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> I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face Anecdata from Hacker News suggests this is true. A lot of lonely young men here freely a

> I assume that some people are just very lonely and need face to face Anecdata from Hacker News suggests this is true. A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person, and remote work takes that away from them.

long_time_gone 5y ago
Interesting how you automatically assigned a gender. My wife has worked from home for 4 years and can't wait to get back into an office. I like to think that some people just have different preferences.
ethbr0 5y ago
I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. There are already a number of options in even the smallest town. I expect that will increase as more people move to WFH and seek social outlets. And at the end of the day "interacting with coworkers in the break room" is a pretty low quality bar for an alternative to surmount. Maybe your work conversations are more fascinating than mine, but I get more value elsewhere.
- 30367286 5y ago
  >I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. Absolutely. Additionally, even getting to that set of regular, forced interactions necessarily consumes the limited time those people would have to pursue those social activities outside the home. That is, it's hard to have a strong social life when you commute, at best, 5 hours a week. And that's if you're lucky. All of this benefits corporations. Especially, insidiously, the notion that your job can and should double as your social life. What concerns me, today, is that that we're in this middle stage where things could tip either way. For this reason, I think it's important for us to bang the drum loudly that we won't spend 40-50 hours in the office. Hybrid is a sufficient compromise.
  - lamontcg 5y ago
    > Hybrid is a sufficient compromise. No it isn't.
    - iso1631 5y ago
      I'm happy to meet up every few months, assuming my time and travel is paid for and it's arranged well in advance
      - 30367286 5y ago
        This is really how it ought to go. Once a quarter, we all descend on one city for one week. We make big plans, we revel in each other’s company, and we see a new part of the world or see a familiar part of the world in a new way with colleagues. Then we go back.
    - 30367286 5y ago
      What is a sufficient compromise, in your view, that satisfies the need of some workers to have regular face to face interactions with coworkers and prevents corporations unprepared to manage a remote team from whipping back to full in-office? I do not want to put words in your mouth, but since you offered so few of them, I am tempted to believe you are one of the few lucky workers who has sufficient leverage to wholesale refuse to work in an office. If that is you, or if you the reader are such a person: consider the path we must take to bring flexible work to more people. With that goal and those prerequisites in mind, what is a sufficient compromise?
      - tharkun__ 5y ago
        A sufficient compromise would be to allow the people that want regular face to face interactions with coworkers to go to the office and do just that. Not sure what the culture is in your place but at my place everyone has their video on in calls, so there's always face-to-face communication (exceptions can apply of course in some circumstances but that is the general rule) that way. People that want that do go to the office from time to time and do just that. But they do it with like minded people. What is not a sufficient compromise is to force people that don't need face-to-face in person interaction into the office again when we have found out that remote works perfectly well.
- closeparen 5y ago
  I don't particularly enjoy the forced, stilted chatter but I do get a lot of value from: a) Being obliged to put on clothes and leave the house. b) Spending a large part of the day at a change of scenery. c) Having other people there, around, ambiently. Spending 23 hours a day alone in your room + 1 hour for outdoor exercise, with occasional weekend visitation, is among the worst punishments the state has at its disposal. It boggles the mind that people do this voluntarily.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    Work is only 8 hours of the day, 8 to sleep, 2 for chores meals etc leaves 6 for whatever you want socializing with whoever you want? Being obligated to go to the same place with the same people 5 days a week following the same routine seems dreadful to me.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    Don't mix up pandemic restrictions with 100% remote work from home. I put on clothes every day. I only wear a nice t-shirt though and otherwise wear my 'at home pants' that I would also put on as soon as I'd come home from the office. My nice pants last much longer now. I really don't like the office scenery very much. I also do not like the scenery in between, i.e. a huge city that has no greenery, the commute is equally dull, boring and unappealing. Vs. my home where in summer I can actually sit outside on the deck all day and enjoy the scenery. It's lush and green and warm vs. the cold, dry AC air blowing in my face and forcing me to wear a jacket inside the office. Depending on whether you have family and/or family that also works from home, people are even around 'ambiently' but at least they're only around ambiently without constantly distracting you. They're in a different room doing their own work most of the time. After 8 hours of work I am free to do what I want. Go outside, take a walk, meet friends etc.
