"The quiet guy who just likes listening to intelligent conversations and chiming in when they can" also misses the social interactions that happen by default in an office.
Overhearing conversations about other tech stacks/problems, conversations about vacations or plans, conversations about random political/education/local/global events - and learning something from those conversations is what's missing for me.
Switching from a vibrant office built around a family doctor's practice, with people who'd worked there for 15 years - to working from home where the only regular conversations with your wife are about her manual labor job or the details of what needs to be done around the house - has been super frustrating.
I don't want to go back to spending 30 minutes each way in the car, and going into some random office at a new job seems painful. The office building I was at was closed and the team's mostly disbanded, so that life is gone.
I miss the intellectual stimulation and I'm not sure how to get it back, the loneliness of not having someone with the same interests as you is killing me.
I'm 50/50 type of person, I want to be left alone when I need to concentrate, but I need someone to chat with once in a while. The best job I've ever had had flexible schedule, I could clock in and out at any time or not come in at all, just had to let the team know about my plans. But the best part of that job was that I could walk to the office. 0.5h walk is so different from 0.5h sitting in a car that I wouldn't even call it commuting, it's just hanging out in the city on my way to work. It was the best and cheapest way to improve my mental well being each day.
Ya, there aren't any local to me without driving 20 minutes and finding parking, and I'm too cheap to join one anyways.
Running group has helped, just hanging out with adults and overhearing conversations is nice - they're mostly running focused though.
My commute time was nice to just veg and listen to podcasts; it's weird how you have the same time in a day but don't ever just go sit in a chair and listen to a podcast for 30 minutes when that's what you did regularly for years.
Overhearing conversations about other tech stacks/problems, conversations about vacations or plans, conversations about random political/education/local/global events - and learning something from those conversations is what's missing for me.
Switching from a vibrant office built around a family doctor's practice, with people who'd worked there for 15 years - to working from home where the only regular conversations with your wife are about her manual labor job or the details of what needs to be done around the house - has been super frustrating.
I don't want to go back to spending 30 minutes each way in the car, and going into some random office at a new job seems painful. The office building I was at was closed and the team's mostly disbanded, so that life is gone.
I miss the intellectual stimulation and I'm not sure how to get it back, the loneliness of not having someone with the same interests as you is killing me.