Sounds like the office has become a substitute for social interaction everywhere else in life. That may not be a bad thing for you, but it is a negative in the sense that it forces everyone to make it a part of their social lives. If you are looking for making new friends, a sense of belonging, sports and games, drinking buddies, meeting potential dates, and group lunches, you can in theory find outlets for all of those things outside of work.

But everyone working in an office means that if you aren't interested in those things, (you already have friends, a family, hobby groups, etc), you are forced to spend time away from them to participate in the in-office culture. It seems extremely backwards to me.

Its like if people who make church their social group, which is very common, required people who aren't interested in church to attend to enable their social lives.

I don't know how or why a large number of us have made work a substitute for our social lives, but it has been a major problem for the rest of us who haven't.

I feel like this mindset is actually responsible for a lot of modern-day unhappiness. Why are 1st world countries somehow more lonely?

Something I've noticed while talking to my older relatives outside of the US is that their social life often are the people that they meet in their (first) job in the location they ended up staying in. It feels straightforward that the people that you spend 8+ hours a day with are going to be the people that you feel like you know and can trust.

It seems like some odd modern/corporate idea that work is just for work. Imagine if we had the same mindset for school, and tried to make things "productive" by eliminating all breaks and the assumption that students should get to know each other during class/free time.

I think we need to accept the idea that work is really going to be much of your social life when you move, work friends are not your best buds, and only later on can you have a social life that doesn't deeply involve people at work.

Look up "third place", it's a really fascinating concept which I've been obsessed with for a long time and I really want to solve it, at least for me. I feel my long-term sanity depends on it.

The gist is people used to have at least three social circles they'd hang out daily: family, work, friends outside of work. Note that I don't mean "participate in activities" with any of them, just be among these people, even without any goal.

We've lost the third place. It's only family, work and hanging out with friends sometimes, usually to _do_ something. I've noticed this big disconnect looking at older people in Southern Europe which spend their afternoon at a bar playing cards, or in the recent ages men hanging out in clubs and women in sewing/book/gossip clubs or when I visited family in central Africa where it's common to just hang out in the porch after dinner and chat with passers-by and just be there and _socialise_, without any goal in particular. I had the luck of experiencing something like that for a few years and it was incredibly nourishing and I miss it dearly.

Until we restore this third place, and find a way to make it work in the modern world, the loneliness and unhappiness epidemic can only grow, is my opinion.

I don't take issue with people making friends with people they work with. I do the same. I take issue when society or individuals make work their sole social outlet. On the contrary, I think people who make work their social outlet are more likely to be lonely. What happens when your coworkers leave? Or you get a new job? Or you are fired?

Having multiple outlets for socializing, and making work a smaller, secondary one, makes for a much more resilient social life in my opinion. Which is obviously a major part of why some have found the last year of remote work hellish, and others, just fine, or even quite freeing.

This feels like a heavy-handed response to me. Socializing in the office doesn't need to be a substitute, but can be one many missing pieces in a well-rounded social life. Many of the ways people found a social life outside of work are either still not available or not the same. I used to love working from the coffee shop down my block. There were often around 50 people working in there at any given time of day, but the chairs and tables are still stacked against the wall, and people come inside only to get their coffee and go back home. Even finding conversation in a crowded bar can seem more difficult as people are still keep physical distance from people they do not know.

That's because grabbing coffee from a cafe isn't an activity focused on actually socializing. Work forces you to do so because You can't seriously expect to get coffee, sit down and work on a laptop and expect to meet people. Socializing requires some amount of effort, and means going to a place or activity where you can actually meet someone.

* Volunteer as part of a local organization

* Find a meetup based on a personal interest (foreign language, programming, art, gaming)

* Join an athletic group (biking, running, hiking, martial arts)

* Go to an activity sponsored by your library (my library has everything from workshops on things like gardening and meditation, to a maker-space, to a Hamilton-sing along choir. Lots of libraries have activities like this).

* Find an open source project to contribute to

* Religious (or even slightly spiritual)? Find a local church you enjoy

You are definitely right about the cafe/bar/club being a terrible place for meeting people. But there's lots of places in most communities where you can still socialize that aren't work.

What about meeting people through volunteering or by even joining an open source project?

I guess it's just more efficient to try and make friends with people that you already have to hang out with 40 hours a week. People are lazy and making friends as an adult is difficult

That's fine, except it goes back to the original point that you are essentially forcing a culture of in-person work unnecessarily on everyone, because a portion of people are either too lazy or otherwise incapable of socializing with anyone outside of work.

