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I socialize almost daily outside of work. I also socialized a lot with my coworkers at my last job. Then covid hit, and we were on happy hour zooms each week an

I socialize almost daily outside of work. I also socialized a lot with my coworkers at my last job. Then covid hit, and we were on happy hour zooms each week and happily. It may be a luxury to enjoy one's coworkers. Maybe I hit the jackpot. But it seems weird to me that people don't socialize at all with anyone at their job. In any case, I agree - work isn't ideally the only social outlet for people. The point is that for a lot of people, that was/is the only time to get interaction with others, and yes, people should be forced to interact with others a bit (not by law, but by good habits and social norms). I'm lamenting a larger social trend that is riding the WFH wave. My broader point is that, in my opinion, the online trend of "being a loner is cool, humanity sucks, why would I ever want to talk to people" is bad, and I think the group of people who think that way is a subset of the WFH advocacy crowd. Like I said, WFH has benefits, some of which I currently reap, and perhaps I am overreacting or projecting! I haven't formulated my ideas into a paper, I opened them to discussion.

anon2020dot00 4y ago
I agree about the social aspect and if I didn't have pre-existing relationships with my colleagues, WFH wouldn't be as smooth. But with an idealization of the office experience, I disagree. I view it as a relic of the industrial age where-in output was from an assembly-line and so required everyone to be present physically. In the knowledge era, a lot of work like programming can really be done effectively at home and asynchronously or just by using video and text communication. For a lot of people, the office experience is almost a prison-like experience with very low freedom and control at the office. Also, there is even more time for socialization for those working at home and have family at home. Instead of just seeing family at night and on the weekends, at least can have lunch together and spend more time together so WFH is not synonymous with social isolation.

anon2020dot00 4y ago

I agree about the social aspect and if I didn't have pre-existing relationships with my colleagues, WFH wouldn't be as smooth. But with an idealization of the office experience, I disagree. I view it as a relic of the industrial age where-in output was from an assembly-line and so required everyone to be present physically. In the knowledge era, a lot of work like programming can really be done effectively at home and asynchronously or just by using video and text communication. For a lot of people, the office experience is almost a prison-like experience with very low freedom and control at the office. Also, there is even more time for socialization for those working at home and have family at home. Instead of just seeing family at night and on the weekends, at least can have lunch together and spend more time together so WFH is not synonymous with social isolation.