28 ms·

Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin

37 points by lxm 3y ago

archo 3y ago
https://archive.is/KqKRf https://archive.is/KqKRf
DanAtC 3y ago
Good
harry8 3y ago
Flipping anti-employee fantasy that people get to leave on time and just work their hours. Never, ever seen it.
nine_zeros 3y ago
Why the fuck would anyone schmooze to a boss/company who can fire you at anytime? At-will employment cuts both ways.
- twobitshifter 3y ago
  Helps build trust and friendships, and understand people at a level beyond their job.
  - richev 3y ago
    I somehow agree with both of these points, but am not sure I understand how that can be.
    - esafak 3y ago
      You can compartmentalize your personal and professional personas. Also, you should be doing all that trust building on the clock.
    - diab0lic 3y ago
      It can both serve a function (help build extended relationships) and be something people don’t want to do because those relationships can be severed in an instant thanks to at will employment.
      - twobitshifter 3y ago
        And even if you or they leave, in many forms of business having friends in another company can be huge in providing a safety net or a path towards a better job. Socialization with others may be the closest thing to a union that devs have. If Amazon cuts your job, your old buddy who moved to MS might be a lifeline.
    - earth-adventure 3y ago
      One statement relates to inter personal relationships. The other relates to the employer - employee relationship.
  - analognoise 3y ago
    Faux socialization is just hybrid class warfare.
    - twobitshifter 3y ago
      - Wanna grab a drink after work? - Nah, I’m not into hybrid class warfare
- Gigachad 3y ago
  Not so much the boss, but I like my coworkers and enjoy an occasional night out with them. This might shock HN but not everyone despises their job and not everyone hates the people they work with. Company occasionally runs an optional dinner/entertainment night with food and drinks paid for. And I'm happy to participate.
  - theonething 3y ago
    > This might shock HN but not everyone despises their job and not everyone hates the people they work with. Who is saying that? I don't despise my job or coworkers, but I'd rather spend time with my family after work. I don't really have that much free time so I prioritize.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  - Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
    I like my colleagues. I’m having fun with them all day long. After hour I take care of my children if I have them, go to my sport activity, see friends, meet new people, get lucky, like to spend time alone to do stuff like read, draw, sculpt. So no I don’t hate my job. But I already give it a lot of my time, and I don’t define myself by it. Doesn’t mean I don’t make friends at works. And… if they truly want to see me ? Select a work day, do it during the work day. Current job host a seminar during the work hour, with a one night out on a hostel on Thursday. Not a week end.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- lettergram 3y ago
  Wouldn’t that be the very reason you’d want to schmooze?
shawnc 3y ago
There's SO MUCH MORE TO DO at home or with close friends, coupled with everything else already said in the other comments, that it just doesn't meet the threshold of enjoyment or need it once felt like it did.
- listenallyall 3y ago
  Yes, SO MUCH NETFLIX to watch. I'd write a longer comment but the next episode is already starting.
  - zingababba 3y ago
    manager detected
runako 3y ago
What does "after work" mean when you are expected to respond to email & Slack/Teams after you leave the office? The tradeoff to being always available to work is there's no "after work" time anymore; jobs have already claimed all the waking hours.
- sneak 3y ago
  If you're not being paid an hourly rate x24 each day to be on call, turn off notifications for these apps when you aren't working. It's a matter of setting boundaries. If you do work whilst not getting paid, the beneficiary is not going to correct your error. The only way you get them to pay for 24 hour availability is by not working 24 hours each day for free.
  - runako 3y ago
    Unlike the after-work schmoozing in the OP article, this will get you fired. Your employer will just claim this is an expectation of the job.
    - sneak 3y ago
      You, as an employee, will be the one doing the firing of the abusive employer by refusing to be on call 24/7 for free. If you're actually valuable and it's actually required they will work out a deal with you to compensate you for it. They'll usually just deal without it, maybe with some abusive passive aggressive grumbling. If they're unreasonable, they will do you a favor and end the business relationship. If you constantly refuse to set boundaries with your employer because "if I do they'll fire me", you will reduce your effective hourly rate immensely. Don't do that. It makes them respect and value you way less, too, because you aren't valuing your own time - why should they if you don't?
happytoexplain 3y ago
I absolutely want to schmooze after work. With my family and friends.
- superqd 3y ago
  This x 1000