Wow. You get a lot more out of the office than I do. I hate small talk and at work it feels like a distraction. I am friendly with coworkers but I'm not actually friends with many/any. I have tried to decouple my sense of belonging from work as much as possible since that is very unhealthy because its not a situation I control (if I get laid off is my belonging gone?)

Company sports are great but those can be replaced by sports with friends. Dating at work is... Well I'll leave that alone. And food I cook is better than any office food I've ever had. That being said I havnt worked in a FANG office that has a chef.

A lot of us don't miss any of that. I can do all that on my own time and have been for several years now. I'm not going back in until I've exhausted every possibility.

Just bear in mind when you say "a lot of us", it's a small minority of the general workforce. For the majority of the workforce, working from home is a.) not even an option, b.) torn 50/50, with your sales and client success type folk, typically customer facing and person interacting jobs overwhelmingly favoring a return to the office, and us mangly, dirty coding bots overwhelmingly favoring continuing to WFH.

I am squarely in the WFH is great if it's possible camp, but perspective is necessary here. Pushing / demanding that the entire work arrangement norms for the majority of the workforce change for a vocal minority is exactly what gives people with cushy desk jobs their (deserved in this case) bad names.

My employer gave everyone the option to continue wfh or return (no effect on compensation). Only 20% of the “mangy dirty coding bots” opted for wfh.

That is astounding. When asked to decide, my place went 100% software engineers committing to WFH, and well over two-thirds of every other group as well.

Team admin is tag-teaming a physical presence at the office, the big boss likes to come in, there's one person in sales who likes to come in, and the guy who assembles the hardware has to come in on a number of days. I think that's about it.

Almost the entire company chose to go remote, and we're never going back. The big boss indicated towards the end of last year that we're giving up the lease on one of the two office spaces.

At least one person has already moved hundreds of miles to Yorkshire where he's simply having a better life. That's what it is. It's the opportunity for a better life, just waiting to be grasped.

I do have sympathy for people who have discovered that their social well-being depended on physical interaction with people in the office; I would hazard that the solution to that is not to go back to the office. There are better ways to get that. There is a better life to be had.

It could be that you had a really bad office culture that no one wanted to go back to. It wouldn’t be surprising then that everyone was like, “yeah, let’s not.”

We do have a lot of people who are married and have children; for them, it is absolutely zero contest. Being at home and having that flexibility makes home and family life so much better in every way for them. Even things like having breakfast every day with the kids. For a lot of these people, there is no office culture good enough to make up for it. For these people, every office culture is bad; they just didn't notice until now. One chap moved back to Yorkshire where his family is from and where he grew up, and his out-of-office culture is now so much better. Again, for him, no office culture could compare. No office culture could make up for losing that.

Had a guy go back home to Spain. Two back to France. They're just all so much happier being around family and friends in the parts of the world where they feel most comfortable.

I don't have children and I'm not married, but even I agree with them the a job and an office is not something I'd choose to do if I didn't have to; not having to physically transport myself and sacrifice large parts of what actually matters on the altar of employment makes a big difference.

Hyperbolising for making a point, I suspect that for people who are married and have school-age children, any office culture is bad in that it sucks up time and attention from the things that really matter [0].

Maybe it's about what matters to the individual. If the job and the office is the most important thing in someone's life, then I can see that they'd want the office back. And genuinely, good for them, hope they enjoy it just as much as I hope the people above enjoy spending time with their kids and family.

[0] Yes, I know, recharge the batteries away from the kids, maybe I hate my family, etc etc. There are always exceptions.

You can do all of those things outside of work. There are meetup groups, local sports leagues, etc. There is no reason it has to happen at the office.

Also this is just my opinion, but I find it odd when people's social groups are... just people from their job. There is so much more to life than just people who work in the same company or industry as oneself.

It's interesting that you mention work life balance, when the majority of your points are really in the "life" section.

I agree. It only improves work-life balance if you've made work and your life one and the same. For the rest of us, the "balance" tips heavily towards work and away from life when in-office is required.

I mean this in absolutely the nicest possible way. But all of the above can be solved by getting a social life outside the office

Have you considered joining the rotary club or similar?

I'd agree – there are real advantages in maintaining a friends group outside of work: you spend far less time griping about your day to day, and the connections you make are far more stable.

Get a beer once a month with coworkers, sure, but relying on work to be a primary social outlet always seems risky.

Yep, it’s more meaningful for someone to go out of their way to meet up with you (when there’s only friendship to gain). Also prevents mixing personal life with work.

My first job out of school, moved to a new city. For three year my only friends were coworkers. We socialized (drank) couple times a week and almost every damn conversation was work related, mostly complaining. I left that place because I "hated" it so much. I wonder how much those conversations contributed to it.