    - marcosdumay 5y ago
      I do like my path to work. In fact, I go there once in a while, and come back just to get a long walk. I do like my previous office. It happens that I had to improve my home when I got here, but after spending around 1/5 of my monthly salary, my home is now even a it more comfortable and I use it when not working too. If you have a minimum of space, that's quite doable, and if you don't, why don't you want to move into a cheaper place? Even those reasons don't add up to much.
- dtx1 5y ago
  > I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. Or,it allows people with social anxiety or depression a room for social interactions with very well defined rules and in an environment where people generally interact positively with you. I like the convenience of WFH too but I do miss cooking with my colleagues and their families on Wednesdays. This might sound weird to you but living alone and having had parents that made every meal either a screaming match or a barrage of passive aggressive comments I enjoyed those lunches with my much more reasonable colleagues a lot. Being essentially alone most days certainly didn't help with my depression and that makes other social interactions harder. I still won't go back though, wearing trouser being optional at work is a worthwhile tradeoff
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    > I like the convenience of WFH too but I do miss cooking with my colleagues and their families on Wednesdays. Well, to fix that you can go cook with your colleagues and their families on Wednesdays.
    - dtx1 5y ago
      not as long as corona is still raging here in germany, no families (or colleagues) at the office
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  Eh, I’m kinda implicated here but I see office interactions as some bare minimum of socialization that, yes, can lead to complacency but does not subtract from the ideal of finding meaningful relationship outside of work. If anything, face to face work helps energize me to be social, and not just with my coworkers. More like a daily practice against Cabin Fever. For some reason, for me, Cabin Fever self-perpetuates. I still prefer WFH, but I go to a coffee shop most days of the week to work on a personal project. After a year+ my relationship with the other regulates and staff is like the best possible relationship you’d expect to have among coworkers - I’ve even grabbed a beer with the manager when then closed early one day - without the stresses of working for a common employer.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I'm approaching this from my own perspective of a fairly serious introvert, and I feel like the biggest skill I've picked up in life is pushing past the introvert wall. Which is that thing that whispers "Going out will be a hassle. Why not just not?" Work was one way of forcing past that, but I feel that's analogous to saying "Prison is one way of curing wanderlust." It feels more reasonable to treat the underlying issue than take a bargain that comes with serious negative consequences.
- Riverheart 5y ago
  There are reasons people don't pursue activities outside of work because they only require a minimal amount of interaction with people or they don't have time for socialization outside of work. Conversations with clubmembers won't be appreciably more meaningful than conversations with coworkers. A benefit is that your social circle exists independent of your job status but you've got to do it on your own time.
- shrimp_emoji 5y ago
  >social activities outside the home I have no idea what you meant by this.
- npteljes 5y ago
  >There are already a number of options in even the smallest town Can you elaborate on what options do you mean by this? I have to admit I'd have no idea where to go or what to do if I needed this.
WYepQ4dNnG 5y ago
That's true, but also very sad. I am lucky enough to have a lovely wife, kids and just enough good friends. And that's all I care about. I don't really miss at all the office, let alone my co-workers. Working remote is just what I need, and I am way more productive.
- dimitrios1 5y ago
  I have all those too. But even when you are fully remote, and have a healthy outside social support system away from work, you cannot ignore the reality that is you spend the majority of your waking hours working alongside these people, often for the same goals and deadlines. It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. Unless you are one of the rare people where you truly are a solo shop (even then you have people requesting the work from you), I want to meet, converse, and get to know the people that I spend a bulk of my waking hours with, and depend on together to do a good job because I feel like that's showing those other people basic dignity.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    > It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. I think you're creating a universal here where there is none. I have secure boundaries, and I can enjoy a coworker's company and work without having to be friends with them. And there's also an ugly side to this, where people don't want to have coworkers that they wouldn't want to be friends with. That's not some natural urge, that's something that people impose on a situation that is alienating to people who don't share your politics, or your tastes, or even like the way you treat people (I'm referring to the hypothetical "you" here.) I have really enjoyed working with people who I'd never want to know outside of work, and have a huge amount of respect for those people whose work ethic and trustworthiness showed a real thoughtfulness and concern about what they were doing and for their coworkers' time and development. That's good enough for me, we don't have to share musical tastes or hobbies. On the other side, I've certainly made friends with people at work, but some of the people I made friends with I hated working with. The two things are barely connected.
