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It's one thing I miss from the work from office lifestyle - the more human connections. People stopping by your desk to chat about life, the joking - I'd never

It's one thing I miss from the work from office lifestyle - the more human connections. People stopping by your desk to chat about life, the joking - I'd never laughed so hard in my life. Closer connections in general, and being sad when people left, but happy when they were for greener pastures. WFH feels so sterile and impersonal in comparison. I've been WFH since 2015 or so, so this isn't a RTO endorsement, just reminiscing.

jedberg 3y ago
I miss that too. Some of my best friends are former co-workers. Especially from when I was younger and we spent nearly every waking hour together either at work or at a bar after work. I don't miss it enough to want to go back to an office though!
- ryandrake 3y ago
  The way I see it I go to work to exchange my skills for money. Often that involves working with others, but I’m not there to socialize and make friends. I have friends. So given that outlook, WFH seems just kind of more “pure.” It’s distilled work, unencumbered by phony pseudo-friendships and awkward water cooler chit chat about sportsball. When we start a zoom meeting I can just launch right into the agenda without having to do that offtopic pre-meeting banter ritual. To me it’s work without waste. I feel like with WFH I get more done per hour and that means more time for me to do what I enjoy: things that aren’t work.
  - wolletd 3y ago
    I also have friends, but I rarely see them on workdays. Having other people around me on those days feels good, I don't like being alone for several days. I totally can do and have done that, but I prefer to not be alone. Additionally, my colleagues and I share big parts of our life: every damn workday. None of my friends are capable of talking as long and nuanced about things happening at my workplace. They don't really want to hear emotional rants about bullshit projects because they have no way to relate to those feelings. But I want to rant about bullshit projects and thankfully, I have colleagues that like hearing such rants from time to time, as they totally can relate. When I am mad about some shit, start talking about it and they ask "oh, was that XY who said that?" and it totally was XY, that is comforting. I have friends, yes, and I don't need to meet my colleagues after work. But I still have healthy social relationships to them.
    - iteria 3y ago
      Man, i have different friends than you. I have listened to a friend rant for 3 hours about a BS project at a company I haven't worked at. Another friend rant over weeks and I wasn't even in the same industry. I talk to my friends during the day. I'm lucky that we're all remote, but honestly even my in office family members can chat sometimes at work. When I was in the office, I rarely connected with coworkers. I was often the youngest and/or just not in the same life stage. I could exchange pleasantries and that was about it. I have a grand total of 2 friends from work after over a decade of work across several companies. My social life is still vibrant outside of that. I don't even understand where people think you can't connect to peolle WTH. I just had an hour long chat with a coworker about nothing at all. Sometimes people just need to chat about nonsense and VC people. Peoppe seem to be afraid of that, but I don't see why. We can work and talk. We did it in the office.
  - xorcist 3y ago
    So when you've earned your f-u money you stop showing up for work? That's not what we see in practice. Most people with a sudden windfall (stocks, lottery winnings etc.) keeps showing up for work. Because how else would you stay socially meaningful in our society? Nobody really wants to sit at a beach sipping drinks the rest of their life, accomplishing nothing. There is clearly a social aspect of work, at least for the majority that we can call socially functional. And it's at least as important as getting paid. Work is also a social role, and it hurts many people if they are left out of it. It's not easy.
    - ryandrake 3y ago
      > So when you've earned your f-u money you stop showing up for work? Yes. Absolutely 100% I am looking forward to it and counting down the days.
      - harryquach 3y ago
        Absolutely, there are plenty of ways to be social, on my terms, with the people I choose. If I didn’t have to trade my time for money there are plenty of ways I can fill my days without corporate bullshit.
    - mlrtime 3y ago
      This is one reason why playing the lottery [even if once] has some positive value. It forces people into a thought experiment on what they would do if they didn't have to work.
    - 2024throwaway 3y ago
      > Nobody really wants to sit at a beach sipping drinks the rest of their life, accomplishing nothing. Speak for yourself.
ZaoLahma 3y ago
This really highly depends on the people that you work with. At a previous employment (a 100% WFH position) I had most of my colleagues in India, roughly 4 time zones away from my own so we almost never met in person, and we'd have personal chit chat sessions while working. Then I've worked with people who weren't present even when you were sitting right next to them. They'd come into the office, say "morning", put on their noise cancelling head phones and be gone for the rest of the day (modern open space office life in a nut shell).
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  That's of course true, but then there's a large group of (I assume) introverts with whom it's kinda difficult to get close with, but once you do, you can have a great relationship with them. It's an order of magnitude harder problem to break ice remotely with such people.
  - entropicdrifter 3y ago
    Speaking as one of those introverts, it's actually much easier for me to get to know people over video calls than it is in person, at least if there's an actual task at hand. In-person I tend to be a little more no-nonsense, whereas over video calls I'm sitting comfortably at home with a cat in my lap, already relaxed and much less uptight as an emotional starting point.
- Aeolun 3y ago
  I mean, I love working without headphones in a room with 4 people in. I detest it in a room with 100.
romanovcode 3y ago
As someone who has enough social interactions and friendships outside of work I am very happy with this attitude. My co-workers are not my friends and I'd like to keep it that way. Indeed nowadays I have seen many articles publishing that it is even more prominent idea with Zoomers entering workforce and have a clear boundary between co-workers and personal outside-work friends. The companies actually do not like this because this means that those people have literally 0 loyalty to the company and only care for the money. Which is shocking, I know. \s
mynameisbob22 3y ago
Until the pandemic, we would regularly eat lunch together somewhere. For years, this was a standard routine in my life. It was a perfect way to get a feeling what others were doing, what the problems were, how the general mood in the team was, what was going on in their lives. I invited everyone to my wedding during lunch. I told them I was becoming a father during lunch. 2 people told us they were leaving during lunch. In the beginning of the pandemic, we even switched to cooking at the office kitchen. Now there are only 2 people left on the floor, and eating lunch has stopped completely. Most of my colleagues I only see 1 or 2 times a year (Christmas party and work stuff that requires physical attention). I noticed that it is much harder now for people to integrate when they are new. There is no real forum left for beginners to ask dumb questions they would rather not see in some chat log.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  Most of what I read about people missing offices makes me think "gee, I'm glad I don't share an office with that person." But I do miss lunches. Even the loud, obnoxious people are much more tolerable in that context.
- insane_dreamer 3y ago
  > There is no real forum left for beginners to ask dumb questions they would rather not see in some chat log. this is a key point; employees who have been together a long time can easily switch over to maintaining that same level of connection while WFH (I've experienced that). But it's very hard for a "new guy" to integrate if s/he has never interacted, or only occasionally, with their coworkers in person.
  - harryquach 3y ago
    There is nuance to this as well. The company size and culture make a dramatic impact. I recently joined a small company which is fully remote. Everyone has been helpful and supportive as I have been onboarding.