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Some of those friends you may even happen to work with
jayd16 3y ago
Only fair way to do this is just start during the last hour of the work day. You're not asking for donated time but people will probably stay a bit later if they're enjoying themselves. If they're not what's the point, anyway. But there's so much negativity in these comments. Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  > Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what? Despise? No. But, the decision isn't spend time with coworkers or don't spend time with coworkers. It's spend time with coworkers, or spend time with family/friends. I pick the second option. I'm already spending 40 hours a week with my co-workers. Let me spend the few remaining non-busy, non-tired hours I have with my friends. But, what do I know. I never go out of my way to spend time with people I don't have a shared interest with anyway. So maybe I'm an exception.
- lettergram 3y ago
  I’m a huge family guy, I too am confused by these comments. 1. After work activities are voluntary 99% of the time (even “required events” I’ve personally skipped many times) 2. I prioritize my family over everything (leaving jobs over work-life balance), but that doesn’t mean having time out of work with co-workers is necessarily bad 3. I tend to value my coworkers as friends and have even invited some to weddings, etc. I don’t think it’s all that odd to have fun outside of work All that being said, I also hate cutting into family time. But not everyone has a family or solid friend group, so activities through work are probably a good thing
  - givemeethekeys 3y ago
    > But not everyone has a family or solid friend group And they never will, if they stick around at work after work.
    - ElevenLathe 3y ago
      Not sure this is fair. I met my wife at work, we even got to know each other initially at a "mandatory fun" type of event (admittedly this wasn't a "professional" job, so I understand that it's a little different). Literally every close friend I've made since school is somebody I know from work initially. I would say going for a beer after work is probably one of the best ways to make friends as an adult.
frandroid 3y ago
> “The flake-out rate is so much higher at events now,” says Gretchen Goldman, a research director in Takoma Park, Md. > This summer Goldman sent an invite to 100 colleagues for casual after-work drinks at some picnic tables just outside the office as a goodbye party. She was taking a new job with the federal government. Fewer than 10 showed up. Maybe don't have an event where people have to BYOB at work?? If I'm doing a going away thing I'm going to a pub.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  Here in LA - below the Valley - a lot of people are dry or drastically cutting down their alcohol intake. Not a selling point.
  - appplication 3y ago
    Why is that? I’ve personally been drinking a lot less, but that’s because I absolutely hate hangovers and it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. I do enjoy a nice drink, I just never find it worth it anymore. It’s interesting to me that it would be happening more broadly.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      That’s why everyone else is doing it, or very many. Additionally, weed doesn't cause hangovers or its not a validated side effect, a little brain fog for some. There is very little “I used to be an alcoholic” or “I’m pregnant”. No excuses necessary and most people don't need one. It’s normal enough not to matter. People are content avoiding it as a carcinogen as it is for basically every organ in the digestive tract. On the carcinogen front and weed consumption, many people aren’t smoking their weed (or not primarily or not often), they use edibles or drinks too. So there’s a burgeoning shift in patterns, but its common enough for it not to just be recovering people that garner the imagine of being sloppy at one point. Very well adjusted people are just not interested. But its not just weed as a competitor. I run into completely sober people too, they just never started anything and aren't interested. No religious thing, no belief system. People from multiple different circles. I go out with an in shape woman and there’s a non-negligible chance there’s no vice. My patterns going out haven't changed much, but I’ve stopped buying six packs. Its made a surprising difference, I appreciate it.
29athrowaway 3y ago
Nobody wants to hang out with sycophants. They are sad to watch. You are replaceable at work, but not replaceable at home.
- winrid 3y ago
  This. The game just continues after 5 if leadership is at the "party".
armchairhacker 3y ago
Maybe this borders the site guidelines, but I wish people would post less of these ragebait articles. Yeah we get it. People like to treat work as "work", and not deal with overwork, socialization, RTO, micro-managing, etc.
- gjvc 3y ago