    - 5y ago
nluken 5y ago
> their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person This sort of self-alienation seems to be a pretty widespread problem larger than the in-person/remote debate. That said, it's probably better for those experiencing it to have some in-person socialization in the office than none.
- unidosnuestros 5y ago
  How do you know they aren't travelling the world while "working from home"? Sure, they aren't keeping up with a set group of friends, but they are making new friends every day. The world is bigger than just your tiny little apartment. You can go to Latin America, where they share largely the same timezone as us, but you can play with turtles! Or rescue dogs! Or clean up after penguins (south of argentina). It's really up to you if you think humans are the only way to not be lonely, then yeah, hit up a bar and cry yourself to sleep. But there are other ways. There is so much other there if you just work from home,and stop going into the shitty office, with terrible people. Have you ever noticed the office makes people less original? They all end up looking and acting the same as each other, and I'm the only who who's just come home from petting a penguin and they're like "we just came home from the bar.... again.... for the third time this week...." The office is dead, long live working form home.
  - nluken 5y ago
    Sure you could use remote work to do things, but in practice most people don't. Forcing everyone back into the office without a good reason isn't a good solution, but I think that the option to work in person is an ideal situation to those who like to socialize with others. Personally, I have that flexibility and have started to take advantage of it by working while traveling. But I've observed of my WFH coworkers don't seem to, which goes back to the original point- the alienation is not a function of not going into the office. It's a separate issue that giving that option to people can mitigate.
achenet 5y ago
join a sports activity. Free socializing, plus health benefits. :)
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >Free socializing, plus health benefits. :) Not my experience. At sports activities where I live, people come to do sports, not really to socialize. Once the sport activity is over, most go home to their kids/wives/girlfriends/etc. At least in Germany where the focus is always on the activity at hand, and socializing with strangers is a distraction from the activity you came for. I practice 3 different sports right now (bouldering, CrossFit and dancing), hoping to maybe make some friends or find a partner out of it in this WFH world and it's all the same, once the activity is over, people want to go home, not stay and have a beer or chat. :( Maybe I was lucky in the past but the best friends I've ever made and sometimes partners were found on the same workplace or campus, but I sure as hell feel very unlucky and miserable now, however, I really don't wish for people who don't like being in the office to be forced to come to work, that's really stupid, but this hybrid model is the norm where I live and is the worst of both worlds. Some offices are really nightmare material.
  - achenet 5y ago
    my condolences. :( I guess it may depend on the sport group. I've had good luck with the local Basic Fit (globo-gym type outfit, but the nearby branch has some nice people), and my weighlifting club, so perhaps you may find better luck in another sports group? Back when I lived in Marseille, I actually made a few really nice friendships from hanging out at the Prado street workout park. It was on the beach too, which was really nice. Climbing is also quite popular, and my local climbing gyms seem rather conductive to random social interactions that could lead to deeper friendships, although honestly I don't go very ofter (less than once per month), so perhaps that's just my perception. That said, if you're more comfortable meeting people at work, perhaps you would be happier with an office job?
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
mumblemumble 5y ago
It's more than that. I'm mid-life, with kids, meaning that my best opportunity for getting out of the house on a regular basis is while they're at school. Without that, days can go by without a significant change of scenery, especially in winter when spending evenings at the park isn't a great option. I'm not lonely, per se, but, all the same, the pandemic has been very, very difficult for me. I went from being a longtime remote worker who went to a coworking space most days, to what has sometimes felt like two years of house arrest. I agree that going in to an office - especially an open plan one where they pack desks end-to-end in giant noisy rooms - is a less-than-stellar option, too. But I also suspect that many people's newfound love of WFH is fueled in part by the novelty of the experience, and that the shine will wear off after a couple more years.
weatherlite 5y ago
We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. If not the office, workers are better off using some social working space, but unfortunately WFH is so tempting and easy most will resort to that. Psychologically it's not ideal. Yes the office can be a pain, commute and what not, but loneliness could be worse.
- onion2k 5y ago
