WFH only is low quality experience for me. No close bonding. Just zoom calls. Hybrid/Flex is the way to go I think. No need to be in the office 100%, but show up if you can.
I think Hybrid/Flex is the way to go, rather than pure WFH, because of the social connections, BUT it's also utterly pointless with distributed teams.
I'm on a distributed team. I have to fucking go into the office to fucking zoom from there. Plus it's a hoteling setup, so it's even hard to know who's around and my workspace is always a little off.
Also share in your experience that I'm going into Zoom with my team on a different coast, or other teams across the world. I'm the only one at my hq. I was thinking about this the other day and it's actually kinda nice - the people around me are on different teams so I get to talk to them about their work and I don't have deal with my team complaining endlessly about our problems! :)
There might be real reasons to be physically present at some places, but I think it's important to remember many places are like the above and the reasons for coming in are complete bullshit. For most people in an office coming in is mainly because they don't have an office at home. That's not a problem for most geeks who generally have a far better setup at home.
You have more time for relationships outside of work, but for myself I find it much easier to work with others if I have some meaningful concept of who they are, and they have some meaningful concept of who I am.
Plenty of millenials and Gen Z can
We've been building groups online ever since we were little
I hate to break the news but most relationships simply are loose and impermanent, we just don't usually notice how brittle they actually are.
As for trust, is it really reasonable to trust someone more or less just because they've been in front of you vs not? And I mean that both ways: too trusting of people in front of us and not enough of people away.
Probably true at some level, but I'd wager that's much more common for Gen Z and younger millennials for a variety of reasons, as well as among people who just aren't really authentic, suburbanites, and people who just don't invest in friendship building.
However, that's a bit of a silly comparison, online relationships have some value, maybe a lot maybe a little, but they aren't an equal substitute for a friend in meatspace
I make no claims to reasonableness. We are not creatures of pure reason and our friendships are never totally rational. All I claim is that there's something which ties offline friends to me and I to them, particularly if we've worked together, which is not present for any of my online friend groups.
Even after WFH for a long time I think everyone becomes used to it, but there is definitely something missing.
Same as junk food isn’t necessarily the cause of health issues - rather lack of enough healthy, not processed to the tits food is the cause.
Replacing most/all food intake with junk food is going to be bad.
Doing it periodically with enough of the ‘real thing’ to compensate? No issues.
The issue is not enough of the real deal. Which is possible until something breaks because of the alternative, but not necessary.
If you put someone in a capsule in say Antarctica, and they only communicated with other people via video chat - would anyone be surprised if they went crazy?
Hell, I think we’d all be surprised if they didn’t.
The challenge right now is a lot of people (including many people here) are de facto in that pod in a way that they can’t see, because theoretically they could walk outside and have conversations, etc.
They just won’t actually do it, because there are less visible factors pushing them away - factors that in many cases they aren’t allowed to see or acknowledge.
It is possible, and in many places quite easy, to make local friends without relying on coworkers.
Facebook Groups has been very helpful to find local groups.
It’s also pretty easy to demonstrate how there is a direct relationship between how hard that is to do, and obesity and bad health outcomes.
Yes, caused by toxic corporate culture and the modern American work week. There are no third spaces because everyone is busy working, and we all hate the people we work with.
When people say "community", your corporate hell-hole should be the absolute last thing to enter your mind. The fact it's what you turn to and long for really highlights the problem. We've destroyed communities and conned the average joe into thinking work life is their life. Their family. Now we take that away and they're nothing.
The problem isn't the taking away, the problem is getting to a point where the only thing standing between happiness and being a loser is asking how the weather is going by the water cooler.
[citation needed]
But let's go to the core of the argument: there are 2 groups, one values social interaction/bonding at work and the other doesn't. One group likes to have a mental image of who other people are, the other group prefers to focus on their work instead. The first group may even find it more difficult to work with someone with "no bond" whereas the other group just goes on with their work.
The problem is, each of these groups project their vision of co-operation to the rest, that's why the first group insists on hybrid and the other group on remote-only (fortunately nobody except some PHBs insists on RTO...). If you can't understand the other group, it's difficult to have an agreement.
My take is: work for the company that is in accord with your values and the ways you prefer to work. For me it's remote-only and there is no way I would change it, no matter what.