  Yeah we get it. People like to treat work as "work", and not deal with overwork, socialization, RTO, micro-managing, etc. you're not speaking for those people who need reminding about it, depending on their circumstances. There is no "we" when making a single post.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  "We", in the broad sense, demonstrably do not get it. "We" need to be reminded, continuously, because our system, while good at a lot of things, creates a continuous force that pushes the vast majority of individuals toward misery. It never stops doing this, and the pushback must be constant.
jmspring 3y ago
I've said this before...YC hosts "you want to work at a startup" day. In the past there have been multiple startups that claim "we are a family", "we work hard and play hard" but then handwave ... the only one that was honest at one of the years I attended, was Justin of justin.tv. Work is a job. If you want to make it a social life, go for it. But let it be your decision. I've had work situations in the past where many of us were friends and still in contact years later. But, don't let it become your life.
- zen_1 3y ago
  If it's truly like that, you're usually not recruiting at job fairs but through friends and friends of friends.
Kadin 3y ago
I get that the WSJ needs to run these sort of pieces every so often to sell papers, but "No One Wants [Whatever]" think-pieces should be treated the same way as the overly-speculative question headlines that led to "Betteridge's Law" in the early 2000s. Office culture, like the rest of culture, is cyclical. People are reactive, and tend to move in herds. Given an intense external stimulus like the pandemic, we should expect to see waves of behaviors propagating out through time for at least the next few years. During the pandemic, nobody was in the office, so right after the pandemic, there was a boom in office socialization (in some quarters). Now, apparently according to WSJ, the pendulum is swinging back. This isn't indicative of very much, except that there was a big shock to the office-work social system and it's still not stabilized. In particular, it's not especially suggestive of what the steady state will be, once these perturbations diminish. I think we probably have several more back-and-forth cycles around everyone-works-from-home! vs. 40-hours-in-office-or-bust!, before the market works out what the relative value is (to the employer and the employee) of having people in the office and paying for a physical office for them, vs. the flexibility of working from home and of having a potentially international hiring pool. There are benefits and hazards for both parties in either arrangement. My personal feeling, just based on how the job market has tended to stratify in the past, is that we'll see multiple approaches within each industry/sector, based on how fundamentally creative the work is. The organizations in a particular sector who are really pushing the boundaries of that industry, who are actually advancing the state of the art, will likely be in-office cultures, because nobody has yet found a substitute for in-person communication particularly as it applies to creative problem solving. But those will represent a small tip of the workplace iceberg, sitting atop (and demanding higher rates than) a larger volume of companies whose work simply isn't that fundamentally creative or challenging, and have to compensate by offering flexible / WFH arrangements, and actively court the employees who are more interested in work-life balance than in working in their industry's version of the Manhattan Project.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I for one have had an incredibly great time that I've greatly enjoyed getting to hang out & socialize with all kinds of coworkers. I'm so glad I've gotten to connect with these people, in a less pressured way that the actual work environment seems unable to replicate. I've learned so much about people's lives, and learned so much background, and shared so many interesting stories. This feels like the end ya'll; another scary nail being driven in. I'm in a top 10 city in the US. At least half the establishments used to be open till midnight every night, and now the city is going to sleep at 10:00. The meetup scene has collapsed; the industry has literally no social functions left for people who do want to opt in to hanging out & shooting the shit & swapping tales. The city center is dead as shit; no chance to swap stories & mingle there. My work division used to do trivia and board games and happy hours and all sorts of other things, but we've lost headcount and lost critical mass & lost the social drivers; now it's so hard to get people to do stuff. Tonight was a pretty nice all company happy hour and almost no one from my division was interested. It was a great night. I've been at places where a lot of people had to really plan & make sure it was ok for them to do social activities; home or other commitments kept them busy. But every place I've been, folks have been eager to hang out, even if just for a bit. Sometimes there've been slowdowns but the resistance now feels new & difficult, unprecedented to me. I know I'm over-projecting my current experience, but I can totally see & immediately grasp where we are a as a crisis point, where common bonds & worthy good cameraderie - not corporate run, top down edict, but genuine bottom up socialization - happens. I don't know what the world looks like if we lose these cohesion points, if we stop having exchanges. There's a lot of good reasons for negativity & skepticism. There were real costs. But fundamentally I think that view is twisted, that it is wretched & sad to not acknowledge & embrace the opportunity & to recognize the upside. The world has, in my view, become far more quiet & isolated, & not all workplaces are great, but I hope many people have had good workplaces & good colleagues & can recognize some merit to having better than formal at-will as-necessary purely-industrial relationships. I don't want work me to just be a robot.
