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I second your whole post. To try and empathize with a lot of the people bemoaning WFH, I believe they are just suffering from quarantines in general. I truly b

I second your whole post. To try and empathize with a lot of the people bemoaning WFH, I believe they are just suffering from quarantines in general. I truly believe many of them would do fine if they could WFH 100%, but be able to go out with friends on weeknights and weekends. You are absolutely right that the office is a pisspoor substitute for real comraderie, and I wish people would stop conflating the two.

joshstrange 6y ago
I sympathize with the people who hate WFH but I think sometimes their sentiments towards WFF are slightly misplaced. They confuse "general quarantine", "kids doing school from home", "no good work/office area", and/or "unresolved issues with partner/husband/wife/etc" with WFH. Personally I love working from home. It gives me a lot more flexibility, I have no commute, I have my dog with me, I can cook lunch or prep for dinner, I can do small chores on a break or to clear my head, I can take my dog on a walk, and the list goes on. That said I don't have kids and I have a home office. I was also fortunate to start WFH about 5 months before COVID hit so I was able to go out with friends and what not which totally satisfied my social needs, proving to me that any added stress while working from home now is caused by things other than WFH itself. When I used to work in an office there were a number of people that were difficult to deal with and/or annoying to put up with. While I didn't go full WFH at that job I did get to the point where I was working 2 days a week from home and those days were glorious. Being able to pick who you are actual friends with (verses being forced in pretending to be nice to some truly toxic people) is so much nicer. I am friends with a handful of people at my new (WFH) company but that's because we both wanted to be friends and went out of our way to build the friendship not because we were forced to work together. My hope is that people don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater" when this is all over and there is a choice of WFH or going back to the office. That said, it's not be for everyone/every job but one silver lining of this terrible last year has been a number of my staunchly anti-WFH friends talk about how much they have enjoyed it and how they want to continue it at least for part of the week if not fully.
oblio 6y ago
I will probably work for 50 years (~20 -> ~70). About 11 months a year (~1 month for holidays). Around 160 hours a month. So 1760 hours a year. And about 88k hours over my entire lifetime. That works out to <<10 full years>> of my lifetime. If I'm not socializing at work, albeit a bit constrained by the professional environment, something is super wrong. Restricting socialization strictly to weeknights and weekends seems... super radical to me.
- npsimons 6y ago
  Working hours taking up so much of our life is an orthogonal, but not totally unrelated issue. As with complaints against "working from home", I get the feeling that proponents of work socializing recognize there's a problem, but they have mis-identified the root cause.
  - oblio 6y ago
    > Working hours taking up so much of our life is an orthogonal, but not totally unrelated issue. Well, we can complain about it, but it's a fact of life. It's almost like complaining that gravity drags us down :-) Plus, for a lot of people does give them... something to do. A purpose, an activity, a place where they can use their skills and use their intellect. It's hard to do this alone if everyone else is working. I guess you could try mingling with the rich people and join charities?
    - npsimons 6y ago
      Admittedly, my views on this come from the limits of my own experience - as someone who writes (and sometimes rights) software, I highly prize uninterrupted time in flow. I suppose writing and other such similar pursuits would work very well on an work environment that was isolated. But I do try to exercise my empathy and recognize for some endeavors it's is useful to collaborate. I just wish that people wouldn't attribute intrinsic necessity of physically close collaboration where it is not warranted. My purpose or activity, even after I'm financially independent will be writing software, something I can do without having to be in close contact with people I am working with, and I in fact am much more productive when I'm not. And honestly, even at 40 hours a week, I still have a lot of time in which I've formed my best social relationships. My coworkers are nice people, I just have shockingly little in common with them outside of work.

joshstrange 6y ago

I sympathize with the people who hate WFH but I think sometimes their sentiments towards WFF are slightly misplaced. They confuse "general quarantine", "kids doing school from home", "no good work/office area", and/or "unresolved issues with partner/husband/wife/etc" with WFH. Personally I love working from home. It gives me a lot more flexibility, I have no commute, I have my dog with me, I can cook lunch or prep for dinner, I can do small chores on a break or to clear my head, I can take my dog on a walk, and the list goes on. That said I don't have kids and I have a home office. I was also fortunate to start WFH about 5 months before COVID hit so I was able to go out with friends and what not which totally satisfied my social needs, proving to me that any added stress while working from home now is caused by things other than WFH itself. When I used to work in an office there were a number of people that were difficult to deal with and/or annoying to put up with. While I didn't go full WFH at that job I did get to the point where I was working 2 days a week from home and those days were glorious. Being able to pick who you are actual friends with (verses being forced in pretending to be nice to some truly toxic people) is so much nicer. I am friends with a handful of people at my new (WFH) company but that's because we both wanted to be friends and went out of our way to build the friendship not because we were forced to work together. My hope is that people don't "throw the baby out with the bathwater" when this is all over and there is a choice of WFH or going back to the office. That said, it's not be for everyone/every job but one silver lining of this terrible last year has been a number of my staunchly anti-WFH friends talk about how much they have enjoyed it and how they want to continue it at least for part of the week if not fully.

oblio 6y ago

I will probably work for 50 years (~20 -> ~70). About 11 months a year (~1 month for holidays). Around 160 hours a month. So 1760 hours a year. And about 88k hours over my entire lifetime. That works out to <<10 full years>> of my lifetime. If I'm not socializing at work, albeit a bit constrained by the professional environment, something is super wrong. Restricting socialization strictly to weeknights and weekends seems... super radical to me.

npsimons 6y ago
Working hours taking up so much of our life is an orthogonal, but not totally unrelated issue. As with complaints against "working from home", I get the feeling that proponents of work socializing recognize there's a problem, but they have mis-identified the root cause.
- oblio 6y ago
  > Working hours taking up so much of our life is an orthogonal, but not totally unrelated issue. Well, we can complain about it, but it's a fact of life. It's almost like complaining that gravity drags us down :-) Plus, for a lot of people does give them... something to do. A purpose, an activity, a place where they can use their skills and use their intellect. It's hard to do this alone if everyone else is working. I guess you could try mingling with the rich people and join charities?
  - npsimons 6y ago
    Admittedly, my views on this come from the limits of my own experience - as someone who writes (and sometimes rights) software, I highly prize uninterrupted time in flow. I suppose writing and other such similar pursuits would work very well on an work environment that was isolated. But I do try to exercise my empathy and recognize for some endeavors it's is useful to collaborate. I just wish that people wouldn't attribute intrinsic necessity of physically close collaboration where it is not warranted. My purpose or activity, even after I'm financially independent will be writing software, something I can do without having to be in close contact with people I am working with, and I in fact am much more productive when I'm not. And honestly, even at 40 hours a week, I still have a lot of time in which I've formed my best social relationships. My coworkers are nice people, I just have shockingly little in common with them outside of work.