  We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. Offices are significantly less 'natural' than spending time with a small group of people. If you go back a thousand years or so many people lived their entire life within a mile or two of where they were born - they grew up, worked, got married, lived and died in a single village. In lots of more isolated cases people would have only met a couple of hundred people in their entire lifetime. It's definitely unusual to lead such a limited life today, but psychologically it's not that bad. People survived pretty well, and they continue to now.
  - closeparen 5y ago
    There was much more of a community life outside the home, with your fellow villagers.
    - biomcgary 5y ago
      In this case, the community is defined by the proximity to your home. Working at an office with a typical US commute is not remotely the same.
      - deadbeeves 5y ago
        Working remotely from home is also a very different lifestyle, so I'm not sure what the argument is. Living as if it's the 1000 BC is not in the cards.
    - 5y ago
throwaway4aday 5y ago
WFHomers need a modern equivalent of the Knitting Bee. Distinct from a co-working space since it is organized by its members who make an effort to get to know each other and it shouldn't be dependent on membership with some organization, just a grassroots locally organized thing.
- iso1631 5y ago
  Why?
closeparen 5y ago
I meet people outside of work “regularly” - more weekends than not - but a coffee or a hike or a live performance here and there is very different from casually sharing a building on a random Tuesday. The comparison isn’t a social life, it’s a family or roommates.
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
> A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person Well, with the 8 hours they're getting back from not commuting, they'll have more time to go out and socialize in non-work settings
hooande 5y ago
This doesn't make sense. There are countless opportunities for social interaction. Join a church, a club, a sports league, a gaming discord. I get that there's a lot of friction involved in joining anything, and many 'lonely young men' don't want to put forth that effort. But it's definitely less total effort than forcing people to come to an office for the purpose of social stimulation. Just measured in terms of time and fuel spent commuting by each person, it isn't even close. I think there are a lot of reasons that people prefer offices. Most of it is probably tradition and "that's the way we've always done things". If the reason is truly lonely people needing social interaction, then there are a lot of way better solutions.
- infamouscow 5y ago
  One thing to consider is the tech industry is over represented by neurodivergent people that struggle with social interaction. What you're suggesting is not feasible for everyone.
- BKirkpatrick 5y ago
  sorry for the shameless plug but, checkout frenemy.live
  - infamouscow 5y ago
    I will. Thank you.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Churches and most clubs don't have extremely intelligent people with similar interests i.e. your tribe. When I talk to my friends I am usually at maybe 20% brain "power", when I'm at work I can mention basically anything and someone will have heard of it. YMMV.
- holyyikes 5y ago
thinkharderdev 5y ago
I think a lot of it is the exact circumstances of you office as well. All else equal I think I would actually prefer working in an office assuming that: 1. It felt like a "real" space (i.e. not a beige cubical farm) 2. Was not excessively loud 3. I had a comfortable chair/workspace 4. I could walk there from my house in under 20 minutes 5. There was no dress code 6. There was nobody there who I found deeply annoying and also insisted on interacting with me regularly And I think a lot of people (especially young people who live in cities close to where they work) actually do have something approximating that situation.
- ecshafer 5y ago
  Being able to walk there from my house in under 20 minutes is a big thing for me. If I am a 1-3 miles walk/bike ride, I would go to the office all of the time. Assuming its a safe comfortable commute. I hate driving in rush hour personally, any amount of distance. Also feeling like a real place is nice. I actually don't mind a cubical, though an office would be nicer. I really hate open office though, and open office makes me never want to go in. If it felt like a cozy coffee shop, or a college campus that would be ideal.
  - thinkharderdev 5y ago
    Yeah, I don't mind a cubicle per se (especially compared to the typical open office) but I found the traditional cubicle farm offices, where everything is this bland, monochromatic beige color and lit with neon lights, very depressing.
renewiltord 5y ago
The interesting thing is that folks on HN who want to work from the office just say “I can see why you’re remote. Just not for me. I prefer to work in a team that’s all in-office” but folks on HN who want to work remote always go “It’s because you’re lonely that you can’t work remote. I have a loving wife and children. You are miserable and using coworkers as a substitute for social company.” Like, dude, we get it. This is important to you. So go work where you find that. A bit tiresome to constantly come into these threads and listen to this endless repetitious nonsense. Christ on a stick. Do you never tire of it?
stjohnswarts 5y ago
It isn't my responsibility to help "lonely young men" meet people. Just go to a bar/meetup/church and start talking. That's an individual's responsibility to socialize.
xkbarkar 5y ago
Believe it or not, that entails lonely women too

