4 ms·

Being close to many people is a draw in itself. I'm sure I just don't understand something, but all these pro-WFH arguments here at HN give me almost hikikomor

Being close to many people is a draw in itself. I'm sure I just don't understand something, but all these pro-WFH arguments here at HN give me almost hikikomori vibes.

derstander 4y ago
> … all these pro-WFH arguments here at HN give me almost hikikomori vibes. This doesn’t match my experience. I’m a teleworker with a family and the percentage of my life spent interacting with other human beings is much higher than when I was a single person commuting to the office every day, or even a person with a family commuting to the office every day. Sure it’s the same few people instead of the dozen or so in an office and the smattering when I went out at night. But those relationships with the fewer people I interact with now are a good deal stronger than those other cases. I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the current norm of commuting in to an office or other workplace is anomalous in the history of humanity. People certainly had varied and meaningful personal relationships before this. The bulk of humanity weren’t essentially reclusive hermits prior to the start of the rat race. There are certainly benefits and drawbacks to then as now, but people spoke in person with their neighbors, engaged in civic life, found community in their faith, etc. Many of these social outlets have been replaced in bulk for a lot of people by a work social life and a nightlife out at restaurants and bars where relationships may be many but more fleeting. And maybe some of our interpersonal skills have suffered for it. Certainly there are feuds and rivalries of historic proportion before office culture, but I think conflict management is developed more when there are difficult people in your communities that you just need to deal with — think of decades-long neighbors. But I’m sure some of these are my own biases: I went from living in a city and commuting to work to living in a very rural area and mostly teleworking. Do I miss the city? Yes, certainly: arts and entertainment events, cuisines of any kind in walking or public transportation distance, etc. Do I miss going into the office every day? Sometimes: I honestly do like some of my coworkers enough to be real friends with. Am I the American equivalent of a hikikomori? No: I have stronger personal relationships with both family, neighbors, and members of my community than ever before — and certainly than more so than when I commuted to an office every day. I do listen to a lot fewer podcasts and new music without a commute though.
mrguyorama 4y ago
I'm literally smack dab inside of my city, but I still prefer WFH. My office was an "open" style hellscape that was a barely renovated parking garage, complete with harsh concrete and constant loud drilling work on said concrete, an HVAC system that was freezing in the fall and spring and never worked during the summer, High school cafeteria style """desks""", HVAC that meant you couldn't hear yourself think, meeting rooms that were annoying to use because we had a remote person on our team already, and coworkers constantly standing next to my desk having loud conversations with another person standing next to my desk. Fuck anything that tries to portray WFH as some sort of laziness, or agoraphobia, or avoidance of travel. Home offices are expensive, mediocre, and mean I have to spend my personal fun time in exactly the same seat I work in, which is detrimental to my mental health. But all of that is STILL better than the bullshit of working in what modern tech companies call "offices" because we were 5 years away from just being thrown into an empty gymnasium as our offices anyway, usually to just to penny pinch on the renovations of an office that costs ten times as much as it should because it's waterfront property that we never fucking needed as an ecommerce company!
i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago
Hikikomori vibes do make sense, but there’s a caveat: Work and social life are not the same thing. Companies showed their ignorance of this when the political response to Covid switched to downplay mode and companies tried to lure people back with pizza and games. The cringe factor there is extreme. I understand my colleagues. I empathise with them. I work with them effectively and in general I bear them. But like them? God no. They’re not my friends. I am no hermit. I have a wife and kid, and would trade spending time with them them every morning and evening over any job on the planet. When I commuted I’d leave before they wake up and get home after my kid goes to sleep - that, to me, is the definition of an isolated existence.

Being close to many people is a draw in itself. I'm sure I just don't understand something, but all these pro-WFH arguments here at HN give me almost hikikomori vibes.

derstander 4y ago

> … all these pro-WFH arguments here at HN give me almost hikikomori vibes. This doesn’t match my experience. I’m a teleworker with a family and the percentage of my life spent interacting with other human beings is much higher than when I was a single person commuting to the office every day, or even a person with a family commuting to the office every day. Sure it’s the same few people instead of the dozen or so in an office and the smattering when I went out at night. But those relationships with the fewer people I interact with now are a good deal stronger than those other cases. I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the current norm of commuting in to an office or other workplace is anomalous in the history of humanity. People certainly had varied and meaningful personal relationships before this. The bulk of humanity weren’t essentially reclusive hermits prior to the start of the rat race. There are certainly benefits and drawbacks to then as now, but people spoke in person with their neighbors, engaged in civic life, found community in their faith, etc. Many of these social outlets have been replaced in bulk for a lot of people by a work social life and a nightlife out at restaurants and bars where relationships may be many but more fleeting. And maybe some of our interpersonal skills have suffered for it. Certainly there are feuds and rivalries of historic proportion before office culture, but I think conflict management is developed more when there are difficult people in your communities that you just need to deal with — think of decades-long neighbors. But I’m sure some of these are my own biases: I went from living in a city and commuting to work to living in a very rural area and mostly teleworking. Do I miss the city? Yes, certainly: arts and entertainment events, cuisines of any kind in walking or public transportation distance, etc. Do I miss going into the office every day? Sometimes: I honestly do like some of my coworkers enough to be real friends with. Am I the American equivalent of a hikikomori? No: I have stronger personal relationships with both family, neighbors, and members of my community than ever before — and certainly than more so than when I commuted to an office every day. I do listen to a lot fewer podcasts and new music without a commute though.

mrguyorama 4y ago

I'm literally smack dab inside of my city, but I still prefer WFH. My office was an "open" style hellscape that was a barely renovated parking garage, complete with harsh concrete and constant loud drilling work on said concrete, an HVAC system that was freezing in the fall and spring and never worked during the summer, High school cafeteria style """desks""", HVAC that meant you couldn't hear yourself think, meeting rooms that were annoying to use because we had a remote person on our team already, and coworkers constantly standing next to my desk having loud conversations with another person standing next to my desk. Fuck anything that tries to portray WFH as some sort of laziness, or agoraphobia, or avoidance of travel. Home offices are expensive, mediocre, and mean I have to spend my personal fun time in exactly the same seat I work in, which is detrimental to my mental health. But all of that is STILL better than the bullshit of working in what modern tech companies call "offices" because we were 5 years away from just being thrown into an empty gymnasium as our offices anyway, usually to just to penny pinch on the renovations of an office that costs ten times as much as it should because it's waterfront property that we never fucking needed as an ecommerce company!

i-use-nixos-btw 4y ago

Hikikomori vibes do make sense, but there’s a caveat: Work and social life are not the same thing. Companies showed their ignorance of this when the political response to Covid switched to downplay mode and companies tried to lure people back with pizza and games. The cringe factor there is extreme. I understand my colleagues. I empathise with them. I work with them effectively and in general I bear them. But like them? God no. They’re not my friends. I am no hermit. I have a wife and kid, and would trade spending time with them them every morning and evening over any job on the planet. When I commuted I’d leave before they wake up and get home after my kid goes to sleep - that, to me, is the definition of an isolated existence.