jedberg 3y ago

I miss that too. Some of my best friends are former co-workers. Especially from when I was younger and we spent nearly every waking hour together either at work or at a bar after work. I don't miss it enough to want to go back to an office though!

ryandrake 3y ago
The way I see it I go to work to exchange my skills for money. Often that involves working with others, but I’m not there to socialize and make friends. I have friends. So given that outlook, WFH seems just kind of more “pure.” It’s distilled work, unencumbered by phony pseudo-friendships and awkward water cooler chit chat about sportsball. When we start a zoom meeting I can just launch right into the agenda without having to do that offtopic pre-meeting banter ritual. To me it’s work without waste. I feel like with WFH I get more done per hour and that means more time for me to do what I enjoy: things that aren’t work.
- wolletd 3y ago
  I also have friends, but I rarely see them on workdays. Having other people around me on those days feels good, I don't like being alone for several days. I totally can do and have done that, but I prefer to not be alone. Additionally, my colleagues and I share big parts of our life: every damn workday. None of my friends are capable of talking as long and nuanced about things happening at my workplace. They don't really want to hear emotional rants about bullshit projects because they have no way to relate to those feelings. But I want to rant about bullshit projects and thankfully, I have colleagues that like hearing such rants from time to time, as they totally can relate. When I am mad about some shit, start talking about it and they ask "oh, was that XY who said that?" and it totally was XY, that is comforting. I have friends, yes, and I don't need to meet my colleagues after work. But I still have healthy social relationships to them.
  - iteria 3y ago
    Man, i have different friends than you. I have listened to a friend rant for 3 hours about a BS project at a company I haven't worked at. Another friend rant over weeks and I wasn't even in the same industry. I talk to my friends during the day. I'm lucky that we're all remote, but honestly even my in office family members can chat sometimes at work. When I was in the office, I rarely connected with coworkers. I was often the youngest and/or just not in the same life stage. I could exchange pleasantries and that was about it. I have a grand total of 2 friends from work after over a decade of work across several companies. My social life is still vibrant outside of that. I don't even understand where people think you can't connect to peolle WTH. I just had an hour long chat with a coworker about nothing at all. Sometimes people just need to chat about nonsense and VC people. Peoppe seem to be afraid of that, but I don't see why. We can work and talk. We did it in the office.
- xorcist 3y ago
  So when you've earned your f-u money you stop showing up for work? That's not what we see in practice. Most people with a sudden windfall (stocks, lottery winnings etc.) keeps showing up for work. Because how else would you stay socially meaningful in our society? Nobody really wants to sit at a beach sipping drinks the rest of their life, accomplishing nothing. There is clearly a social aspect of work, at least for the majority that we can call socially functional. And it's at least as important as getting paid. Work is also a social role, and it hurts many people if they are left out of it. It's not easy.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    > So when you've earned your f-u money you stop showing up for work? Yes. Absolutely 100% I am looking forward to it and counting down the days.
    - harryquach 3y ago
      Absolutely, there are plenty of ways to be social, on my terms, with the people I choose. If I didn’t have to trade my time for money there are plenty of ways I can fill my days without corporate bullshit.
  - mlrtime 3y ago
    This is one reason why playing the lottery [even if once] has some positive value. It forces people into a thought experiment on what they would do if they didn't have to work.
  - 2024throwaway 3y ago
    > Nobody really wants to sit at a beach sipping drinks the rest of their life, accomplishing nothing. Speak for yourself.