     - Social chatter.

I associate with my friends and a few groups I frequent. I've never felt the compunction to do this at work or with work people for the most part.

     - Making friends with old employees who I didn't know, and connecting with new employees.

Too true; there is this. I've a small handful of people whom I met at work and would call friends. But I usually try to maintain work as work - having friends tied up at a workplace can make for some really bad times when you leave or something happens. I think it's like a work-conditional friend.

     - Work Life separation (balance).

If you can master working on work stuff during the day, once you log out of $workchat and vpn, you're off. Set a schedule when you do everyday and work on being predictable.

     - Sense of belonging.. team outing, weekday after hours beer.

To me, "hanging out with the team" is definitely work. It has to be work-appropriate talk, on and on. That's enforced team-building activities. My sense of belonging is the paycheck I receive. I will seek elsewhere, not tied down by a job, to get a sense of belonging.

     - Intra company sports and games, and then teaming up with office colleagues to play inter company tournaments.

Again, for me, this seems to unhealthily attach a jobs' modus operandi to your own. In reality, unless you're the owner, you are as expendable as any other machine or cog. And I try not to intertwine work relationships with friends. Only rarely do those actually cross.

     - (Not me but others) Meeting potential dates

Yipes.

     - Office facilities for breakfast, lunch. 

My counter is that I have health issues that restrict my diet. At home, I can control exactly what I eat. At work, is what is provided. Its usually good, but sometimes I don't have anything. I would much rather have control of what I eat, by being in my kitchen cooking with my own foodstuffs.

That is totally cool with me. As long as I would be able to be fully remote in the same company.

What I need for that is high quality audio and video for meetings.

Do you think that is possible?

Can (s)he work in office and get all the perks, while you with remotely and receive none of those perks, at the same company? Sure. This "hybrid" model has been working for a lot of companies, small and large, pre-covid.

> Meeting potential dates

On place I worked with 100-120 people in the office saw 5 marriages. A big part of that was they employed a lot of single 20-somethings, but that's a lot of couples who met at work.

I agree with you and that's why I'll join a co-working space when I feel I'm missing these things. (I've worked remotely before the pandemic) You can get the same thing from a lot of co-working spaces.

I still prefer working form home, because I can pack my bag and go back home anytime I want.

Soon, I'll likely go back to a co-working space because right now, I miss those things as well.

I had the same thought as you re: co-working spaces, but I am frequently on audio and video calls throughout the day and need an office. Co-working space dedicated offices are expensive as hell if your employer isn't paying for them. I haven't really seen a reduction in prices due to the pandemic, either. Has anyone found a good solution?

I just miss being able to meet, pair, collaborate and mentor lag free with the full presence of in person communication. I find zoom really exhausting.

Yeah, all of that stuff is WAY worse over screensharing/calls.

Being able to turn your head over to a coworker and say "hey take a look at this" and they take a few steps over to see your monitor is much less of a hassle than ringing their computer for a video call and screensharing which may be better or worse depending on either of your internet connections.

Not to mention depending on your monitor sizes it might not even work properly. i.e. if you're using a larger monitor where everything is rendered smaller so more can fit on screen, it will probably be too small for them to see on their laptop. And in the case of ultrawide monitors, just give up the idea of screensharing on that entirely. At least if you use Teams where you can't share a portion of your screen. -- only the entire thing, or a single window which has problems of its own. Oh and Teams doesn't even let you draw on the other person's screen so they can't point to things!

Alright this is turning into a Teams rant now.

Exactly.

I find myself feeling vaguely offended by this response.

These are needs that all previous generations fulfilled through their community, or by meeting strangers. But I have the feeling that (some subset of) current generations find that proposition unacceptably risky. And I guess the offense comes from the idea that we should all be inconvenienced for their sake, and also from how the idea "I can only make friends in a safe space" is presented here and just expected to be believed.

I mean we're in the middle of a pandemic right now, but with my WFH life currently I leave my house once a week to pick up groceries. (Where I pop the trunk and they put them in)

I feel like it's really easy for people to not get out of a comfort zone and meet people just /randomly/ on the road or at the Grocery store. Especially to the point of being friends.

Sadly our community has died, church attendance is massively down in most of the world. Which killed that social circle, clubs seem to not really exist anymore. Basically we're down to meetup.com, work, and bars.

Meetup.com are clubs though?

It seems at least there you find people with shared interests rather than the random sample at work or church.

I met my friends through language classes and meetups as I emigrated.

Why are you appealing to the past when the fully remote but post industrial 9-5 day schedules is the new thing? My parents and grandparents have either work friends or old college friends.