The Unspoken Truths of WFH Life
Sure, working from home is great: you can sleep in, skip the commute, avoid fully dressing up for meetings, and even jump straight back into bed the moment you clock out. But it's not always rainbows and sunshine behind the scenes, and the hidden downsides of WFH life might even dissuade you from taking on a remote role. Think you're happier in your home office? Think again. Here are 20 things no one tells you about working remote.
1. How Lonely It Is
Working from home sounds like a dream—and it is, to an extent. Sure, you won't need to wake up extra early to get ready, pack your lunch, and commute to the office, but when you're doing your job remotely, you're often isolated. Without being able to meet your colleagues in person, it can get extremely lonely.
2. How Blurred Your Work-Life Balance Gets
Your bedroom becomes a place you sleep and where you get your tasks done. Your couch is where you eat dinner and where you host meetings. It might be convenient to work from home, but when the lines between your work and personal life get blurred, it can be tough to separate the two. You'll start to see your home as an office, and that isn't comforting.
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3. How You Don't Have the Proper Office Equipment
When you work in an actual office, you have all the equipment you need provided for you: separate monitors, an actual desk, an ergonomic chair, a noise-canceling headset. When working from home? You only have what you've provided for yourself with your own money, which may sometimes not be enough.
4. How You'll Miss Out on Office Banter
When you were working on-site, you probably weren't fond of office gossip and how rumors spread like wildfire daily. Sure, it might have made for interesting conversations the first few times, but then it got repetitive, and you wished you were working from home instead. But now that you are, you suddenly miss that banter and chit-chat.
5. How You May Never Meet Your Coworkers in Person
If your workplace doesn't have a hybrid model that combines working on-site with working from home, you may never get to meet your colleagues face-to-face—unless, of course, in-person company events are organized. That might make it feel strange, to only know your coworkers by the profile picture they've chosen for the communication platform your team uses.
6. How Finicky Your Wi-Fi Is
When you work from home, you have to constantly count on your own Wi-Fi to offer you a strong connection. Any local network outages or patchy signals and you won't get your tasks done on time, which will affect your performance.
7. How Demotivating It Can Be
When you're isolated and working alone, it can be extremely demotivating. You don't have any coworkers to chat or collaborate with in person to make your tasks and projects more exciting. It might be more bearable if you have a pet at home, but if not, your energy drains fairly quickly throughout your workday.
8. How Hard It Is to Keep Focused
It can be extremely hard to keep focused when you're working from home and surrounded by your personal life. You might see a few dishes in the sink as you're grabbing a snack and feel the need to wash them. You might see unfolded laundry in the basket and feel compelled to tidy that up. When you're remote, your attention constantly drifts.
9. How Awkward Virtual Meetings Are
Unless your team requires your camera to be on (which most of the time, it should be), you'll only be chatting with static profile pictures. This can make virtual meetings extremely awkward, as you'll only hear your colleagues' voices but not see their expressions or reactions.
10. How Long It Takes for Your Emails & Messages to Be Read
Even if you have an urgent question or issue, your messages and emails might take forever to be seen when you're working remotely. Your colleagues and managers may be busy with their own work, so there's no telling when they'll finally get back to you.
11. How Hard It Is to Schedule Breaks
When you're working from home, you're technically responsible for scheduling your own breaks and lunch. But when you're caught up with your tasks and constantly have your focus shifted, it can be hard to set and time when you should be stepping away.
12. How Hard It Is to Get Instant Feedback
Just like how it can be hard to receive prompt replies from your teammates, it can be difficult to get instant feedback on your work. After all, your only method of communication is through virtual means, and there's no physical desk you can just swing by to ask for it.
13. How You Might Become Introverted
When you're constantly isolated and working alone, you have limited time for social interactions, and you might even become introverted because of this. Suddenly, the thought of going out with your friends for dinner doesn't sound like a fun idea anymore, and you'd rather curl up in bed with your favorite show.
14. How Tech Issues Are a You-Problem
Just like how Wi-Fi problems might interfere with your productivity, any other tech issues—a frozen laptop, long loading times, a software update that takes 12 hours to finish—become a you-problem, If you were working in a physical office, everyone might get a break, but because it's your personal home equipment, it's your fault if things don't get done on time.
15. How Disorganized You Actually Are
It's easy to ignore how disorganized you are when you're away from home and working in-person at an actual office with a different desk, but when you're working remotely, your bad habits splay out in plain sight. From crumpled to-do lists to piles upon piles of folders and papers, your home workspace is a mess.
16. How a Cluttered Workspace Can Affect Your Productivity
Following up on the previous point, a cluttered workspace can significantly affect your productivity. For one, you might be compelled to clean everything up when you're still on the clock. Plus, when everything's strewn about, it's hard to find the materials you need to get your work done when they're buried beneath a mountain of things you forgot to throw away.
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17. How Easily Distracted You Get
When you're working from home, it's extremely easy to get distracted. One minute you're finishing up your task, and the next minute you're doing your laundry or taking your pooch for a walk because they wouldn't stop whining and crawling onto your lap. Honestly, it's a miracle you get anything done at all.
18. How You'll Need to Parent at the Same Time
If you're a parent, working from home might seem like a luxury: you get to make money and still take care of your kids while you're doing the grind. But you'll quickly realize that multitasking is probably not your forte, and your kids will only distract you further.
19. How Less You'll Move Around
Unless you have a standing desk at home, you'll most likely be sitting at your home office until you're off work. Sure, you might have still led a sedentary lifestyle even if you were working in person, but at least you would've been moving around when commuting there and back. The most you'll move when you're working remotely? Probably walking from your bed to your couch.
20. How Much More the Weather Affects Your Mood
When you're working remotely, there's not much that can distract you from the weather outside. That means when it rains or storms, you'll be in a gloomy mood all day. In contrast, if you were working in person, you would at least have your coworkers and the lull of the office to take your mind off the miserable weather outside.
