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Remote work is hurting local networks for a lot of people. It's true that it's possible to build community outside of work but it takes intentional effort. We s

Remote work is hurting local networks for a lot of people. It's true that it's possible to build community outside of work but it takes intentional effort. We spend so many hours at work that it's a natural place for adults to build community and meet acquaintances. Situation 1 - Years of working in an office with coworkers, attending events, meeting customers in the community. Eventually you end up with a handful of people who you just happened to chat with at some work thing then ran into each other again and now you are sort of friends. Situation 2 - All of your interaction with coworkers and customers is remote. You get along with people but they aren't nearby so you can't grab coffee or dinner after work. You need to find interesting after-work activities, summon the energy, block out the time, spend the money, procrastinate taking action because you're overthinking it too much, etc. -- I can't remember which podcast I heard about this on but I've listened to most of the audiobook for Nick Gray's "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party: How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings"[0] and will be giving hosting a shot this spring. It still takes a lot of effort to find a crowd and host but hopefully having a framework for organizing and hosting will help. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61212264-the-2-hour-cocktail-party https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61212264-the-2-hour-c...

nscalf 4y ago
Not sure why you're getting downvoted, this is clearly correct. I still have many friends that I formed from working in the same office. For most American adults, the group you spend most of your time with is your coworkers. If you don't have a group hobby or activity outside of work, you have no mechanism to cycle new people in to your life in a setting which easily allows relationship building. There's a reason people who are a part of a church consistently say they're less lonely than people who aren't, and it's not a sense of faith. I picked up Jiu Jitsu a few years ago and found that to be extremely effective when it comes to meeting people wherever I go. It's usually a stead group of people with other people rotating in, and doing collaborative activities together makes for quick friends. I love remote work, and I take full advantage of it as a digital nomad, but we should have good faith discussions about the tradeoffs and how to mitigate it.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  > For most American adults, the group you spend most of your time with is your coworkers. And that also guarantees that when you leave the company, you also leave your "friends". I wholly reject intertwining work and professional relationships with friend relationships. I certainly won't be mean to my colleagues... but my closest colleague is 600mi away. And that's OK. I do spend a bit of time with local groups for developing friendships with.. And they'll be there regardless where I work.
  - driscoll42 4y ago
    On one level I agree with you that mingling work relationships with friendships is often fraught with issues of things bleeding over in a negative way. But let's be real, to do so takes much more effort, and especially for people who have kids, they don't really have much time to socialize with other adults than at work. Or some people they're exhausted after a day of work so if they want to have fun, easier to just talk to someone at work.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - vel0city 4y ago
    > And that also guarantees that when you leave the company, you also leave your "friends". I am friends with many people who I am no longer coworkers with, some of which I consider to be pretty deep relationships. You don't have to stop talking once you or they have left the office, much in the same way that you don't have to stop being friends after taking a different class on a college campus.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nscalf 4y ago
    Seems like quite a bit of cynicism here. You can be friends with people you work with, and you can remain friends after you leave. You also don't have to be, do whatever you want. The thing you can't disagree with is that you spend most of your day interacting with them somehow, particularly if you're not working remote. That means you lose most of that social interaction when you work alone in a room. None of this was a criticism on choosing to not be friends with people you work with.
seydor 4y ago
It's not even about spending a lot of time together but about regularity. Async reduces the chances of people bumping onto each other dramatically. Some kind of rhythm needs to be found
topkai22 4y ago
Interesting. I found going remote (which happened 6 years pre-pandemic) forced me to develop better local networks. It took a while (and having kids helped) but I ended up with a bunch of truly local friends and neighbors through sports, kids, and other interest groups.
deleted 4y ago
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intrasight 4y ago
I bought that book recently, as I want to become more of an organizer. I vaguely recall socializing with co-workers - like back in the '90s. I don't recall it having been a great experience. You don't choose you co-workers. My good friends now fall into three groups: 1) old high school or college friends, 2) parents of daughter's friends friends, 3) gym-rat/marathon friends. The groups don't overlap. Still LOTS of parties - especially the fitness clan. The vast majority I don't go to, because I'd be out partying a couple times a week. I'm pretty introverted so I guess I'm just lucky to have strong friends circles. But you are correct that it takes intentional effort.
nickgray 4y ago
Howdy, just saying Thank You for giving my book a shoutout! Tell me if you accept the challenge at the end of Chapter 1 and I'll personally help you out. I think you'll do great. This will be fun.
sheepybloke 4y ago
I think it's also a bit of the mercenary mindset mixed in there as well. I feel like people don't want to mix or try to make friends with their coworkers anymore. I get wanting to have boundaries between work and life, but I feel like most people interpret it as "Don't become friends with work people" instead of not talking only about work with work-friends. Anecdotally, most of the people with this view I found to already have a good group of friends whether from college or from earlier work/social situations. It feels a bit rich to say that you shouldn't make friends with coworkers when your social circle is already full.

