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Ok, I will be the first to say that I hate offices: the culture, the aesthetic, the rituals and customs. But I'm not necessarily sure that--especially for young

Ok, I will be the first to say that I hate offices: the culture, the aesthetic, the rituals and customs. But I'm not necessarily sure that--especially for young people--work from home is the best option. Someone who is married, has kids, has a whole social world in their neighborhood, that person would enjoy and promote work from home, but that person is usually in a higher power position. A young person just starting out or at least earlier on in their career doesn't really have the opportunity to make friends, meet people (romantically), or otherwise make social connections while working from home.

eldavido 3y ago
I think this is right. I'm married with kids and have little desire to go to an office. It was indeed different when I Was younger -- I didn't cook at home as much so enjoyed office lunches with coworkers, I lived in a smaller apartment which was easier to find closer to work, etc. It occurs that shows including "Call my agent", "The Newsroom", and to some extent "Madam Secretary" depict the better version of office life (particularly for young people) pretty well.
JoeAltmaier 3y ago
It's often frowned upon to make romantic arrangements with workmates. But the rest, sure. I guess some new social construct will be needed. Like in the old days - balls, cotillions, clubs?
km3r 3y ago
I think we as a society would benefit from evolving the "third place". A place that is neither work nor home where you can socialize. Like it or not, lot of people want remote work, so the best path forward is to adapt.
- xen2xen1 3y ago
  That used to be called church.
- progrus 3y ago
  This is traditionally called “the pub” in the UK or “the bar” in the US. Maybe it’s time for society to work on that drinking habit, eh?
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Probably what we will end up with is school from home, work from home, everything from home. Socialisation will move entirely online where you meet up on VR Chat or whatever is popular at the time. Many people will almost never leave their house.
  - potatolicious 3y ago
    This is... demonstrably untrue? People who work from home generally aren't house-bound, they will still go to the coffee shop, the local park, local stores, meetups, pubs, bars, etc. Sure, if you live in a very amenity-poor area WFH may in fact be quite isolating - but if anything that reinforces the main thrust of the argument: live in a city where there are things to do other than working and hanging out with coworkers!
    - Gigachad 3y ago
      I think it’s is quite observably already happening. We have a growing portion of anti social shut ins and the problem is only getting worse. I think it’s realistic that social media and VR will just completely take over.
      - _v7gu 3y ago
        Shut-ins have always existed, at least they can be employed now. That is actually a nice pro for generally available remote work.
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  The Bar or Church they haven't gone away.
  - afavour 3y ago
    The church at least has gone away for an increasing segment of the population. And bars are squeezed by increased rents etc, sadly.
    - gavmor 3y ago
      And, frankly, while alcohol has its place in society, it shouldn't be the basis thereof.
- nsplayer 3y ago
  that's called the pub mate
- Sai_ 3y ago
  India really struggles in this regard. We don’t have a widespread pub/bar culture so everyone meets out on the streets…just knots of people sitting on bikes and chatting with each other. This is traffic nuisance but also makes the streets relatively safe (on average). I just wish a “third place” culture would spontaneously arise if only to decongest the roads.
vitehozonage 3y ago
My job dictating my friends, romantic attachments and other social connections is incredibly disgusting and dystopian to me. Meaningful social activity has only occurred outside the workplace, to me. Being forced to commute to an office decreases the chance for that by stealing even more free time, and it pushes many people to move away from their friends/family to entirely different cities or countries!
- jcelerier 3y ago
  > My job dictating my friends, romantic attachments and other social connections is incredibly disgusting and dystopian to me. Meaningful social activity has only occurred outside the workplace, to me. last stats I found is that 43% of marriage come from the workplace so it's most certainly not something to discount that easily
  - vitehozonage 3y ago
    Shocking statistic if true. Especially after considering gender imbalances it's hard to imagine, particularly in tech
    - bombcar 3y ago
      “Met at work” doesn’t necessarily mean “met coworker” - if you marry the barista at your coffee shop you did the first but not the second.
  - postsantum 3y ago
    I find it hard to believe (unless it's data from the 80s). Online dating has absolutely devoured all other ways to meet people romantically
- erulabs 3y ago
  Your job isn’t dictating your relationships - it’s giving you an opportunity at making some. Disgusted? By… a company… having an office? We have shockingly different interpretations of dystopian!
actionablefiber 3y ago
> A young person just starting out or at least earlier on in their career doesn't really have the opportunity to make friends, meet people (romantically), or otherwise make social connections while working from home. Sure they do - if they live in a city. I am a young person who started my first FTE job last year and am WFH. I have an incredibly bountiful friend group that comes from hobbyist meetups, social bike rides and dating apps.
