Title: After two years of being beaten into this <i>new</i> way of working I honestly feel more at a loss for what my career is than any other time in my life.<p>I&#x27;ve been doing software work about four years now, first year or so was at a big co. next two were at a series B startup (8 mo. in person the rest remote due to covid).<p>I took a full-remote job at another startup thinking their processes would be better calibrated and I&#x27;m finding being social &#x2F; building any kind of work relationships being nothing but an uphill battle.  I&#x27;m not incredibly social outside of work, sure I can go to a bar and meet new people relative to a group of friends and don&#x27;t necessarily think I have serious social anxiety (more than the average person) but the idea of 80% of accessible work for me (looking at my level of ability &#x2F; experience &#x2F; leetcode foo) is sort of freaking depressing.<p>My growth has without a doubt stalled, I can focus sort of but working from home with an office isn&#x27;t great and having to pay for a noisy co-working space isn&#x27;t exactly a &quot;win&quot; either.<p>I&#x27;m in New York currently, sort of decided to hold out while I have a group of friends here &#x2F; sort of took a risk hoping office culture would sort of come back.  Realizing that&#x27;s likely not looking like a probable outcome at this point and curious what others on HN think about this.  Even at the Big Co. I could get lunch with people, found mentorship relatively easily etc.  Now, it&#x27;s this bizarre constant process of scheduling, trying to &quot;leverage&quot; the time of who you&#x27;re talking to and all feels very effete and robotic.  I should also add that if I ever have to start doing meetings in VR I&#x27;ll willingly just become a lumberjack and chuck my MacBook into the nearest river.<p>Basically, I&#x27;m on the fence in terms of moving into a rural area with cool outdoor things (and lower CoL) since why live in New York without an office.  Or stay in NYC for the &quot;network&quot; but what&#x27;s the point if I&#x27;m not super social and if I don&#x27;t have the chops to really see the comp gains you get working here?<p>The Future of Work TM is looking pretty bleak - what do you kind folks think?<p>Cheers!
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