- anon291 3y ago
  I mean the insane reaction to COVID (to lock down all cities for years) and send workers home is going to have major effects on down towns. Unfortunately my fellow urban dwellers supported these policies despite the fact they were going to hit cities hardest. In my opinion it wasn't worth it, but this seems like a minority opinion . It's so important for innovation and career growth to have these opportunities.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
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- TheGigaChad 3y ago
  [dead]
qp11 3y ago
Corporate wonderland is an such an abnormal environment. How it all hasn't collapsed is a mystery. Its structure is hierarchical, but the world has become a hyperconnected network. Underlings might have much more interesting networks than their bosses. In theory this should be putting lot pressure on what "orders" can flow top down. Its like pushing circus animals, trained to perform ever diverging niche tricks the whole day, into a common space and hoping connection happens. Its not going to happen. The circus is an abnormal space for connection.
- Gud 3y ago
  In most parts of the world, it's still very much hierarchical. And in the other parts of the world, it's just less visible.
SanderNL 3y ago
I get it though, a bit of mingling is good for morale and most people are pretty nice. But.. if socializing is important why not do it during office hours?
xyzzy123 3y ago
I think the part that's not talked about is how much more risky it feels in 2023 to drink with co-workers than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Am I just getting old? Drinking culture has largely changed for the better and I think workplaces are safer than they used to be. But I also think you'd have to be an idiot (or risk-blind) to get loose at company events like a lot of people used to do.
- whynotkeithberg 3y ago
  It's not more risky for decent people. Just the people who can't stop being perverts & sexually harassing people while drunk actually get held accountable rather than it being swept under the rug. For those of us who don't participate in such behavior nothing has changed or become any more risky. People getting loose at parties used to mean harassment and it was deemed ok because "men are being men" but it was never ok. Just treat people as they deserve whether you're drinking or not and there's no issue to be had.
  - DangitBobby 3y ago
    Okay, you could jump straight to sexual harassment. But lots of people do dumb shit that has nothing to do with sex while they are drunk. "Letting loose" means lowering your inhibitions which makes you more likely to do something regrettable. And I don't want to hear anything about "decent people" unless you're the 1 human on this planet that's never done or said anything they regret.
    - orwin 3y ago
      I'm pretty confident a lot of people, even drunk, stay decent towards fellow humans. Most people don't get violent or harass people when drunk. Those that do, however, should absolutely stop drinking until they fix their issues. I don't think I regret anything I ever did or said while drunk (unless you mean 'taking that last drink that will kill me tomorrow' and in this case, I regret an Irish coffee I knew was too much).
      - 3y ago
jmauritz 3y ago
I've been on ... 4-5 "after works" (as we call it here), since the pandemic. But even then we usually get going around 16.00 and the night is over before 20.00. But if the company is planning something after work hours? I consider that to be a "team-building" activity, a part of my 8 hour work day.
fliglr 3y ago
I feel like people drink with coworkers if they want to accidentally cheat on their partner. Either way I only drink before work
mytailorisrich 3y ago
Many places I worked at did that over lunch. It does not take any extra time and people end up get a longer lunch than usual.
000ooo000 3y ago
Interestingly no distinction made in this article between socialising with coworkers because you want to, and Mandatory Cuddles, i.e. some unlikable dickbag organises a mandatory social team outing outside of 9-5. The moment it becomes an obligation, you've lost me. You already get 50% of my daily waking hours, and once a commute and chores are factored in, my daily leisure hours are even fewer. You want some of those too? Get lost.
thefz 3y ago
It takes one special kind of emotionally disconnected sociopath to put people in a "social" event and expect them to be like a family. Why they don't kiss? Past boss was like that, big parties and then stabbing you in the back. "but we are a team, right? we drink together". Nah.