That's why the ideal solution here is a choice arrangement (aka flex), where the people who want RTO or Partial RTO can self-organize in the office, and the others can self-organize elsewhere.
Which is fine and understandable. Some people actually enjoy their work and like spending time with their colleagues (due to shared interests, worldviews etc.).
> actual relationships and not at work relationships.
I don’t see a difference or rather why can’t there be a significant overlap between the two (after this has always been the case for most people). Why wouldn’t you choose to work with the people you enjoy spending time with if you have the option?
Because in practice this doesn't work. Someone gets mad at someone, someone leaves the company, HR gets involved, etc etc.
It's all fun and games but I can't call my work friend a dumb bitch, can I? Well then how good of friends are we?
Similarly, I have many friends who I love dearly, but if I had to live with them, I know our relationship would implode. Being roommates and being friends are ALSO two different things. And, often, living with your best friends isn't a treat - it's a nightmare.
I dont think there will be a clear solution to the issue. I think companies will sort into those with in person cultures and remote cultures, but there will always be some dissatisfied minority in each one.
The burden will then be on the employee. If you dont want to work in person, dont accept an offer with that in the job requirements. Inversely, if you want in person relations, dont join a remote company.
For me, the more the two categories overlap, the happier I am. I like working with people who I deeply enjoy and trust. People I can laugh with and be honest with.
Afterall, the reality of a 40 hour week is that I spend as much time with these people as my wife and family. Life is too short for me to spend 40 hours without real connection.
That's fine, but contextually it would seem more important what you'd prefer to be the case, not what is the case.
As in, would you prefer to have a greater portion of your social circle made up of friends outside the places you've worked, or are you happier having most of those come from work?
However, the way I view it, having fewer friends from work doesn't imply making more friends outside of work.
I spend 40ish hours the the workplace either way. If I categorically avoid seeking or making friends there, that doesn't mean I'm spending more time looking elsewhere. It just means I'm spending 40hrs/week friendless.
At least, I'd think the point would be to spend other unrelated time doing other stuff with whoever you have chemistry with, and maybe go so far as to suggest if the only capacity in which you've spent time with someone is at work, it's not really a friendship.
Lets call it 45 or 50 due to commuting. With that said, that seems to be begging the question. If you weren't spending all that time in the workplace or commuting (in other words, if you worked remote), you'd have more time and opportunity to make friends outside of work.
Of course, none of this stuff is binary time spent.
Working remote, for example, you could hang out with friends or family or neighbors in the middle of the day for lunch, the commute savings time is just a bonus.
People’s personal life and people being interested in you is just that : people. Most people do this naturally for the reasons stated above.
Not everyone is job hopping, and I’ve made plenty of friends in the office.
You're paying by not job hopping, and your friends aren't that deep of friends. You bet your ass you can get into hot water with them when you have the corporate power structure standing in between.
I don't know why someone would be content taking the risks and downsides of corporate America into their personal relationships. I'd rather gain more time, by working from home, and then using that time to make friendships. And then also hop around and make a bunch of money without guilt.
In my case I’ve made lifelong friends in the office - we’ve had different experiences in our respective jobs.
People bond at the office because they have no personal time and energy left to bond outside.
That’s the goal. You are bound to the company. They want control and for your social life to be centered around work.
Before that, I spent years talking to the “business” as an in house architect for two companies.
My coworkers are not my family nor are they people I need to “bond” with. We work well together, I do a lot of mentoring and teaching, etc.
I’ve had 9 and hopefully soon 10 jobs in almost 30 years.
Whatever bad things I can say about Amazon (and I have a shit ton of bad things to say about Amazon), they did teach me how to work in a mostly remote culture. The department I worked in was remote before Covid and is still exempt from the RTO requirements. I’m no longer working there
Currently I keep in touch with 3 people I’ve ever worked with and one of those three is my wife.
I don’t want to live in a high cost city and in fact I moved to Florida partially because it was a state tax free state and low cost of living.
Maybe I'm small minded, but I struggle to imagine people starting office romances from remote relations.
I started dating my now wife in 2011. I wasn’t working remotely then.
But at 37, I had an active social life and a large friend group of people outside of work from the gym. I was in the fitness industry as a part time fitness instructor. In an alternate universe I might have gotten serious about someone in my friend group.
You would be amazed at how easy it is to meet woman as one of the few straight male fitness instructors.
