5 ms·

The truth is nothing has changed for the younger generation. They still want to live and work in downtown cities. They still want to go to the office and mingl

The truth is nothing has changed for the younger generation. They still want to live and work in downtown cities. They still want to go to the office and mingle/network. HN is an echo chamber.

spydum 6y ago
An echo chamber? I find one of the more compelling reasons for being on HN is the strange cross-over and variety of posters (age, industry, geography, etc).
- mahaganapati 6y ago
  In my experience that's a less than frequent occurrence. I.e. I agree that there is a predominant voice here on HN (echo chamber) that lives to shut down (vote) other views
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
thebradbain 6y ago
As someone who is part of this generation of young professionals, I don't think it's so clear cut. I've got a pretty active social life, my own circle of close friends, a robust professional network, and I live in an urban, walkable neighborhood in a large city. Yet I, and most of my friends, acquaintances, and classmates fresh out of college (< 5 years) have no interest in centering our lives around the workplace, and many (me included) have taken or been searching for fully/part-remote jobs (and not just in tech) even pre-covid. I enjoy my colleagues and work environment (and wouldn't trade it for the world now that I'm mostly remote!), love to chat with them and keep in touch, but at the end of the day I already have my own friends with whom I have stronger bonds than the workplace, and I'd rather spend my free time with them rather than endless happy hours with work colleagues who are, in the grand scheme of things, really only present in my life for the duration of a job. Coincidentally, some of my favorite coworkers have this same outlook. I concede this is all anecdotal, yes, but so is your generalization. I personally believe much of this youngest generation of professionals, of which I am part, already has relatively established social networks due to social media that someone even 10 years ago entering a new job in a new city would not have, hence the less need to rely on the workplace for a social life. If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time.
- fao_ 6y ago
  I mean, I'm early in my career and I feel the same way.
- fastasucan 6y ago
  This hit the nail on the head for me. I belong to the same generation and have felt pretty alienated by the expectancy to let my life revolve around work to the point where my company expect that I am going to hang out at work a couple of nights a month and hang out with co-workers inbetween that. The world is so social, I have large circles of friends/aquaintences from my hobbies, from university, and from back home. I have my apetite of kind of, but not too close, friends more than satisfied, and would rather have alone time or time with the most important people of my life. Everyone is different, but before I could work from home I stopped going to lunch because I just needed that time alone as the rest of the day was full of people. I'm not bragging, because I'm not sure if this really is better than "just" having your work and your few work-pals in life than the endless social circles and the hundreds of people you are strangely intimate with through FB, IG, snap updates. But it is what is and I hope I never have to go back to office life, in that case I have to cut out some social media, some friends and/or a hobby from my life to survive.
- rainyMammoth 6y ago
  > If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time. I'm in the same boat as you, also early career but Please, NO. Being asked to go twice a week to the office is the worst trade-off. It means I still need to live in commuting distance of the office but I also need to rent an extra room to be my office where I'm expected to work for 3 days/week. I favor a model in which once a quarter the whole team spends a week together as a "retreat". This gives you flexibility to really live where you want without that need to still go to the office. It also means the company doesn't even need to keep an office to start with.
  - thebradbain 6y ago
    I totally agree this is also a valid option, and one I’d personally love to explore more. To me, though, that’s still essentially near the extreme fully-remote, and I could understand if it’s not for everyone. I definitely hope and do think it will become more common in the future though, too. EDIT: GitHub actually balances this beautifully, imo. They have offices in SF, NY, Austin, and Tokyo for those who want to go into an office every day or semi-regularly, though they also do a yearly company-wide retreat and quarterly team gatherings if you want to work fully remote.
dylan604 6y ago
All social media is an echo chamber, and I'm confused people are confused by that. People search out for like minded groups/orgs/etc, it's just part of human nature. It's a rare breed (at least less common type) that seeks out a different point of view on a regular basis. Religious types seek out a congregation of similar beliefs, tech nerds seek fellow tech nerds, sports geeks seek other fans of their same team/sport/etc.
arbitrary_name 6y ago
Speak for yourself. I'm very early career, and I love wfh. Moving to a smaller town to get cheaper rent and less traffic and more time surfing. No way do I want to be in an office with any regularity.
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  As I said, I'm sure a minority of people are in the same boat. But most young people are not going to pack up and move to a small rural town in the middle of nowhere. Companies came to big cities because that is where young talent wanted to live. Not the other way around.
ZephyrBlu 6y ago
I'm a young dude and I agree with this. A couple of other things though: I hate remote communication because it's so different to being in-person and I feel like WFH stifles your ability to communicate what you're working on with people outside of your team.
Joof 6y ago
Fuck you, I hate cities. Now I can live near the people that are actually my friends and don't have to drive 5 hours every weekend for my hobbies.
- pbreit 6y ago
  Office jobs do weed out these types.
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  I'm sure a small minority of people are in the same boat as you.
twoleftfeets 6y ago
I'm 54. I still want to go to work. I still want to live and work in downtown cities. I still want to go to the office and mingle/work. The caveat is of course I have to be working on something I'm interested in with good people. If work was full of bad people or I didn't care about the work then of course I wouldn't be excited to go to work.
djsumdog 6y ago
There are a number of people who want to get out of cities due to the current situation. If I hadn't signed a lease back in April, I'd be moving from my current city right now. Unless something significant happens to change my mind, I'll most likely leave in 2021. Daniel Turner did a great peace on why he left the DC metro area: https://humanevents.com/2020/07/23/goodbye-washington-dc/ https://humanevents.com/2020/07/23/goodbye-washington-dc/
- doopy-loopy2 6y ago
  I'm sure a minority of people have the same fear/reaction. If things remain shut down forever, I think this could translate to a majority of people. Other than that I think it will be business as usual.