37 points by lxm 3y ago

archo 3y ago

https://archive.is/KqKRf https://archive.is/KqKRf

DanAtC 3y ago

Good

harry8 3y ago

Flipping anti-employee fantasy that people get to leave on time and just work their hours. Never, ever seen it.

nine_zeros 3y ago

Why the fuck would anyone schmooze to a boss/company who can fire you at anytime? At-will employment cuts both ways.

twobitshifter 3y ago
Helps build trust and friendships, and understand people at a level beyond their job.
- richev 3y ago
  I somehow agree with both of these points, but am not sure I understand how that can be.
  - esafak 3y ago
    You can compartmentalize your personal and professional personas. Also, you should be doing all that trust building on the clock.
  - diab0lic 3y ago
    It can both serve a function (help build extended relationships) and be something people don’t want to do because those relationships can be severed in an instant thanks to at will employment.
    - twobitshifter 3y ago
      And even if you or they leave, in many forms of business having friends in another company can be huge in providing a safety net or a path towards a better job. Socialization with others may be the closest thing to a union that devs have. If Amazon cuts your job, your old buddy who moved to MS might be a lifeline.
  - earth-adventure 3y ago
    One statement relates to inter personal relationships. The other relates to the employer - employee relationship.
- analognoise 3y ago
  Faux socialization is just hybrid class warfare.
  - twobitshifter 3y ago
    - Wanna grab a drink after work? - Nah, I’m not into hybrid class warfare
Gigachad 3y ago
Not so much the boss, but I like my coworkers and enjoy an occasional night out with them. This might shock HN but not everyone despises their job and not everyone hates the people they work with. Company occasionally runs an optional dinner/entertainment night with food and drinks paid for. And I'm happy to participate.
- theonething 3y ago
  > This might shock HN but not everyone despises their job and not everyone hates the people they work with. Who is saying that? I don't despise my job or coworkers, but I'd rather spend time with my family after work. I don't really have that much free time so I prioritize.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
  I like my colleagues. I’m having fun with them all day long. After hour I take care of my children if I have them, go to my sport activity, see friends, meet new people, get lucky, like to spend time alone to do stuff like read, draw, sculpt. So no I don’t hate my job. But I already give it a lot of my time, and I don’t define myself by it. Doesn’t mean I don’t make friends at works. And… if they truly want to see me ? Select a work day, do it during the work day. Current job host a seminar during the work hour, with a one night out on a hostel on Thursday. Not a week end.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
lettergram 3y ago
Wouldn’t that be the very reason you’d want to schmooze?

shawnc 3y ago

There's SO MUCH MORE TO DO at home or with close friends, coupled with everything else already said in the other comments, that it just doesn't meet the threshold of enjoyment or need it once felt like it did.

listenallyall 3y ago
Yes, SO MUCH NETFLIX to watch. I'd write a longer comment but the next episode is already starting.
- zingababba 3y ago
  manager detected

runako 3y ago

What does "after work" mean when you are expected to respond to email & Slack/Teams after you leave the office? The tradeoff to being always available to work is there's no "after work" time anymore; jobs have already claimed all the waking hours.

sneak 3y ago
If you're not being paid an hourly rate x24 each day to be on call, turn off notifications for these apps when you aren't working. It's a matter of setting boundaries. If you do work whilst not getting paid, the beneficiary is not going to correct your error. The only way you get them to pay for 24 hour availability is by not working 24 hours each day for free.
- runako 3y ago
  Unlike the after-work schmoozing in the OP article, this will get you fired. Your employer will just claim this is an expectation of the job.
  - sneak 3y ago
    You, as an employee, will be the one doing the firing of the abusive employer by refusing to be on call 24/7 for free. If you're actually valuable and it's actually required they will work out a deal with you to compensate you for it. They'll usually just deal without it, maybe with some abusive passive aggressive grumbling. If they're unreasonable, they will do you a favor and end the business relationship. If you constantly refuse to set boundaries with your employer because "if I do they'll fire me", you will reduce your effective hourly rate immensely. Don't do that. It makes them respect and value you way less, too, because you aren't valuing your own time - why should they if you don't?

happytoexplain 3y ago

I absolutely want to schmooze after work. With my family and friends.