long_time_gone 5y ago

Interesting how you automatically assigned a gender. My wife has worked from home for 4 years and can't wait to get back into an office. I like to think that some people just have different preferences.

ethbr0 5y ago

I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. There are already a number of options in even the smallest town. I expect that will increase as more people move to WFH and seek social outlets. And at the end of the day "interacting with coworkers in the break room" is a pretty low quality bar for an alternative to surmount. Maybe your work conversations are more fascinating than mine, but I get more value elsewhere.

30367286 5y ago
>I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. Absolutely. Additionally, even getting to that set of regular, forced interactions necessarily consumes the limited time those people would have to pursue those social activities outside the home. That is, it's hard to have a strong social life when you commute, at best, 5 hours a week. And that's if you're lucky. All of this benefits corporations. Especially, insidiously, the notion that your job can and should double as your social life. What concerns me, today, is that that we're in this middle stage where things could tip either way. For this reason, I think it's important for us to bang the drum loudly that we won't spend 40-50 hours in the office. Hybrid is a sufficient compromise.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  > Hybrid is a sufficient compromise. No it isn't.
  - iso1631 5y ago
    I'm happy to meet up every few months, assuming my time and travel is paid for and it's arranged well in advance
    - 30367286 5y ago
      This is really how it ought to go. Once a quarter, we all descend on one city for one week. We make big plans, we revel in each other’s company, and we see a new part of the world or see a familiar part of the world in a new way with colleagues. Then we go back.
  - 30367286 5y ago
    What is a sufficient compromise, in your view, that satisfies the need of some workers to have regular face to face interactions with coworkers and prevents corporations unprepared to manage a remote team from whipping back to full in-office? I do not want to put words in your mouth, but since you offered so few of them, I am tempted to believe you are one of the few lucky workers who has sufficient leverage to wholesale refuse to work in an office. If that is you, or if you the reader are such a person: consider the path we must take to bring flexible work to more people. With that goal and those prerequisites in mind, what is a sufficient compromise?
    - tharkun__ 5y ago
      A sufficient compromise would be to allow the people that want regular face to face interactions with coworkers to go to the office and do just that. Not sure what the culture is in your place but at my place everyone has their video on in calls, so there's always face-to-face communication (exceptions can apply of course in some circumstances but that is the general rule) that way. People that want that do go to the office from time to time and do just that. But they do it with like minded people. What is not a sufficient compromise is to force people that don't need face-to-face in person interaction into the office again when we have found out that remote works perfectly well.
closeparen 5y ago
I don't particularly enjoy the forced, stilted chatter but I do get a lot of value from: a) Being obliged to put on clothes and leave the house. b) Spending a large part of the day at a change of scenery. c) Having other people there, around, ambiently. Spending 23 hours a day alone in your room + 1 hour for outdoor exercise, with occasional weekend visitation, is among the worst punishments the state has at its disposal. It boggles the mind that people do this voluntarily.
- katbyte 5y ago
  Work is only 8 hours of the day, 8 to sleep, 2 for chores meals etc leaves 6 for whatever you want socializing with whoever you want? Being obligated to go to the same place with the same people 5 days a week following the same routine seems dreadful to me.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  Don't mix up pandemic restrictions with 100% remote work from home. I put on clothes every day. I only wear a nice t-shirt though and otherwise wear my 'at home pants' that I would also put on as soon as I'd come home from the office. My nice pants last much longer now. I really don't like the office scenery very much. I also do not like the scenery in between, i.e. a huge city that has no greenery, the commute is equally dull, boring and unappealing. Vs. my home where in summer I can actually sit outside on the deck all day and enjoy the scenery. It's lush and green and warm vs. the cold, dry AC air blowing in my face and forcing me to wear a jacket inside the office. Depending on whether you have family and/or family that also works from home, people are even around 'ambiently' but at least they're only around ambiently without constantly distracting you. They're in a different room doing their own work most of the time. After 8 hours of work I am free to do what I want. Go outside, take a walk, meet friends etc.
  - marcosdumay 5y ago
    I do like my path to work. In fact, I go there once in a while, and come back just to get a long walk. I do like my previous office. It happens that I had to improve my home when I got here, but after spending around 1/5 of my monthly salary, my home is now even a it more comfortable and I use it when not working too. If you have a minimum of space, that's quite doable, and if you don't, why don't you want to move into a cheaper place? Even those reasons don't add up to much.
dtx1 5y ago
> I'd spin this around and cast it as a challenge -- regular, forced interactions with coworkers is minimally sufficient and retards some people from pursuing social activities outside the home. Or,it allows people with social anxiety or depression a room for social interactions with very well defined rules and in an environment where people generally interact positively with you. I like the convenience of WFH too but I do miss cooking with my colleagues and their families on Wednesdays. This might sound weird to you but living alone and having had parents that made every meal either a screaming match or a barrage of passive aggressive comments I enjoyed those lunches with my much more reasonable colleagues a lot. Being essentially alone most days certainly didn't help with my depression and that makes other social interactions harder. I still won't go back though, wearing trouser being optional at work is a worthwhile tradeoff
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  > I like the convenience of WFH too but I do miss cooking with my colleagues and their families on Wednesdays. Well, to fix that you can go cook with your colleagues and their families on Wednesdays.
  - dtx1 5y ago
    not as long as corona is still raging here in germany, no families (or colleagues) at the office
DiggyJohnson 5y ago
Eh, I’m kinda implicated here but I see office interactions as some bare minimum of socialization that, yes, can lead to complacency but does not subtract from the ideal of finding meaningful relationship outside of work. If anything, face to face work helps energize me to be social, and not just with my coworkers. More like a daily practice against Cabin Fever. For some reason, for me, Cabin Fever self-perpetuates. I still prefer WFH, but I go to a coffee shop most days of the week to work on a personal project. After a year+ my relationship with the other regulates and staff is like the best possible relationship you’d expect to have among coworkers - I’ve even grabbed a beer with the manager when then closed early one day - without the stresses of working for a common employer.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I'm approaching this from my own perspective of a fairly serious introvert, and I feel like the biggest skill I've picked up in life is pushing past the introvert wall. Which is that thing that whispers "Going out will be a hassle. Why not just not?" Work was one way of forcing past that, but I feel that's analogous to saying "Prison is one way of curing wanderlust." It feels more reasonable to treat the underlying issue than take a bargain that comes with serious negative consequences.
Riverheart 5y ago
There are reasons people don't pursue activities outside of work because they only require a minimal amount of interaction with people or they don't have time for socialization outside of work. Conversations with clubmembers won't be appreciably more meaningful than conversations with coworkers. A benefit is that your social circle exists independent of your job status but you've got to do it on your own time.
shrimp_emoji 5y ago
>social activities outside the home I have no idea what you meant by this.
npteljes 5y ago
>There are already a number of options in even the smallest town Can you elaborate on what options do you mean by this? I have to admit I'd have no idea where to go or what to do if I needed this.

