Social Isolation

Oh cheeseballs... you can never win.

Why is it that when you work from an office you day dream, and yearn to work from home. "Ah, yes it would be better. Flexible time. No traffic. No petrol. The ability to do what you want. No boss breathing down your neck. No office gossip or some other employee in the next cubicle irritating the living shit out of you."

Yes, working from home sounds like the best plan.

I worked in an office. Now I work at home - it's been a few months now.

The tables have reversed. I can now see the pros and cons to both.

Yes I don't have to sit in traffic, or waste petrol (although this money that would have been saved is now used on my ever-growing phone bill phoning clients); I don't have to be watched by my boss continually or absorb any negative energy that lingers in offices. No watching the clock.

Yes, working from home has it's ups. But it also has it's downs.

Working from home, in all honesty is lonely. You have no one to chat to. Yes, you 'speak' to clients via emails or telephone calls but that constant noise of employees and friends in the office is no longer there.

I can speak to my dogs, but they don't talk back.

To add to this feeling, I now live on a farm. No cars passing or people on the streets - just the sound of nature. Yes, it's beautiful in all it's natural sounds, but I don't classify speaking to bugs or crickets or owls any form of communication.

So it's the quietness of the home office, the quietness of the farm and to add to this, I don't have normal TV or DSTV. I watch DVD's at night, but watching the same thing over and over again is brain-numbing. Watching TV, or the news at least keeps you in check with reality. Living in isolation far away from anything, makes you feel that you are not living in reality.

I also live miles away from anyone - so I don't get to see friends that much. I feel out of the loop with friends and miss opening my mouth and actually speaking; having an intellectual stimulating convo.

My mouth has been invisibly sealed. Where has my mouth gone?

I do feel socially isolated, but I guess that's what you guess when you don't work in an office; live in the bush or don't have DSTV.

I wonder how people overcome this loneliness working from home? I read an article about it - so it's obviously not just me feeling this way. I think all people who work from home have this. Whether they resort to talking to trees, or their cat I don't know.

Other than that, working from home is great.

I think I just need to see people more, go into the office a bit more and then I'll have the balance.

I need communication and social interaction.

Crickets, trees and owls - you will have no more of my communication.