My wife and I moved to a new city last year. I make it a point to fly back to our former city around once a quarter to hang out with a group of friends to play cards, we travel together with another friend group at Least once a year and we end up in each others city for random reasons throughout the year and I go to my childhood home/where I went to college to go to football ganes with some of my college friends
What you’re describing is literally bonding.
If you disagree, I’d love to know what you think bonding is.
You’re the one who felt as though “bonding” with people at work was beneath you — seemingly regardless of whether it was in person or remote — and who then went on to describe things you do at work which were excellent examples of bonding.
> WFH only is low quality experience for me. No close bonding. Just zoom calls. Hybrid/Flex is the way to go I think. No need to be in the office 100%, but show up if you can.
You said you didn’t care about bonding then went on to describe the bonding activities you participate in.
We go hang out, go camping together, and watch each others kids,
It would be moronic to think coworkers will "automatically" be friends, but I have found work to be a great place to hunt for friends.
Also, it helps to have friends in a competitive environment. It can be very good for you and good for them. You just have to collaborate to boost competitive advantage against everyone else. Friends that will talk you up to leadership (with justification) is basically a workplace hack. Not to mention being friends with your boss or boss's boss. Extremely good for you.
In contacts of the greater discussion, I'm sure some people like you are capable of developing these relationships virtually, while others are not. That said, I wouldn't trust a virtual coworker a thousand miles away to watch my kids, haha.
The tone of your post doesn't really help. You're not a child so you don't go looking for bonding in the workplace? Haha okay Mr Adult. Jesus Christ. Forming relationships is such a basic human thing.
As much as I love the many benefits of working from home—especially as a dad—I find the work experience to be hit or miss, often feeling low-quality.
You used to be able to have real connections with colleagues, but now almost everything feels superficial at best, whether through Zoom calls or disconnected Slack messages.
One thing I especially miss is whiteboarding sessions with a couple of smart colleagues as we work on a difficult problem; you simply can’t replicate that feeling digitally.
The only who really do not work well from home anyway are those with "home issues" (familiar, of mere available space etc) and well, using the office as a way to leave their personal issue aside is not a good thing, nor the purpose of work.
Beside that I think it's totally absurd in 2024 wasting enormous resources to build big buildings used for less than 12h/day, to commute between them in order to consume services (from transportation to ready made food), get exposed to physical ads (shop windows, mega-screens and so on), participating in rituals pushing people to consume fast fashion and fast tech, augmenting the enormous pile of polluting rubbish we produce just to save the giants of capitalism who can't live without the big city Barnum circus... People just need to learn and stop consider the home the place to sleep, a whole home used for just few activities, whole buildings used for just few hours, only to keep people pastured in old rituals is really untenable.
Why?
> of training people to something they do not already know even if they practiced it for some years
You seem to be talking about something almost completely different than the comment you replied to was.
You find the experience as a hit and miss because most companies and most people as well are not really ready to WFH, so the paradigm they follow it's dysfunctional. Zoom and Slack are good example of this dysfunctionality: chats are somewhat good in certain context to quickly ping someone, to pass a link, nothing more, chatrooms and co are waste of time from another era where VoIP was not possible for mere bandwidth availability. Video is almost never needed, screen sharing it's often needed, ability to sketch quickly is often needed and actually we do not have that much good tools for that but most people do not even realize they use bad tools and paradigm because they can't organize themselves for effective remote work.
Even if individually we might find a good way to work until the entire company have found a way anything is hard.
Are they really scarce though? In cases they are it’s usually due to self imposed scarcity.
> example of this dysfunctionality: chats are somewhat good in certain context to quickly ping someone, to pass a link, nothing more, chatrooms and co are waste of time from another era where
No they are not. Text communication (especially async) is generally sufficient and less disruptive than the alternatives and saves a lot of time (when people do it properly).
I have a meetup I attend weekly to bond over tech stuff with more friend type people. Coworkers are coworkers. Nothing against them but they're not my buddies.
Although I’m kind of curious. Presumably those other people you interact with also have jobs? Would you still feel the same way about your coworkers if you worked with them instead?
I’ll add that being disappointed with people is something that will happen outside of work as well : failed romantic relationships, family, etc.
Whenever you get close to people, there’s a risk something can go bad.