WYepQ4dNnG 5y ago

That's true, but also very sad. I am lucky enough to have a lovely wife, kids and just enough good friends. And that's all I care about. I don't really miss at all the office, let alone my co-workers. Working remote is just what I need, and I am way more productive.

dimitrios1 5y ago
I have all those too. But even when you are fully remote, and have a healthy outside social support system away from work, you cannot ignore the reality that is you spend the majority of your waking hours working alongside these people, often for the same goals and deadlines. It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. Unless you are one of the rare people where you truly are a solo shop (even then you have people requesting the work from you), I want to meet, converse, and get to know the people that I spend a bulk of my waking hours with, and depend on together to do a good job because I feel like that's showing those other people basic dignity.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > It's a basic desire to connect with others we share our time with. I think you're creating a universal here where there is none. I have secure boundaries, and I can enjoy a coworker's company and work without having to be friends with them. And there's also an ugly side to this, where people don't want to have coworkers that they wouldn't want to be friends with. That's not some natural urge, that's something that people impose on a situation that is alienating to people who don't share your politics, or your tastes, or even like the way you treat people (I'm referring to the hypothetical "you" here.) I have really enjoyed working with people who I'd never want to know outside of work, and have a huge amount of respect for those people whose work ethic and trustworthiness showed a real thoughtfulness and concern about what they were doing and for their coworkers' time and development. That's good enough for me, we don't have to share musical tastes or hobbies. On the other side, I've certainly made friends with people at work, but some of the people I made friends with I hated working with. The two things are barely connected.
  - 5y ago

nluken 5y ago

> their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person This sort of self-alienation seems to be a pretty widespread problem larger than the in-person/remote debate. That said, it's probably better for those experiencing it to have some in-person socialization in the office than none.