mschuster91 3y ago
> A young person just starting out or at least earlier on in their career doesn't really have the opportunity to make friends, meet people (romantically), or otherwise make social connections while working from home. Oh, we Europeans have no problem with that. The difference we have is that we have employee protection laws that put a hard cap on working hours to 48h a week on average over a year (with some rare exceptions, usually for crews of offshore rigs, boats, public health/safety, military and private security) - and that this stuff gets audited, especially on complaints. And when the government looks at a company, they audit everything, not just the person who complained...
- afavour 3y ago
  I don’t really understand how that’s at all relevant. The point is that social connections are more difficult with remote work irrespective of how many hours you’re working.
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    When you have to work 60h+ weeks, you're way too exhausted in the evening to do anything social, and you'll lose the weekend to barely recovering. That forces many people to look for companionship in their coworkers.
    - afavour 3y ago
      I don’t work 60+ hour weeks, I work an entirely respectable number of hours. I don’t in any way feel “forced” to look for companionship with my coworkers, I want to, they’re nice people. And remote work makes it harder.
paxys 3y ago
Human civilization existed without office culture for many millennia, and we managed to socialize and reproduce just fine. Even in modern times a very tiny percentage of people in the world are white collar office workers, and the rest somehow don't have any of the problems you mention. Heck I'm willing to wager that people who don't have these kinds of office jobs do better socially and romantically than those sitting behind a desk all day.
- ilyt 3y ago
  > Human civilization existed without office culture for many millennia, and we managed to socialize and reproduce just fine. Because they worked together outside of office. You couldn't remote in into a cow. Before office being a place to work together there was factory floor, and before that it was the field
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    > You couldn't remote in into a cow Don’t give John Deere ideas
rr808 3y ago
I work for a big corp with a big grad intake. We are RTO 4 days a week and I think its great, lots of young people working together, going out after work. I feel kinda sad for those at home.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Cool. I WFH and so does my wife so I get to spend more time with my favorite person. My kids' school is a very short drive so I get to see them 5 minutes after I get off work. I guess I no longer get the appeal of going out after work with young people.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    I’d rather not drink with coworkers anyway. I have a tendency to ramble when drinking.
lo_zamoyski 3y ago
I think the assumptions many are making incorrectly is that the workplace is the center of one's social life. This is truly the triumph of a bizarro and dreary corporate capitalist individualism and an indictment of the state of our families and communities. Certainly, the workplace is a part of our social lives, but the argument that WFH leads to isolation should lead the arguer to reflect on what is wrong with the way he is living his life rather than condemn what I think is a welcome change. IMO, remote work can amortize the affects of market changes so that people aren't forced to uproot their lives to find work. They can work in the vicinity of their children. They can save time by avoiding commutes. All of this seems to contribute to the formation of community because it reduces social churn. Once communities form, the other aspects of community life can come into existence that open up the possibilities that are attributed to the workplace but that are not proper to it. The notion that you cannot make friends or find a spouse or whatever without the workplace or corporation being the social organizing principle is truly horrifying. This echos the WEF's ideas of how social life ought to be organized. I think that remote work will also cause a redistribution of other kinds of labor that office workers have long benefited from (like the restaurant industry). All of this seems to enable better social conditions.
- knallfrosch 3y ago
  Most people have a 40 hour/week contract and it would be a shame to spend that in solitary confinement. You can go to the office, play ping-pong, rant about your boss, flirt with coworkers and then "go home" and socialize some more (if you want that.) It's not either-or. I've found that if you spend all time together at home, at the end of the day, you have nothing to talk about with whomever you happen to live with.
sensanaty 3y ago
I'm someone who entered the workforce fully, 100% remote (ignoring jobs I had as a teenager anyway) at 19 and I couldn't disagree more. I actually have (and especially back then, had) a life outside of work believe it or not, and the thought of all of my social interactions (especially back then) being tied to the office sounds absolutely disgusting and completely dystopian. I don't particularly care for anyone in my company or any of my past ones bar 1 or 2 people, and I much prefer keeping it that way, where my work life is a completely separate universe to anything even resembling my personal life.
- MyneOutside 3y ago
  I've been working from home 12+ years and been working since 2001 in an office outside of that. I am the same. I've only ever met 1 person who I would want to hang out with outside of work.