nscalf 4y ago

Not sure why you're getting downvoted, this is clearly correct. I still have many friends that I formed from working in the same office. For most American adults, the group you spend most of your time with is your coworkers. If you don't have a group hobby or activity outside of work, you have no mechanism to cycle new people in to your life in a setting which easily allows relationship building. There's a reason people who are a part of a church consistently say they're less lonely than people who aren't, and it's not a sense of faith. I picked up Jiu Jitsu a few years ago and found that to be extremely effective when it comes to meeting people wherever I go. It's usually a stead group of people with other people rotating in, and doing collaborative activities together makes for quick friends. I love remote work, and I take full advantage of it as a digital nomad, but we should have good faith discussions about the tradeoffs and how to mitigate it.

tarotuser 4y ago
> For most American adults, the group you spend most of your time with is your coworkers. And that also guarantees that when you leave the company, you also leave your "friends". I wholly reject intertwining work and professional relationships with friend relationships. I certainly won't be mean to my colleagues... but my closest colleague is 600mi away. And that's OK. I do spend a bit of time with local groups for developing friendships with.. And they'll be there regardless where I work.
- driscoll42 4y ago
  On one level I agree with you that mingling work relationships with friendships is often fraught with issues of things bleeding over in a negative way. But let's be real, to do so takes much more effort, and especially for people who have kids, they don't really have much time to socialize with other adults than at work. Or some people they're exhausted after a day of work so if they want to have fun, easier to just talk to someone at work.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vel0city 4y ago
  > And that also guarantees that when you leave the company, you also leave your "friends". I am friends with many people who I am no longer coworkers with, some of which I consider to be pretty deep relationships. You don't have to stop talking once you or they have left the office, much in the same way that you don't have to stop being friends after taking a different class on a college campus.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nscalf 4y ago
  Seems like quite a bit of cynicism here. You can be friends with people you work with, and you can remain friends after you leave. You also don't have to be, do whatever you want. The thing you can't disagree with is that you spend most of your day interacting with them somehow, particularly if you're not working remote. That means you lose most of that social interaction when you work alone in a room. None of this was a criticism on choosing to not be friends with people you work with.

seydor 4y ago

It's not even about spending a lot of time together but about regularity. Async reduces the chances of people bumping onto each other dramatically. Some kind of rhythm needs to be found

topkai22 4y ago

Interesting. I found going remote (which happened 6 years pre-pandemic) forced me to develop better local networks. It took a while (and having kids helped) but I ended up with a bunch of truly local friends and neighbors through sports, kids, and other interest groups.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

intrasight 4y ago

I bought that book recently, as I want to become more of an organizer. I vaguely recall socializing with co-workers - like back in the '90s. I don't recall it having been a great experience. You don't choose you co-workers. My good friends now fall into three groups: 1) old high school or college friends, 2) parents of daughter's friends friends, 3) gym-rat/marathon friends. The groups don't overlap. Still LOTS of parties - especially the fitness clan. The vast majority I don't go to, because I'd be out partying a couple times a week. I'm pretty introverted so I guess I'm just lucky to have strong friends circles. But you are correct that it takes intentional effort.

nickgray 4y ago

Howdy, just saying Thank You for giving my book a shoutout! Tell me if you accept the challenge at the end of Chapter 1 and I'll personally help you out. I think you'll do great. This will be fun.

sheepybloke 4y ago

I think it's also a bit of the mercenary mindset mixed in there as well. I feel like people don't want to mix or try to make friends with their coworkers anymore. I get wanting to have boundaries between work and life, but I feel like most people interpret it as "Don't become friends with work people" instead of not talking only about work with work-friends. Anecdotally, most of the people with this view I found to already have a good group of friends whether from college or from earlier work/social situations. It feels a bit rich to say that you shouldn't make friends with coworkers when your social circle is already full.