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Zoe Girl
3-13-18, 1:58pm
So I realized how much my human contact time has been dropping lately. Typical single parent with grown up kids I think. I am trying to get out more now that my son moved out, just hard because it has to be a special thing to meet people.

I have an assistant who works 30 hours a week and he is a nice friendly young guy. Just the conversation about weekends and his girlfriend are nice. However I realize that several changes in our department have reduced our contact. We all used to have multiple sites and have to come to the office twice a month to at least do payroll. We were all crowded in a really crappy room, competing for printer usage, and working on the same task. Now we all do this from our own sites. We also used to have a purchaser and met her for shopping as a large group. Now we each have a card, shop alone, and reconcile our own expenses. I realize now how much I liked just that basic chance to see colleagues 3 times a month without any special event or training.

I think I would never want to work from home and live alone, that would be too much isolation for me. In fact today I took a break, went to Starbucks and just played a video game on my tablet to get out and more human contact.

herbgeek
3-13-18, 2:12pm
just played a video game on my tablet to get out and more human contact.

Ok I'm confused on this one. How do you get more human contact playing a video game?

Tybee
3-13-18, 3:04pm
Ok I'm confused on this one. How do you get more human contact playing a video game?

I totally get this. You get to go out and order a cappuccino from someone, you get to stand in line, you get to exchange pleasantires, you get to look at different things than your own 4 walls.
I work at home and a trip to the grocery store can be a sanity saver.

iris lilies
3-13-18, 3:26pm
I knew I could never work st home.

I see what it has done to my neighbor, once very social, now barely able to come out of her house. every trip out is a big giant deal.

That work at home thing aint all its cracked up to be, especially if the one lives in an area where you drive everywhere. That driving thng limits getting ro k ow neighbors. Here, we can walk to a gocery store, walk to a coffee shop, walk to several restaurants and bars for a drink or dinner. Our neighborhood associatioj merts around the corner from where we live. We see neighbors we know out and about. That mitigates being in your own house all 5e time, I think. If yoi can step,out your front door and see people and have something to talk with them about, it is good.

sweetana3
3-13-18, 3:31pm
I am happy to go to exercise four times a week to see someone other than my husband.

It is a struggle to get out when some meetings are at night and I do not like driving at night. It is also a struggle right now due to the quantity of potholes. We have already lost 3 hubcaps. Need to make more of an effort.

Zoe Girl
3-13-18, 3:38pm
Ok I'm confused on this one. How do you get more human contact playing a video game?

Like Tybee was saying, I am not playing the entire time. I talk to the barista, I go to the same Starbucks all the time and now have a gold card!! I chatted a minute with a person at the big shared table. I didn't need a table to myself. And it was getting out of the building. You have all heard that my office this year is a converted closet with one outlet, and an open vent to the music classroom. So I hear (very nice) singing and music all day long, and need a break!

When I had little kids and was primarily at home I would walk to the store for even just one thing just to be around adult humans!

herbgeek
3-13-18, 3:53pm
I get it now ZG! I work at home, and going to Target or the grocery store is my outlet. :D

catherine
3-13-18, 3:57pm
I totally get this. You get to go out and order a cappuccino from someone, you get to stand in line, you get to exchange pleasantires, you get to look at different things than your own 4 walls.
I work at home and a trip to the grocery store can be a sanity saver.

I'm with you. And even traveling on the road, it took about 100 room service meals to realize that I was absolutely fine asking for a table or 1 at a nice restaurant. Cabin fever is real.

Zoe Girl
3-13-18, 4:04pm
I get it now ZG! I work at home, and going to Target or the grocery store is my outlet. :D

It is really bad when you purposefully wear red and khaki just to shop at Target, people talk to you then!

JaneV2.0
3-13-18, 5:08pm
I enjoyed working at home--it sure beat the commute, and I require very little face to face contact. For much of my career, I chose to work an off shift alone because I couldn't stand office politics or gossip. It takes all kinds.

frugal-one
3-13-18, 6:29pm
I'm with Jane. I LOVED working from home. I did have to go out on assignments but LOVED being able to stay home the rest of the time. I got more work done because I was not constantly interrupted or dealing with office BS.

rosarugosa
3-13-18, 7:14pm
I think I had a good mix with WFH 2 days and in the office 3 days per week.

lmerullo
3-13-18, 8:30pm
I need very little human interaction. Sometimes, I end up feeling I need a detox due to too much!

Hubby has high needs, so we balance each other out.

I work outside the home but have had opportunity to WFH, and it is a very good fit for me. Currently, I go out to the parking lot to grab my morning and afternoon snacks. That's the only movement i get for hours at a time. At home, I walk and talk on the phone and don't feel so "held hostage to a desk".

