> but your coworkers are simply not there for that.
Yes they are, many of them would be there in a similar situation. The work place colleagues is the main pool one draws "friends" from nowadays in very many cases.
Yes they are, many of them would be there in a similar situation. The work place colleagues is the main pool one draws "friends" from nowadays in very many cases.
There are plenty of reasons why many can't welcome coworkers into your private life. It's a huge discrimination risk.
Aside from that, coupling social needs with employment needs creates a form of codependence with the workplace. You have more incentive to stay at a job that is mistreating you because you'll lose your friends if you leave.
Maybe some people are ok with those dynamics, but I'm personally not, and I'll not have my colleagues forcing it upon me.
You can say that, but the data says otherwise[0], with time with friends peaking at ~18 or so. Time spent with coworkers surpasses time spent with friends @ 20.
I agree this is a problem in some ways (the discrimination you mention, conflict of power, etc), but in many ways it makes sense. You're spending 40-50hrs/week on an activity that involves others, you're probably going to have some non-commercial relationship with them. And maybe the opportunity of a good life is in finding that non-commercial relationship, while making money?
To me - it's actually the suburbanization, the glass windows between everyone in cars on some "stroad"... of american life that causes this. The lack of literal physical interactions with others reduces your community to only the nuclear essentials.
I'm desperately searching for a life that combines meaningful work, large community, privacy, and space. I'm still searching.
Let's invert the problem. My coworkers are stuck with me. More or less, whether they love me or hate me, they don't really get to say no to being around me.
To that end, my goal around my coworkers is to be pleasant and not too opinionated. We'll talk about non-combustible sort of topics and I'll try to keep myself restrained on strong opinions.
I don't do that with my friends. I pick my friends and my friends pick me. I am very close to my friends and we know each other fairly intimately, including our thorny opinions and sex lives and non-HR approved behaviors. We are friends.
Do not burden your coworkers with your relationship. Be professional. Have real friends - and be real with them so that you may know them and be known in return.
Similarly, I am not required to go through the company in order to socialize with friends I made in that company. Indeed, I maintain friendships I made in companies I no longer work for.
Lastly, making friends through your job is how it always has been. Talk to your parents.
My wife and I have chronic conditions- we frequently hit our annual max within the first three months of the year. If I don't switch to a new job before that fills up, I've wasted $15,000. For me, switching jobs is essentially a $15,000 fine.
So yeah, insurance being tied to a specific company is very much an incentive to stay with that company.
Switching insurance is a hassle. Maybe in some areas plans are more fungible, but where I live there are two main insurance companies with two highly disjoint networks. Switching jobs has a 50% chance of forcing us to also switch pediatricians, which is a huge hassle when the kids have finally become comfortable with our current one.
So in theory it’s not a limitation, but in practice it often is.
As far as I know, employers are free to terminate anyone having health issues that render them unable to perform their duties:
https://work.chron.com/termination-employment-due-ill-health...
FMLA (if employer has more than 50 employees) or a state disability law might protect employment for up to 12 weeks or so, but other than that, there is no reason a business has to keep a sick employee who cannot fulfill duties on payroll.
The people that get screwed are employees of employers that do not offer health insurance. They have to buy with post tax money.
It's not like the before times where you'd need to visit a bunch of brokers and hope someone could find a plan you might qualify for, if you're lucky.
What you usually miss out on is non-emergency coverage outside your home area, whether that's limited to the state or county you live in depends, and sometimes it's pretty bad if you live in an area where it's common to cross county or state boundaries but the exchange plans don't allow that.
And my time on the bus far surpasses the time I spend with my mother, so I suppose I love the bus more than my mother.
I don't know if you intended it, but this directly equates work to socializing.
I don't seek out alternatives to socializing because I don't use work as a socialization tool. If anything, people using work for their primary socialization outlet are using it as an alternative to socializing.
That’s not healthy for you (those people), not for society, and especially not for local communities.
What we would benefit from is workplaces having a strong stance on which culture they belong to, and applicants understanding that, respecting it, and seeking employment in the desired culture.
Make friends where you make them.
Now that I work from home, I can take a break to go on a walk with my family, and we can eat lunch together. It's a huge difference even with no change in time spent working.
How about "Want a friend? Go find one. We're at work." Work is the only place where people who aren't wealthy can get their pay. Work, a place where people are locked in for 8 hours a day under pain of starvation and homelessness, is the only place where some minority of people can make "friends." We shouldn't tailor everything around those people, even though they're likely to be the most vocal.
I feels like you're saying "fuck you, I got mine" to new entrants to the field.
I know wfh is great for others. It's terrible for others. No one is forcing you to do a thing. WFH is certainly here to stay for many companies.
I’m not sure what you mean by “something important” but I don’t think that’s significantly different than a risk you might take with a neighbor or a classmate. You can be stuck with those as well.
That just sounds like a strong stance that minorities (of any type) should be restricted to a tiny number of companies and fields, and that companies should be very opinionated and strict about aspects of applicants that are completely unrelated to their technical, organizational or communications skills.
Work is 1/3 of ones life. I don't get how many people are hostile to socialization during that time.