superqd 3y ago
This x 1000
quickthrower2 3y ago
Some of those friends you may even happen to work with

jayd16 3y ago

Only fair way to do this is just start during the last hour of the work day. You're not asking for donated time but people will probably stay a bit later if they're enjoying themselves. If they're not what's the point, anyway. But there's so much negativity in these comments. Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?

xboxnolifes 3y ago
> Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what? Despise? No. But, the decision isn't spend time with coworkers or don't spend time with coworkers. It's spend time with coworkers, or spend time with family/friends. I pick the second option. I'm already spending 40 hours a week with my co-workers. Let me spend the few remaining non-busy, non-tired hours I have with my friends. But, what do I know. I never go out of my way to spend time with people I don't have a shared interest with anyway. So maybe I'm an exception.
lettergram 3y ago
I’m a huge family guy, I too am confused by these comments. 1. After work activities are voluntary 99% of the time (even “required events” I’ve personally skipped many times) 2. I prioritize my family over everything (leaving jobs over work-life balance), but that doesn’t mean having time out of work with co-workers is necessarily bad 3. I tend to value my coworkers as friends and have even invited some to weddings, etc. I don’t think it’s all that odd to have fun outside of work All that being said, I also hate cutting into family time. But not everyone has a family or solid friend group, so activities through work are probably a good thing
- givemeethekeys 3y ago
  > But not everyone has a family or solid friend group And they never will, if they stick around at work after work.
  - ElevenLathe 3y ago
    Not sure this is fair. I met my wife at work, we even got to know each other initially at a "mandatory fun" type of event (admittedly this wasn't a "professional" job, so I understand that it's a little different). Literally every close friend I've made since school is somebody I know from work initially. I would say going for a beer after work is probably one of the best ways to make friends as an adult.

frandroid 3y ago

> “The flake-out rate is so much higher at events now,” says Gretchen Goldman, a research director in Takoma Park, Md. > This summer Goldman sent an invite to 100 colleagues for casual after-work drinks at some picnic tables just outside the office as a goodbye party. She was taking a new job with the federal government. Fewer than 10 showed up. Maybe don't have an event where people have to BYOB at work?? If I'm doing a going away thing I'm going to a pub.

yieldcrv 3y ago
Here in LA - below the Valley - a lot of people are dry or drastically cutting down their alcohol intake. Not a selling point.
- appplication 3y ago
  Why is that? I’ve personally been drinking a lot less, but that’s because I absolutely hate hangovers and it just doesn’t feel worth it to me. I do enjoy a nice drink, I just never find it worth it anymore. It’s interesting to me that it would be happening more broadly.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    That’s why everyone else is doing it, or very many. Additionally, weed doesn't cause hangovers or its not a validated side effect, a little brain fog for some. There is very little “I used to be an alcoholic” or “I’m pregnant”. No excuses necessary and most people don't need one. It’s normal enough not to matter. People are content avoiding it as a carcinogen as it is for basically every organ in the digestive tract. On the carcinogen front and weed consumption, many people aren’t smoking their weed (or not primarily or not often), they use edibles or drinks too. So there’s a burgeoning shift in patterns, but its common enough for it not to just be recovering people that garner the imagine of being sloppy at one point. Very well adjusted people are just not interested. But its not just weed as a competitor. I run into completely sober people too, they just never started anything and aren't interested. No religious thing, no belief system. People from multiple different circles. I go out with an in shape woman and there’s a non-negligible chance there’s no vice. My patterns going out haven't changed much, but I’ve stopped buying six packs. Its made a surprising difference, I appreciate it.