unidosnuestros 5y ago
How do you know they aren't travelling the world while "working from home"? Sure, they aren't keeping up with a set group of friends, but they are making new friends every day. The world is bigger than just your tiny little apartment. You can go to Latin America, where they share largely the same timezone as us, but you can play with turtles! Or rescue dogs! Or clean up after penguins (south of argentina). It's really up to you if you think humans are the only way to not be lonely, then yeah, hit up a bar and cry yourself to sleep. But there are other ways. There is so much other there if you just work from home,and stop going into the shitty office, with terrible people. Have you ever noticed the office makes people less original? They all end up looking and acting the same as each other, and I'm the only who who's just come home from petting a penguin and they're like "we just came home from the bar.... again.... for the third time this week...." The office is dead, long live working form home.
- nluken 5y ago
  Sure you could use remote work to do things, but in practice most people don't. Forcing everyone back into the office without a good reason isn't a good solution, but I think that the option to work in person is an ideal situation to those who like to socialize with others. Personally, I have that flexibility and have started to take advantage of it by working while traveling. But I've observed of my WFH coworkers don't seem to, which goes back to the original point- the alienation is not a function of not going into the office. It's a separate issue that giving that option to people can mitigate.

achenet 5y ago

join a sports activity. Free socializing, plus health benefits. :)

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Free socializing, plus health benefits. :) Not my experience. At sports activities where I live, people come to do sports, not really to socialize. Once the sport activity is over, most go home to their kids/wives/girlfriends/etc. At least in Germany where the focus is always on the activity at hand, and socializing with strangers is a distraction from the activity you came for. I practice 3 different sports right now (bouldering, CrossFit and dancing), hoping to maybe make some friends or find a partner out of it in this WFH world and it's all the same, once the activity is over, people want to go home, not stay and have a beer or chat. :( Maybe I was lucky in the past but the best friends I've ever made and sometimes partners were found on the same workplace or campus, but I sure as hell feel very unlucky and miserable now, however, I really don't wish for people who don't like being in the office to be forced to come to work, that's really stupid, but this hybrid model is the norm where I live and is the worst of both worlds. Some offices are really nightmare material.
- achenet 5y ago
  my condolences. :( I guess it may depend on the sport group. I've had good luck with the local Basic Fit (globo-gym type outfit, but the nearby branch has some nice people), and my weighlifting club, so perhaps you may find better luck in another sports group? Back when I lived in Marseille, I actually made a few really nice friendships from hanging out at the Prado street workout park. It was on the beach too, which was really nice. Climbing is also quite popular, and my local climbing gyms seem rather conductive to random social interactions that could lead to deeper friendships, although honestly I don't go very ofter (less than once per month), so perhaps that's just my perception. That said, if you're more comfortable meeting people at work, perhaps you would be happier with an office job?
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago

mumblemumble 5y ago

It's more than that. I'm mid-life, with kids, meaning that my best opportunity for getting out of the house on a regular basis is while they're at school. Without that, days can go by without a significant change of scenery, especially in winter when spending evenings at the park isn't a great option. I'm not lonely, per se, but, all the same, the pandemic has been very, very difficult for me. I went from being a longtime remote worker who went to a coworking space most days, to what has sometimes felt like two years of house arrest. I agree that going in to an office - especially an open plan one where they pack desks end-to-end in giant noisy rooms - is a less-than-stellar option, too. But I also suspect that many people's newfound love of WFH is fueled in part by the novelty of the experience, and that the shine will wear off after a couple more years.

weatherlite 5y ago

We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. If not the office, workers are better off using some social working space, but unfortunately WFH is so tempting and easy most will resort to that. Psychologically it's not ideal. Yes the office can be a pain, commute and what not, but loneliness could be worse.

