Loneliness on the Job: Why No Employee Is an Island

This is my experience exactly. I'm sure at a certain company size it might help form connections, but at my larger company people arrange into cliques. It's like the high school cafeteria all over again.

I've switched to eating at my desk, not because I don't want to be social, but because it's less painful than being rejected by the cliques.

We have a dining area that no one uses due to fear of being seen as lazy.

Worked in a large lab that had a pretty good cafeteria, where they would rotate caterers in over time. Lunch meetings were regular, and when there wasn't an actual meeting, I'd grab a co-worker or one of the project leads to have lunch with. Really laid back affairs over all, but I feel like I learned a lot during these impromptu meetings. Often, about things that had nothing to do with what we were working on, but ended up being useful. Got to meet a lot of people I wouldn't have otherwise because people would show up mid-conversation looking for a place to eat.

On the opposite end, my current job is effectively a cubicle farm. No one talks to each other unless necessary, and only a handful of people ever go to lunch together. Cliques are a fact of life here, but I'd bet the average person feels more lonely here than at the previous office.

I'm not saying it's entirely caused by the dining area. But the dining area certainly encouraged the culture at the previous office, at the least.

Basically, they correlated about 20 questions that were predictive of job performance across many different verticals, from the Air Force to McDonalds to software.

The most successful managers cultivated environments where employees are friends, and generally weren’t lonely. There were other interesting factors too. It’s worth reading.

2) I've never worked anywhere with free food, so I don't know if that would change things, but have worked at places with a full-service cafeteria, a lunch/break room, and no break/lunch room. The place that only had the lunch room seemed to have the most socialization, with all levels/types of staff bringing their lunch and chatting as a group. Even people who didn't bring a lunch would still pop in. Surprisingly, no real cliques ever formed (even people who came, sat and never said a word seemed very welcome).

The cafeteria workplace seemed to only attract those who needed to purchase food. Though, it did seem like more of a social place around morning coffee break (again, mostly people purchasing coffee).

The place without a lunchroom pretty much had everyone either eating at their desks or leaving for lunch. I found this pretty abysmal and I'd classify myself as an introvert. Compared to the lunchroom situation, I certainly knew less about what everyone actually did in their jobs, so it really was a net loss even in terms of productivity.

3) That's a hard one. I think it's okay for people to be left out if they choose to, but I think if your culture relies on cliques, then it will eventually drive out anyone who doesn't fit (and I'm sure at some places, that's seen as a positive).

This might be true, but it also isn't necessarily a good thing. What kind of relationships? And with whom?

The kinds of people who will accept below-market compensation in return for "security" are likely to be relatively risk-averse, passive, disinterested and uncommitted. Which in turn would create what would be, for many people, a stale, depressing and moribund environment. Some amount of turnover is healthy. Fresh personalities, energy, ideas and perspectives spark conversation, connection and change. And the impermanence of workplace relationships is part of what makes them meaningful and worthwhile. Kind of like what mortality does for human relations on a slightly longer scale.

To be honest, if you offered me a 40 hour a week max, $60k (increasing with inflation), and something similar to tenure after working there 1 year...yeah I'd take it. The core problem every adult runs in at some point is their outside-work responsibilities and long term stability is the most valuable commodity you can offer them.

That offer doesn't really exist right now, even where employees are "highly valued" like software development.

My only real stress in life is the possibility of unemployment that might require me to relocate to some place I don't want to be (like SF) with a high cost of living and high levels of urbanization.

Hmm. I am thinking kind of orthogonal (independent) of it mostly. On one hand with high turnover, you might lose connections quicker so it's harder. On the other, the person in question might be the one moving on to a better company and thus be less lonely as a result.

> Will it make it worse by highlighting things, or will it encourage everyone to eat in the [company provided] dining area, sparking new relationships? If both, what's the distribution?

Could make it worse, definitely. I like think of it as a necessary thing -- if the person is the only one eating at their desk then they are probably missing out on important gossip. And gossip can be important - what's coming up next in projects, who is leaving. Some stuff is boring, some stupid but some important. Unfortunately it's probably better to think of it as part of the job duty but it's also kind of a forced socialization and it might help with loneliness.

> If measures to reduce loneliness results in the formation of cliques, is that a positive outcome if those left out feel alienated?

The article touches on that. It's the part about some managers just organizing Christmas parties for example, it provides for a chance for interaction but doesn't increase necessarily the chance of forming relationships.

I'd say a better way to form relationships is to get people to work together on ... actual work stuff. Problems they can think through, solve and ship together as a team.

On the other hand, I have a group of five friends that I made at my previous job that I keep in touch with in a private Slack group and we meet for lunch once or twice a month.

I knew I was going to be a short timer at this job for various reasons and never bothered.

I do keep in touch with one former coworker at a job I had in 2011. I married her....

A lot of my work is being outsourced to Poland and I am thinking I could use their distrust of each other to my advantage in some way.

The article says we should deceive employees into thinking we're all a family so we can make more money out of them. As far as I know there's a lot of effort in that direction by the american industry (ie forcing wallmart employees to do a humiliating group dance/song at the start of their shifts).

However there's one thing the author forgets: If you actually create strong relationships in your office, you run into the danger of them unionizing! Uh-oh! Time to do a U-turn. What if your workers demand higher wages collectively? What if they protest the firing of one of their friends? So I guess now their goal becomes "how to make people think they're in good company while making sure they're not". Fortunately it's rather hard to trick people into this.

I'm skeptical any successful business treats high-skilled employees that way.

Here and now, in late capitalism, we seem to be aspiring to some other arrangement, which is commendable in itself, but I observe it with healthy skepticism. It is my responsibility to make myself happy. I'm lucky to have a boss who cares about my well-being, but I see his efforts as secondary and something to be leveraged in order to improve the company as a whole, not somehow make me happier as a person. I'll take care of that last part myself.

Edit: a late-breaking thought I would like to include. He who externalizes happiness is bound to be disappointed, as the incentive is simply missing to make others happy without asking for anything is return. Better learn to DIY happiness.

Your confusion is as surprising to me as workplace loneliness is to you and I'm genuinely curious to see your answer.