The truth is nothing has changed for the younger generation. They still want to live and work in downtown cities. They still want to go to the office and mingle/network. HN is an echo chamber.

spydum 6y ago

An echo chamber? I find one of the more compelling reasons for being on HN is the strange cross-over and variety of posters (age, industry, geography, etc).

mahaganapati 6y ago
In my experience that's a less than frequent occurrence. I.e. I agree that there is a predominant voice here on HN (echo chamber) that lives to shut down (vote) other views
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

thebradbain 6y ago

As someone who is part of this generation of young professionals, I don't think it's so clear cut. I've got a pretty active social life, my own circle of close friends, a robust professional network, and I live in an urban, walkable neighborhood in a large city. Yet I, and most of my friends, acquaintances, and classmates fresh out of college (< 5 years) have no interest in centering our lives around the workplace, and many (me included) have taken or been searching for fully/part-remote jobs (and not just in tech) even pre-covid. I enjoy my colleagues and work environment (and wouldn't trade it for the world now that I'm mostly remote!), love to chat with them and keep in touch, but at the end of the day I already have my own friends with whom I have stronger bonds than the workplace, and I'd rather spend my free time with them rather than endless happy hours with work colleagues who are, in the grand scheme of things, really only present in my life for the duration of a job. Coincidentally, some of my favorite coworkers have this same outlook. I concede this is all anecdotal, yes, but so is your generalization. I personally believe much of this youngest generation of professionals, of which I am part, already has relatively established social networks due to social media that someone even 10 years ago entering a new job in a new city would not have, hence the less need to rely on the workplace for a social life. If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time.

