I totally agree with you on the fun part, but I think what we define as fun is pretty different. I also agree with you that talking and knowing people you work with is important.

Where we disagree is the point that I don't think that gifs are helping you to know who your coworkers are. And more importantly I think it is not helping anyone to better understand themselves, which is one of the values of having conversations with people in the first place - that's kinda what philosophy schools were for. Gifs seem to serve some sort of emotional regulation function, but I've never investigated more deeply into that.

Now, I'm not trying to make a point here that you should only have serious conversations all the time, and definitely see the humour value of well timed gif, but I've found out that in general the trend is to shallow out the discussions and keep them within very narrow window of discourse.

In terms of how to spend time percolating between hard work:

In the office, I can find something to do at my desk alone or I can chat up some coworkers over coffee and the like.

Remote, the options are endless and I can chat up my family and friends. I can do chores like dishes or laundry so they're not all waiting for me after work. I can go for a walk without being that guy who takes too many walks. Truly anything so long as the time allocation and availability to plug back in are appropriate.

For me, this is why I prefer remote meetings be strictly business, and changing that isn't particularly compelling. My coworkers are cool, but prioritizing them over the rest of my life makes no sense to me so long as the value I bring to the company remains just as strong.

It’s so dystopian. There is such a narrow window of what is acceptable behaviour in the workplace. I get along with and like my colleagues but my relationship with them will never be as genuine as it can be once I don’t work with them anymore. There is no upside and tons of downside to being yourself. It’s just not worth it.

Why do you have to make work fun, shouldn't you already be enjoying it if you are doing what you want to do? Are you not doing what you want to do? See, that's the kind of problem that creates the infantilisation.

Is it reasonable to expect that everyone in every WFH-friendly job is actually "doing what they want to do" all the time? In my opinion, no way. Even for someone doing their dream job, parts of their day-to-day are guaranteed to be eaten up by objectively not-fun tasks.

Also, the fact that someone enjoys their job doesn't mean the experience can't be improved.

It’s not fun when you have to do it.