I first started this blog eight years ago. Then, I was so excited about the possibilities of working in tech after time spent burning out as a social worker. I named it Codedependence as a joke, a clever word play. I googled the word today and found this definition: ”The anger and frustration that grows out of an unsatisfying, unfulfilling or unpredictable relationship one has with an electronic device, especially a computer.” Perhaps ironically, this has come to mirror my own experience. I am forever grateful for the opportunities working in tech has created for me. It’s hard to regret the transition I made, between the people I’ve met, the amount my salary increased, the flexibility I got, and all that I’ve learned. However, I’m much less enchanted, and after six years of working 100% remotely, many days I wanted to throw my computer out the window.
Part of the problem came because I moved cities right before accepting my first fully remote job, with LaborVoices, where I’d be tackling labor abuses in supply chains. I had only moved an hour away from DC, but it was far enough that casual hangouts with my old friends happened much less frequently. Some friendships didn’t survive. A few have, and I treasure them. Then, two months into the job, I realized I was pregnant with my son. This first presented as exhaustion that led me to cancel most of the social events that had previously provided me outlets and was helping me build new relationships here in Baltimore. Meanwhile, my startup dream job started running out of money. I tried going to coworking spaces, but with no connection to the people there, I didn’t know how to make friends. The stress wore me down. Six months into my son’s job, between our funding crisis and my loneliness, I started looking for new jobs. I found one, a temporary, in person Salesforce consulting job that could only pay a fraction of my current salary. I convinced them to hire me three days a week while remaining at LaborVoices two days a week. I look back on that time as one of my most joyful and creative. However, having very little paid time off became challenging when my son got a weeklong stomach bug. And I still needed more security.
On a whim, I applied to a job with the Wikimedia Foundation, thinking Wikipedia would never hire me. I was wrong. After two months of interviews, I got the offer. It was more money than I’d even known to ask for and most importantly, offered very generous paid time off. The catch was I was returning to fully remote work. Okay, I said to myself, I’ll just try harder to find social opportunities. I’d made friends with some other mothers in my neighborhood, and I stayed connected with the nonprofit I’d been working with. I organized a writing group, joined a group of community organizers working on climate change as often as I could, went to a community garden, found people to go to coffee shops with, and at one point joined a group of women running at 6am. It worked okay for a while, but really, just okay. I didn’t have a lot of resiliency when friends couldn’t make it at the last minute, and when my daughter was born, the free time I had shrank. Then, in March 2020, the pandemic hit...the same week my mother died. A few months later, my dad, who had been living somewhat nearby, moved across the country. Some of my close friends moved away for new jobs.
So, now, I find myself struggling. I’ve started wondering if I should look for an in person job in tech (those are getting rarer) or return to social work. I realize I’m probably not alone. I also realize there are people who thrive working remotely. I work with many of them. In many ways, I’ve been one of them. For months, I thought if I just waited out the pandemic, it would get better. For a little while last year, we were podding with another family who’s daughter was in care with our kids. We’d have dinner every week or two weeks and it was always lovely and refreshing. But we had to change our caregiving situation, in large part because we realized our son was lonely, spending his days with two younger children. Now that we’re in this strange half-space where some people have resumed “normal” life, some people remain pretty locked down, and information about what we need to do changes daily, I’m not sure how to meet these needs anymore. I’m writing this after a gathering I organized last night had four out of the six other people attending cancel at the last minute. I was very grateful for the two who did make it, but it just underscored the vulnerability of my ability to meet my social needs.
The truth is that only part of this comes from working remotely. In the last few years, I’ve realized that I tend towards a more avoidant attachment style, and that I’ve long struggled with social anxiety. Being around people consistently used to pull me out of this, but it was an issue long before I worked remotely. I tend now to feel that I’m alone in this. Reddit and Al-anon meetings are the only places that remind me that’s not true. I’m writing and posting this blog post in case I’m not actually alone. I don’t have any 12 step process to follow to get out of it, or answers of any kind, just my experience and an attempt at self-awareness.