Chicken lady
3-13-18, 9:44pm
Working at home would be problematic for me since my work involves children and having them come here would be well past my boundaries.

but I could stay home and not talk to another person for days.

in fact, my youngest just called and said she had spoken to her brother yesterday and mentioned talking to me. He said “you called her too?” And she said “yes.” And he said “poor mom! she was at the food bank all morning, then Grammie called, you called, I called, and when I called, she had just gotten off the phone with dad!”

i like you guys guys and my hoarding website friends and the way you all stay in the computer and don’t make any noise.

i do enjoy time with intelligent, funny adults now and then. And I check in often with my heart daughter at work. Mostly about my social interactions (was this ok, what is appropriate here...). She is leaving for a new job next year, and I told her “I’m afraid i’m going to have a hard time humaning without you next year.” She says I will be ok. I will also miss her because we can have entire conversations that are mostly intonation and body language.

Williamsmith
3-13-18, 10:33pm
I am an introvert who has been conditioned by my former profession to tolerate socialization. But since my retirement it’s been this journey rediscovering my roots. I could have chosen a path at a young age that led to an isolated lifestyle. I could have if my to be wife hadn’t chosen me like some rescue dog. I was a sight, long hair down past my shoulders, ragged sweatshirts and faded jeans. Not really a direction and an attitude to go with it.

I’m pretty good at communicating one on one but in a crowd I’ll just listen. Big crowd.....I’ll get wore out. I can’t multitask anymore. My voice is out of shape. I did a lot of talking in the past. Interviewing and interrogating took it out of me. I want nothing to do with people for the most part. I could proofread reports and consult if I wanted to. Truth is, Old coworkers run into me and ask what I’m doing. I say, “Whatever I damn well please.”

Work from home ....oh yeah, no problem. Going through the drive through at Tim Hortons provides me with all the human contact I need for three days. And half the time I won’t get the right change.

JaneV2.0
3-14-18, 10:40am
I am an introvert who has been conditioned by my former profession to tolerate socialization. But since my retirement it’s been this journey rediscovering my roots. I could have chosen a path at a young age that led to an isolated lifestyle. I could have if my to be wife hadn’t chosen me like some rescue dog. I was a sight, long hair down past my shoulders, ragged sweatshirts and faded jeans. Not really a direction and an attitude to go with it.

I’m pretty good at communicating one on one but in a crowd I’ll just listen. Big crowd.....I’ll get wore out. I can’t multitask anymore. My voice is out of shape. I did a lot of talking in the past. Interviewing and interrogating took it out of me. I want nothing to do with people for the most part. I could proofread reports and consult if I wanted to. Truth is, Old coworkers run into me and ask what I’m doing. I say, “Whatever I damn well please.”

Work from home ....oh yeah, no problem. Going through the drive through at Tim Hortons provides me with all the human contact I need for three days. And half the time I won’t get the right change.

Hahaha! This is pretty much me, but I get my human contact at the post office.

ApatheticNoMore
3-14-18, 11:35am
I don't want to work from home at least not as an employee (self-employment would be a different ballgame and in many ways might actually suit me as I think I have the kind of personality for it BUT I don't necessarily see a lot of practical options for me there ...).

But as an employee, oh heck no, I want an office I can go to and at least have workplace and homeplace (although work always interferes, it's 3am and work is calling ... well what choice is there but to pick up the phone and I have). But really I'd rather commute a couple hours a day than work from home as an employee, that's how little I want that.

rosarugosa
3-14-18, 1:37pm
I do think it's important for those of us who live with a spouse, SO or roommate to acknowledge that we are starting with a different baseline of human interaction than someone who lives alone.
I am also finding myself a bit more tolerant of socialization since retiring since I can now indulge in a lot more alone by myself time, and I don't have to give that up in order to do something social like I did when working. Work can both help fulfill social needs and drain the "socialization battery" of introverts, it would seem. I used to have sort of a rule that I wouldn't do a social thing two weekends in a row, and now that rule is no longer necessary (yes, "fun" is indeed my middle name).

Williamsmith
3-14-18, 1:41pm
So your new name is “rosafunrugosa”?

Chicken lady
3-14-18, 1:58pm
Definitely a different baseline. I love my husband. I love spending time with him. I have always slept much better with another person in the room (as long as that person isn’t noisy - like music, snoring is ok, or using lights) but by Monday, I really want him to go to work. Even if he played golf most of the weekend. And when he travels for work for a week - aside from the sleeping, it’s lovely.

if I were single, I guess I would have to get some friends. Or at least a large dog that snored?

JaneV2.0
3-14-18, 2:10pm
I'm starting to think I need more human contact, and will be planning my eventual retirement venue with that in mind. Someone to call the ambulance, ya know.

That part about being comforted by one's husband sleeping nearby made me laugh--I'd just add him to my Worry Wheel...

rosarugosa
3-14-18, 2:24pm
So your new name is “rosafunrugosa”?

LOL, doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?