onion2k 5y ago
We are social creatures, there is something quite unnatural only interacting with your wife/kid or worse - with no one else at all, for weeks and months. Offices are significantly less 'natural' than spending time with a small group of people. If you go back a thousand years or so many people lived their entire life within a mile or two of where they were born - they grew up, worked, got married, lived and died in a single village. In lots of more isolated cases people would have only met a couple of hundred people in their entire lifetime. It's definitely unusual to lead such a limited life today, but psychologically it's not that bad. People survived pretty well, and they continue to now.
- closeparen 5y ago
  There was much more of a community life outside the home, with your fellow villagers.
  - biomcgary 5y ago
    In this case, the community is defined by the proximity to your home. Working at an office with a typical US commute is not remotely the same.
    - deadbeeves 5y ago
      Working remotely from home is also a very different lifestyle, so I'm not sure what the argument is. Living as if it's the 1000 BC is not in the cards.
  - 5y ago

throwaway4aday 5y ago

WFHomers need a modern equivalent of the Knitting Bee. Distinct from a co-working space since it is organized by its members who make an effort to get to know each other and it shouldn't be dependent on membership with some organization, just a grassroots locally organized thing.

iso1631 5y ago
Why?

closeparen 5y ago

I meet people outside of work “regularly” - more weekends than not - but a coffee or a hike or a live performance here and there is very different from casually sharing a building on a random Tuesday. The comparison isn’t a social life, it’s a family or roommates.

JohnHaugeland 5y ago

> A lot of lonely young men here freely admit their coworkers are the only people they regularly interact with in-person Well, with the 8 hours they're getting back from not commuting, they'll have more time to go out and socialize in non-work settings

hooande 5y ago

This doesn't make sense. There are countless opportunities for social interaction. Join a church, a club, a sports league, a gaming discord. I get that there's a lot of friction involved in joining anything, and many 'lonely young men' don't want to put forth that effort. But it's definitely less total effort than forcing people to come to an office for the purpose of social stimulation. Just measured in terms of time and fuel spent commuting by each person, it isn't even close. I think there are a lot of reasons that people prefer offices. Most of it is probably tradition and "that's the way we've always done things". If the reason is truly lonely people needing social interaction, then there are a lot of way better solutions.

infamouscow 5y ago
One thing to consider is the tech industry is over represented by neurodivergent people that struggle with social interaction. What you're suggesting is not feasible for everyone.
BKirkpatrick 5y ago
sorry for the shameless plug but, checkout frenemy.live
- infamouscow 5y ago
  I will. Thank you.
mhh__ 5y ago
Churches and most clubs don't have extremely intelligent people with similar interests i.e. your tribe. When I talk to my friends I am usually at maybe 20% brain "power", when I'm at work I can mention basically anything and someone will have heard of it. YMMV.
holyyikes 5y ago

thinkharderdev 5y ago

I think a lot of it is the exact circumstances of you office as well. All else equal I think I would actually prefer working in an office assuming that: 1. It felt like a "real" space (i.e. not a beige cubical farm) 2. Was not excessively loud 3. I had a comfortable chair/workspace 4. I could walk there from my house in under 20 minutes 5. There was no dress code 6. There was nobody there who I found deeply annoying and also insisted on interacting with me regularly And I think a lot of people (especially young people who live in cities close to where they work) actually do have something approximating that situation.

ecshafer 5y ago
Being able to walk there from my house in under 20 minutes is a big thing for me. If I am a 1-3 miles walk/bike ride, I would go to the office all of the time. Assuming its a safe comfortable commute. I hate driving in rush hour personally, any amount of distance. Also feeling like a real place is nice. I actually don't mind a cubical, though an office would be nicer. I really hate open office though, and open office makes me never want to go in. If it felt like a cozy coffee shop, or a college campus that would be ideal.
- thinkharderdev 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't mind a cubicle per se (especially compared to the typical open office) but I found the traditional cubicle farm offices, where everything is this bland, monochromatic beige color and lit with neon lights, very depressing.

renewiltord 5y ago

The interesting thing is that folks on HN who want to work from the office just say “I can see why you’re remote. Just not for me. I prefer to work in a team that’s all in-office” but folks on HN who want to work remote always go “It’s because you’re lonely that you can’t work remote. I have a loving wife and children. You are miserable and using coworkers as a substitute for social company.” Like, dude, we get it. This is important to you. So go work where you find that. A bit tiresome to constantly come into these threads and listen to this endless repetitious nonsense. Christ on a stick. Do you never tire of it?

stjohnswarts 5y ago

It isn't my responsibility to help "lonely young men" meet people. Just go to a bar/meetup/church and start talking. That's an individual's responsibility to socialize.

xkbarkar 5y ago

Believe it or not, that entails lonely women too