eldavido 3y ago

I think this is right. I'm married with kids and have little desire to go to an office. It was indeed different when I Was younger -- I didn't cook at home as much so enjoyed office lunches with coworkers, I lived in a smaller apartment which was easier to find closer to work, etc. It occurs that shows including "Call my agent", "The Newsroom", and to some extent "Madam Secretary" depict the better version of office life (particularly for young people) pretty well.

JoeAltmaier 3y ago

It's often frowned upon to make romantic arrangements with workmates. But the rest, sure. I guess some new social construct will be needed. Like in the old days - balls, cotillions, clubs?

km3r 3y ago

I think we as a society would benefit from evolving the "third place". A place that is neither work nor home where you can socialize. Like it or not, lot of people want remote work, so the best path forward is to adapt.

xen2xen1 3y ago
That used to be called church.
progrus 3y ago
This is traditionally called “the pub” in the UK or “the bar” in the US. Maybe it’s time for society to work on that drinking habit, eh?
Gigachad 3y ago
Probably what we will end up with is school from home, work from home, everything from home. Socialisation will move entirely online where you meet up on VR Chat or whatever is popular at the time. Many people will almost never leave their house.
- potatolicious 3y ago
  This is... demonstrably untrue? People who work from home generally aren't house-bound, they will still go to the coffee shop, the local park, local stores, meetups, pubs, bars, etc. Sure, if you live in a very amenity-poor area WFH may in fact be quite isolating - but if anything that reinforces the main thrust of the argument: live in a city where there are things to do other than working and hanging out with coworkers!
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    I think it’s is quite observably already happening. We have a growing portion of anti social shut ins and the problem is only getting worse. I think it’s realistic that social media and VR will just completely take over.
    - _v7gu 3y ago
      Shut-ins have always existed, at least they can be employed now. That is actually a nice pro for generally available remote work.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
The Bar or Church they haven't gone away.
- afavour 3y ago
  The church at least has gone away for an increasing segment of the population. And bars are squeezed by increased rents etc, sadly.
  - gavmor 3y ago
    And, frankly, while alcohol has its place in society, it shouldn't be the basis thereof.
nsplayer 3y ago
that's called the pub mate
Sai_ 3y ago
India really struggles in this regard. We don’t have a widespread pub/bar culture so everyone meets out on the streets…just knots of people sitting on bikes and chatting with each other. This is traffic nuisance but also makes the streets relatively safe (on average). I just wish a “third place” culture would spontaneously arise if only to decongest the roads.

vitehozonage 3y ago

My job dictating my friends, romantic attachments and other social connections is incredibly disgusting and dystopian to me. Meaningful social activity has only occurred outside the workplace, to me. Being forced to commute to an office decreases the chance for that by stealing even more free time, and it pushes many people to move away from their friends/family to entirely different cities or countries!

jcelerier 3y ago
> My job dictating my friends, romantic attachments and other social connections is incredibly disgusting and dystopian to me. Meaningful social activity has only occurred outside the workplace, to me. last stats I found is that 43% of marriage come from the workplace so it's most certainly not something to discount that easily
- vitehozonage 3y ago
  Shocking statistic if true. Especially after considering gender imbalances it's hard to imagine, particularly in tech
  - bombcar 3y ago
    “Met at work” doesn’t necessarily mean “met coworker” - if you marry the barista at your coffee shop you did the first but not the second.
- postsantum 3y ago
  I find it hard to believe (unless it's data from the 80s). Online dating has absolutely devoured all other ways to meet people romantically
erulabs 3y ago
Your job isn’t dictating your relationships - it’s giving you an opportunity at making some. Disgusted? By… a company… having an office? We have shockingly different interpretations of dystopian!

actionablefiber 3y ago

> A young person just starting out or at least earlier on in their career doesn't really have the opportunity to make friends, meet people (romantically), or otherwise make social connections while working from home. Sure they do - if they live in a city. I am a young person who started my first FTE job last year and am WFH. I have an incredibly bountiful friend group that comes from hobbyist meetups, social bike rides and dating apps.