ZaoLahma 3y ago

This really highly depends on the people that you work with. At a previous employment (a 100% WFH position) I had most of my colleagues in India, roughly 4 time zones away from my own so we almost never met in person, and we'd have personal chit chat sessions while working. Then I've worked with people who weren't present even when you were sitting right next to them. They'd come into the office, say "morning", put on their noise cancelling head phones and be gone for the rest of the day (modern open space office life in a nut shell).

The_Colonel 3y ago
That's of course true, but then there's a large group of (I assume) introverts with whom it's kinda difficult to get close with, but once you do, you can have a great relationship with them. It's an order of magnitude harder problem to break ice remotely with such people.
- entropicdrifter 3y ago
  Speaking as one of those introverts, it's actually much easier for me to get to know people over video calls than it is in person, at least if there's an actual task at hand. In-person I tend to be a little more no-nonsense, whereas over video calls I'm sitting comfortably at home with a cat in my lap, already relaxed and much less uptight as an emotional starting point.
Aeolun 3y ago
I mean, I love working without headphones in a room with 4 people in. I detest it in a room with 100.

romanovcode 3y ago

As someone who has enough social interactions and friendships outside of work I am very happy with this attitude. My co-workers are not my friends and I'd like to keep it that way. Indeed nowadays I have seen many articles publishing that it is even more prominent idea with Zoomers entering workforce and have a clear boundary between co-workers and personal outside-work friends. The companies actually do not like this because this means that those people have literally 0 loyalty to the company and only care for the money. Which is shocking, I know. \s

mynameisbob22 3y ago

Until the pandemic, we would regularly eat lunch together somewhere. For years, this was a standard routine in my life. It was a perfect way to get a feeling what others were doing, what the problems were, how the general mood in the team was, what was going on in their lives. I invited everyone to my wedding during lunch. I told them I was becoming a father during lunch. 2 people told us they were leaving during lunch. In the beginning of the pandemic, we even switched to cooking at the office kitchen. Now there are only 2 people left on the floor, and eating lunch has stopped completely. Most of my colleagues I only see 1 or 2 times a year (Christmas party and work stuff that requires physical attention). I noticed that it is much harder now for people to integrate when they are new. There is no real forum left for beginners to ask dumb questions they would rather not see in some chat log.

drewcoo 3y ago
Most of what I read about people missing offices makes me think "gee, I'm glad I don't share an office with that person." But I do miss lunches. Even the loud, obnoxious people are much more tolerable in that context.
insane_dreamer 3y ago
> There is no real forum left for beginners to ask dumb questions they would rather not see in some chat log. this is a key point; employees who have been together a long time can easily switch over to maintaining that same level of connection while WFH (I've experienced that). But it's very hard for a "new guy" to integrate if s/he has never interacted, or only occasionally, with their coworkers in person.
- harryquach 3y ago
  There is nuance to this as well. The company size and culture make a dramatic impact. I recently joined a small company which is fully remote. Everyone has been helpful and supportive as I have been onboarding.