29athrowaway 3y ago

Nobody wants to hang out with sycophants. They are sad to watch. You are replaceable at work, but not replaceable at home.

winrid 3y ago
This. The game just continues after 5 if leadership is at the "party".

armchairhacker 3y ago

Maybe this borders the site guidelines, but I wish people would post less of these ragebait articles. Yeah we get it. People like to treat work as "work", and not deal with overwork, socialization, RTO, micro-managing, etc.

gjvc 3y ago
Yeah we get it. People like to treat work as "work", and not deal with overwork, socialization, RTO, micro-managing, etc. you're not speaking for those people who need reminding about it, depending on their circumstances. There is no "we" when making a single post.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
happytoexplain 3y ago
"We", in the broad sense, demonstrably do not get it. "We" need to be reminded, continuously, because our system, while good at a lot of things, creates a continuous force that pushes the vast majority of individuals toward misery. It never stops doing this, and the pushback must be constant.

jmspring 3y ago

I've said this before...YC hosts "you want to work at a startup" day. In the past there have been multiple startups that claim "we are a family", "we work hard and play hard" but then handwave ... the only one that was honest at one of the years I attended, was Justin of justin.tv. Work is a job. If you want to make it a social life, go for it. But let it be your decision. I've had work situations in the past where many of us were friends and still in contact years later. But, don't let it become your life.

zen_1 3y ago
If it's truly like that, you're usually not recruiting at job fairs but through friends and friends of friends.

Kadin 3y ago

I get that the WSJ needs to run these sort of pieces every so often to sell papers, but "No One Wants [Whatever]" think-pieces should be treated the same way as the overly-speculative question headlines that led to "Betteridge's Law" in the early 2000s. Office culture, like the rest of culture, is cyclical. People are reactive, and tend to move in herds. Given an intense external stimulus like the pandemic, we should expect to see waves of behaviors propagating out through time for at least the next few years. During the pandemic, nobody was in the office, so right after the pandemic, there was a boom in office socialization (in some quarters). Now, apparently according to WSJ, the pendulum is swinging back. This isn't indicative of very much, except that there was a big shock to the office-work social system and it's still not stabilized. In particular, it's not especially suggestive of what the steady state will be, once these perturbations diminish. I think we probably have several more back-and-forth cycles around everyone-works-from-home! vs. 40-hours-in-office-or-bust!, before the market works out what the relative value is (to the employer and the employee) of having people in the office and paying for a physical office for them, vs. the flexibility of working from home and of having a potentially international hiring pool. There are benefits and hazards for both parties in either arrangement. My personal feeling, just based on how the job market has tended to stratify in the past, is that we'll see multiple approaches within each industry/sector, based on how fundamentally creative the work is. The organizations in a particular sector who are really pushing the boundaries of that industry, who are actually advancing the state of the art, will likely be in-office cultures, because nobody has yet found a substitute for in-person communication particularly as it applies to creative problem solving. But those will represent a small tip of the workplace iceberg, sitting atop (and demanding higher rates than) a larger volume of companies whose work simply isn't that fundamentally creative or challenging, and have to compensate by offering flexible / WFH arrangements, and actively court the employees who are more interested in work-life balance than in working in their industry's version of the Manhattan Project.

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jauntywundrkind 3y ago

I for one have had an incredibly great time that I've greatly enjoyed getting to hang out & socialize with all kinds of coworkers. I'm so glad I've gotten to connect with these people, in a less pressured way that the actual work environment seems unable to replicate. I've learned so much about people's lives, and learned so much background, and shared so many interesting stories. This feels like the end ya'll; another scary nail being driven in. I'm in a top 10 city in the US. At least half the establishments used to be open till midnight every night, and now the city is going to sleep at 10:00. The meetup scene has collapsed; the industry has literally no social functions left for people who do want to opt in to hanging out & shooting the shit & swapping tales. The city center is dead as shit; no chance to swap stories & mingle there. My work division used to do trivia and board games and happy hours and all sorts of other things, but we've lost headcount and lost critical mass & lost the social drivers; now it's so hard to get people to do stuff. Tonight was a pretty nice all company happy hour and almost no one from my division was interested. It was a great night. I've been at places where a lot of people had to really plan & make sure it was ok for them to do social activities; home or other commitments kept them busy. But every place I've been, folks have been eager to hang out, even if just for a bit. Sometimes there've been slowdowns but the resistance now feels new & difficult, unprecedented to me. I know I'm over-projecting my current experience, but I can totally see & immediately grasp where we are a as a crisis point, where common bonds & worthy good cameraderie - not corporate run, top down edict, but genuine bottom up socialization - happens. I don't know what the world looks like if we lose these cohesion points, if we stop having exchanges. There's a lot of good reasons for negativity & skepticism. There were real costs. But fundamentally I think that view is twisted, that it is wretched & sad to not acknowledge & embrace the opportunity & to recognize the upside. The world has, in my view, become far more quiet & isolated, & not all workplaces are great, but I hope many people have had good workplaces & good colleagues & can recognize some merit to having better than formal at-will as-necessary purely-industrial relationships. I don't want work me to just be a robot.