mschuster91 3y ago

> A young person just starting out or at least earlier on in their career doesn't really have the opportunity to make friends, meet people (romantically), or otherwise make social connections while working from home. Oh, we Europeans have no problem with that. The difference we have is that we have employee protection laws that put a hard cap on working hours to 48h a week on average over a year (with some rare exceptions, usually for crews of offshore rigs, boats, public health/safety, military and private security) - and that this stuff gets audited, especially on complaints. And when the government looks at a company, they audit everything, not just the person who complained...

afavour 3y ago
I don’t really understand how that’s at all relevant. The point is that social connections are more difficult with remote work irrespective of how many hours you’re working.
- mschuster91 3y ago
  When you have to work 60h+ weeks, you're way too exhausted in the evening to do anything social, and you'll lose the weekend to barely recovering. That forces many people to look for companionship in their coworkers.
  - afavour 3y ago
    I don’t work 60+ hour weeks, I work an entirely respectable number of hours. I don’t in any way feel “forced” to look for companionship with my coworkers, I want to, they’re nice people. And remote work makes it harder.

paxys 3y ago

Human civilization existed without office culture for many millennia, and we managed to socialize and reproduce just fine. Even in modern times a very tiny percentage of people in the world are white collar office workers, and the rest somehow don't have any of the problems you mention. Heck I'm willing to wager that people who don't have these kinds of office jobs do better socially and romantically than those sitting behind a desk all day.

ilyt 3y ago
> Human civilization existed without office culture for many millennia, and we managed to socialize and reproduce just fine. Because they worked together outside of office. You couldn't remote in into a cow. Before office being a place to work together there was factory floor, and before that it was the field
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  > You couldn't remote in into a cow Don’t give John Deere ideas

rr808 3y ago

I work for a big corp with a big grad intake. We are RTO 4 days a week and I think its great, lots of young people working together, going out after work. I feel kinda sad for those at home.

lotsoweiners 3y ago
Cool. I WFH and so does my wife so I get to spend more time with my favorite person. My kids' school is a very short drive so I get to see them 5 minutes after I get off work. I guess I no longer get the appeal of going out after work with young people.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  I’d rather not drink with coworkers anyway. I have a tendency to ramble when drinking.

lo_zamoyski 3y ago

I think the assumptions many are making incorrectly is that the workplace is the center of one's social life. This is truly the triumph of a bizarro and dreary corporate capitalist individualism and an indictment of the state of our families and communities. Certainly, the workplace is a part of our social lives, but the argument that WFH leads to isolation should lead the arguer to reflect on what is wrong with the way he is living his life rather than condemn what I think is a welcome change. IMO, remote work can amortize the affects of market changes so that people aren't forced to uproot their lives to find work. They can work in the vicinity of their children. They can save time by avoiding commutes. All of this seems to contribute to the formation of community because it reduces social churn. Once communities form, the other aspects of community life can come into existence that open up the possibilities that are attributed to the workplace but that are not proper to it. The notion that you cannot make friends or find a spouse or whatever without the workplace or corporation being the social organizing principle is truly horrifying. This echos the WEF's ideas of how social life ought to be organized. I think that remote work will also cause a redistribution of other kinds of labor that office workers have long benefited from (like the restaurant industry). All of this seems to enable better social conditions.

knallfrosch 3y ago
Most people have a 40 hour/week contract and it would be a shame to spend that in solitary confinement. You can go to the office, play ping-pong, rant about your boss, flirt with coworkers and then "go home" and socialize some more (if you want that.) It's not either-or. I've found that if you spend all time together at home, at the end of the day, you have nothing to talk about with whomever you happen to live with.

sensanaty 3y ago

I'm someone who entered the workforce fully, 100% remote (ignoring jobs I had as a teenager anyway) at 19 and I couldn't disagree more. I actually have (and especially back then, had) a life outside of work believe it or not, and the thought of all of my social interactions (especially back then) being tied to the office sounds absolutely disgusting and completely dystopian. I don't particularly care for anyone in my company or any of my past ones bar 1 or 2 people, and I much prefer keeping it that way, where my work life is a completely separate universe to anything even resembling my personal life.

MyneOutside 3y ago
I've been working from home 12+ years and been working since 2001 in an office outside of that. I am the same. I've only ever met 1 person who I would want to hang out with outside of work.