to New York. Between that and the long hours, I felt that my social life was fairly solid. But when my last role became remote during Covid, and then I switched to another, I realised that the colleagues I’d considered friends never really were. People have completely ghosted me since I’ve left; now I see there is a real distinction between work peers and actual mates.
Maybe part of this is an age thing – I’m 48, in the peak of midlife male loneliness. All the long hours I was putting in at work meant I didn’t give enough time or effort to the friendships I had outside of it, and many of those I was once close with now live too far away to meet up with regularly. We still chat on WhatsApp, but on the few occasions I have met up with them, we were so used to swapping virtual messages that it was almost weird being in person together, and we struggled with what to say.
Like those in the study, I’ve gone from talking to colleagues on and off all day to hours’ worth of silence while my kids are at school and partner is at work. On a good day, it’s fine; on a bad day, I’m really aware of it. Having so much time without human contact has led me to do strange things. Over one period, when my partner and kids were away (I had just started my new job, so didn’t take the break), I ended up speaking to my spaniel, Norman, and replying to myself in his dog voice, just to have someone to talk to. On other occasions I’ll talk to myself, which probably makes me sound insane. Because I work across time zones, my office will typically be asleep for half of my work day. There are days where my partner comes home and I’m just a stream of content. She’ll say: “Clearly you haven’t spoken to anyone today.”
Being remote has made my world much smaller. I’m not housebound – I got a dog to get me out of the house – but that’s usually 40 minutes in the morning, in between other things that need doing. While I used to spend my commute watching something or listening to a podcast, now I check all of my work platforms constantly as I’m always right beside my work devices. I somehow have less time for myself with those few “wasted” hours of travel a day gone. At home, there’s never quite enough time to go anywhere: in the 20 or 30 minutes I sometimes have between errands or work there’s not enough time to do something enjoyable, so I just end up thinking about work; I’m aware of it becoming an obsession. I never get further than a few miles a day, unlike when I was travelling around for my role before. There’s also a lack of purpose that comes with not needing to specifically be anywhere, that I hadn’t expected before I went fully remote.
I never thought I’d miss office gossip, but I do. No water cooler chats means losing another form of human connection. Those conversations really aren’t the same over Slack or Teams. I miss that face-to-face interaction with my peers, those spontaneous decisions to get coffee or lunch. Eating a sandwich on-screen with someone watching you doesn’t really have the same effect.
I feel ungrateful for complaining when I know that working this way has had a positive impact on the amount of time I can spend with my family. But at weekends, with my kids getting older and doing their own thing, I’ve discovered that putting everything into work and family life at home has left me with nothing left for myself. As soon as the kids are at school, I’m in work mode. Once I finish work, I’m in dad mode. So there’s no space for Nick mode any more. I feel like these are just obligations I need to meet as a husband and father, in a job that pays for everything for our family. I need to keep everyone happy at the risk of my own happiness. On weekends, I find myself doing DIY and mowing the lawn, and driving everyone else around; I can’t remember what I used to do when I was not doing all of this. It makes me sad: I want to be able to say I’m going off to do interesting things, but I find it impossible to fit those in with everything else I need to do. Before children, I acted and did stand-up comedy, but it’s strange to think of how life was then compared to now.
Being at home all the time also means my work is somehow considered differently to when you’re doing it away at an office. There’s always someone asking: “You’re here, can you just do this for me? Can you pop out and get some milk? Is the delivery coming today?” It’s that underlying idea that working from home means you’re not really working. I think it would be easier just to leave the house in the morning and come back at night, because then you’re just not around for the little jobs that need doing, or tech support for the entire family, or fixing something, or glueing a toy back together.
I never intended to be fully remote: before Covid, working from home was a bit of a luxury. You’d manage to get the odd day here and there for a nativity play or parents’ evening, but it was typically frowned upon by seniors. Now, I see that being in the office at least some of the time would be best for me. Still I know that the job market is brutal – last year I applied to 350 roles and secured just one interview. Given that my current employers are very understanding about things like family commitments, I feel I should be grateful for my lot, and stick with it.
I do hope that I can recover in myself what working from home has made me lose. But sometimes, I worry that I’ve left it too late.
As told to Charlotte Lytton