anon291 3y ago
I mean the insane reaction to COVID (to lock down all cities for years) and send workers home is going to have major effects on down towns. Unfortunately my fellow urban dwellers supported these policies despite the fact they were going to hit cities hardest. In my opinion it wasn't worth it, but this seems like a minority opinion . It's so important for innovation and career growth to have these opportunities.

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TheGigaChad 3y ago
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qp11 3y ago

Corporate wonderland is an such an abnormal environment. How it all hasn't collapsed is a mystery. Its structure is hierarchical, but the world has become a hyperconnected network. Underlings might have much more interesting networks than their bosses. In theory this should be putting lot pressure on what "orders" can flow top down. Its like pushing circus animals, trained to perform ever diverging niche tricks the whole day, into a common space and hoping connection happens. Its not going to happen. The circus is an abnormal space for connection.

Gud 3y ago
In most parts of the world, it's still very much hierarchical. And in the other parts of the world, it's just less visible.

SanderNL 3y ago

I get it though, a bit of mingling is good for morale and most people are pretty nice. But.. if socializing is important why not do it during office hours?

xyzzy123 3y ago

I think the part that's not talked about is how much more risky it feels in 2023 to drink with co-workers than it did 10 or 20 years ago. Am I just getting old? Drinking culture has largely changed for the better and I think workplaces are safer than they used to be. But I also think you'd have to be an idiot (or risk-blind) to get loose at company events like a lot of people used to do.

whynotkeithberg 3y ago
It's not more risky for decent people. Just the people who can't stop being perverts & sexually harassing people while drunk actually get held accountable rather than it being swept under the rug. For those of us who don't participate in such behavior nothing has changed or become any more risky. People getting loose at parties used to mean harassment and it was deemed ok because "men are being men" but it was never ok. Just treat people as they deserve whether you're drinking or not and there's no issue to be had.
- DangitBobby 3y ago
  Okay, you could jump straight to sexual harassment. But lots of people do dumb shit that has nothing to do with sex while they are drunk. "Letting loose" means lowering your inhibitions which makes you more likely to do something regrettable. And I don't want to hear anything about "decent people" unless you're the 1 human on this planet that's never done or said anything they regret.
  - orwin 3y ago
    I'm pretty confident a lot of people, even drunk, stay decent towards fellow humans. Most people don't get violent or harass people when drunk. Those that do, however, should absolutely stop drinking until they fix their issues. I don't think I regret anything I ever did or said while drunk (unless you mean 'taking that last drink that will kill me tomorrow' and in this case, I regret an Irish coffee I knew was too much).
    - 3y ago

jmauritz 3y ago

I've been on ... 4-5 "after works" (as we call it here), since the pandemic. But even then we usually get going around 16.00 and the night is over before 20.00. But if the company is planning something after work hours? I consider that to be a "team-building" activity, a part of my 8 hour work day.

fliglr 3y ago

I feel like people drink with coworkers if they want to accidentally cheat on their partner. Either way I only drink before work

mytailorisrich 3y ago

Many places I worked at did that over lunch. It does not take any extra time and people end up get a longer lunch than usual.

000ooo000 3y ago

Interestingly no distinction made in this article between socialising with coworkers because you want to, and Mandatory Cuddles, i.e. some unlikable dickbag organises a mandatory social team outing outside of 9-5. The moment it becomes an obligation, you've lost me. You already get 50% of my daily waking hours, and once a commute and chores are factored in, my daily leisure hours are even fewer. You want some of those too? Get lost.

thefz 3y ago

It takes one special kind of emotionally disconnected sociopath to put people in a "social" event and expect them to be like a family. Why they don't kiss? Past boss was like that, big parties and then stabbing you in the back. "but we are a team, right? we drink together". Nah.