fao_ 6y ago
I mean, I'm early in my career and I feel the same way.
fastasucan 6y ago
This hit the nail on the head for me. I belong to the same generation and have felt pretty alienated by the expectancy to let my life revolve around work to the point where my company expect that I am going to hang out at work a couple of nights a month and hang out with co-workers inbetween that. The world is so social, I have large circles of friends/aquaintences from my hobbies, from university, and from back home. I have my apetite of kind of, but not too close, friends more than satisfied, and would rather have alone time or time with the most important people of my life. Everyone is different, but before I could work from home I stopped going to lunch because I just needed that time alone as the rest of the day was full of people. I'm not bragging, because I'm not sure if this really is better than "just" having your work and your few work-pals in life than the endless social circles and the hundreds of people you are strangely intimate with through FB, IG, snap updates. But it is what is and I hope I never have to go back to office life, in that case I have to cut out some social media, some friends and/or a hobby from my life to survive.
rainyMammoth 6y ago
> If you ask me, the future of the workplace isn't fully-remote or fully in-person, it's an office where everyone comes in 2-3 days a week, as necessary, and working remote or at-home the rest of the time. I'm in the same boat as you, also early career but Please, NO. Being asked to go twice a week to the office is the worst trade-off. It means I still need to live in commuting distance of the office but I also need to rent an extra room to be my office where I'm expected to work for 3 days/week. I favor a model in which once a quarter the whole team spends a week together as a "retreat". This gives you flexibility to really live where you want without that need to still go to the office. It also means the company doesn't even need to keep an office to start with.
- thebradbain 6y ago
  I totally agree this is also a valid option, and one I’d personally love to explore more. To me, though, that’s still essentially near the extreme fully-remote, and I could understand if it’s not for everyone. I definitely hope and do think it will become more common in the future though, too. EDIT: GitHub actually balances this beautifully, imo. They have offices in SF, NY, Austin, and Tokyo for those who want to go into an office every day or semi-regularly, though they also do a yearly company-wide retreat and quarterly team gatherings if you want to work fully remote.

dylan604 6y ago

All social media is an echo chamber, and I'm confused people are confused by that. People search out for like minded groups/orgs/etc, it's just part of human nature. It's a rare breed (at least less common type) that seeks out a different point of view on a regular basis. Religious types seek out a congregation of similar beliefs, tech nerds seek fellow tech nerds, sports geeks seek other fans of their same team/sport/etc.

arbitrary_name 6y ago

Speak for yourself. I'm very early career, and I love wfh. Moving to a smaller town to get cheaper rent and less traffic and more time surfing. No way do I want to be in an office with any regularity.

doopy-loopy2 6y ago
As I said, I'm sure a minority of people are in the same boat. But most young people are not going to pack up and move to a small rural town in the middle of nowhere. Companies came to big cities because that is where young talent wanted to live. Not the other way around.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago

I'm a young dude and I agree with this. A couple of other things though: I hate remote communication because it's so different to being in-person and I feel like WFH stifles your ability to communicate what you're working on with people outside of your team.

Joof 6y ago

Fuck you, I hate cities. Now I can live near the people that are actually my friends and don't have to drive 5 hours every weekend for my hobbies.

pbreit 6y ago
Office jobs do weed out these types.
doopy-loopy2 6y ago
I'm sure a small minority of people are in the same boat as you.

twoleftfeets 6y ago

I'm 54. I still want to go to work. I still want to live and work in downtown cities. I still want to go to the office and mingle/work. The caveat is of course I have to be working on something I'm interested in with good people. If work was full of bad people or I didn't care about the work then of course I wouldn't be excited to go to work.

djsumdog 6y ago

There are a number of people who want to get out of cities due to the current situation. If I hadn't signed a lease back in April, I'd be moving from my current city right now. Unless something significant happens to change my mind, I'll most likely leave in 2021. Daniel Turner did a great peace on why he left the DC metro area: https://humanevents.com/2020/07/23/goodbye-washington-dc/ https://humanevents.com/2020/07/23/goodbye-washington-dc/

doopy-loopy2 6y ago
I'm sure a minority of people have the same fear/reaction. If things remain shut down forever, I think this could translate to a majority of people. Other than that I think it will be business as usual.