5 ms·

> I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home rather than an office have unfulfilling work lives and struggle to form meaningful friendships/rela

> I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home rather than an office have unfulfilling work lives and struggle to form meaningful friendships/relationships with colleagues. Absolutely not true. I've been WFH since 2008. Many followed overtime and the company went full WFH in 2015 closing our office. We have a video call 3x a week and shoot the shit learn about each others lives just the same before we talk about work. I don't feel any less connected to my coworkers than my physical friends. I also am part of a telegram group with ~10 old college buddies who live all over the country where we chat everyday and hop on voice to play video games or a monthly poker. This obviously isn't the same since we started out as physical friends and went to chat groups after going out separate ways, but again I haven't lost touch with any of them or felt less connected/meaningful because we are now remote only. Not only that but with all the various video games we have added random people we connected with to that group, I don't even know what their face looks like but I know just as much about them as my physical friends. They are just part of the daily discussions about sports, politics, movies/tv, whatever. I think if you are not connecting with someone you maybe aren't trying enough because it is totally possible. What exactly can't you talk about remotely that you can in person? I've yet to find a topic myself

_ph_ 4y ago
It is different. Yes, there are some colleagues with whom I have regular online contact, some of them I really only got into contact with during the pandemic. We have regular calls and exchanges. But I also have a lot of colleagues, which I don't have close contact with and contact to those has mostly evaporated during the pandemic. That are those people, I might talk to when meeting them in the coffee room, but really no reason to call outside of that or vice versa. Speaking of coffee rooms, they have another important property: it is very nice, even healthy, to leave your desk from time to time and both take a break for your mind and your body from work. In the office you walk to the coffee room in that time and there you meet people in the same phase. They are taking a break and you don't interrupt each others work when having a chat. In a sense, online social contact can be very disruptive, as when you start an online interaction, you don't know whether your recipient is willing for an interrupition or not. Of course, there are ways to arrange that too, but things aren't just black and white and interactions are complex.
- sylens 4y ago
  > In the office you walk to the coffee room in that time and there you meet people in the same phase. They are taking a break and you don't interrupt each others work when having a chat. Except those whose assigned desks happen to be close to the coffee room/kitchen. That's the problem with the way offices have been designed - there is always going to be some subset that has less than ideal conditions. The worst open office setup I saw a year before the pandemic had a conference room with no door, just a big pane of glass and a gap in the glass to enter. There were desks outside this conference room (like everywhere else on the floor) which meant whoever had to sit there was subjected to meetings and speakerphone all day long.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Where I work, the coffee room is pretty isolated. My office is actually the closest one, but I can close the door. When I am talking about the advantages of offices, I am thinking of good offices. No doubt that bad offices are almost always worse than working from home. Unfortunately, many companies have no idea (at least their upper management), about what makes a "good office". Otherwise the nonsense of "open space" would have stopped long ago.
    - dpark 4y ago
      > Unfortunately, many companies have no idea (at least their upper management), about what makes a "good office". Lol. Of course they know what makes a good office. The execs all have nice offices.
Closi 4y ago
I said many, not all. > I also am part of a telegram group with ~10 old college buddies who live all over the country where we chat everyday and hop on voice to play video games or a monthly poker. I haven't lost touch with any of them or felt less connected/meaningful because we are now remote only. If you all lived next door to each other, would you still do it over telegram voice? If not, why not if you can connect the same over voice chat? My view is that something is lost on voice chat compared to being in the same room. I am part of a 10-year WhatsApp group with my university buddies too - but we were bonded with real-life interactions and experiences while being together at university. If those in-person, real-life interactions were replaced by a slack group with other people on my course, we wouldn't have built the same relationship.
TsomArp 4y ago
Our minds and bodies are made for "real-reality" and not for "virtual-reality". That is one of the reasons why you cannot turn a webcam on a beach and say you are on holidays on the Caribe. Even if you heard all the sounds and try to relax, is not the same.
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  Work and leisure are very different. When relaxing between work sessions I'd usually rather read IRL with my 4yo than chat IRL with same coworkers I've already spent the morning with. While working I prefer control over interruptions and means of communication. And there are no emergencies in my line of work that require physical interruption.

_ph_ 4y ago

It is different. Yes, there are some colleagues with whom I have regular online contact, some of them I really only got into contact with during the pandemic. We have regular calls and exchanges. But I also have a lot of colleagues, which I don't have close contact with and contact to those has mostly evaporated during the pandemic. That are those people, I might talk to when meeting them in the coffee room, but really no reason to call outside of that or vice versa. Speaking of coffee rooms, they have another important property: it is very nice, even healthy, to leave your desk from time to time and both take a break for your mind and your body from work. In the office you walk to the coffee room in that time and there you meet people in the same phase. They are taking a break and you don't interrupt each others work when having a chat. In a sense, online social contact can be very disruptive, as when you start an online interaction, you don't know whether your recipient is willing for an interrupition or not. Of course, there are ways to arrange that too, but things aren't just black and white and interactions are complex.

sylens 4y ago
> In the office you walk to the coffee room in that time and there you meet people in the same phase. They are taking a break and you don't interrupt each others work when having a chat. Except those whose assigned desks happen to be close to the coffee room/kitchen. That's the problem with the way offices have been designed - there is always going to be some subset that has less than ideal conditions. The worst open office setup I saw a year before the pandemic had a conference room with no door, just a big pane of glass and a gap in the glass to enter. There were desks outside this conference room (like everywhere else on the floor) which meant whoever had to sit there was subjected to meetings and speakerphone all day long.
- _ph_ 4y ago
  Where I work, the coffee room is pretty isolated. My office is actually the closest one, but I can close the door. When I am talking about the advantages of offices, I am thinking of good offices. No doubt that bad offices are almost always worse than working from home. Unfortunately, many companies have no idea (at least their upper management), about what makes a "good office". Otherwise the nonsense of "open space" would have stopped long ago.
  - dpark 4y ago
    > Unfortunately, many companies have no idea (at least their upper management), about what makes a "good office". Lol. Of course they know what makes a good office. The execs all have nice offices.

Closi 4y ago

I said many, not all. > I also am part of a telegram group with ~10 old college buddies who live all over the country where we chat everyday and hop on voice to play video games or a monthly poker. I haven't lost touch with any of them or felt less connected/meaningful because we are now remote only. If you all lived next door to each other, would you still do it over telegram voice? If not, why not if you can connect the same over voice chat? My view is that something is lost on voice chat compared to being in the same room. I am part of a 10-year WhatsApp group with my university buddies too - but we were bonded with real-life interactions and experiences while being together at university. If those in-person, real-life interactions were replaced by a slack group with other people on my course, we wouldn't have built the same relationship.

TsomArp 4y ago

Our minds and bodies are made for "real-reality" and not for "virtual-reality". That is one of the reasons why you cannot turn a webcam on a beach and say you are on holidays on the Caribe. Even if you heard all the sounds and try to relax, is not the same.

paulryanrogers 4y ago
Work and leisure are very different. When relaxing between work sessions I'd usually rather read IRL with my 4yo than chat IRL with same coworkers I've already spent the morning with. While working I prefer control over interruptions and means of communication. And there are no emergencies in my line of work that require physical interruption.