That sounds a lot like you are claiming their friendship isn't real to me.
I would take the latter over the former every day. My best friends are in that category, wven some who live in the same town
I'm quite surprised that this is a large part of the top comment. I'm not an extrovert but I love office life, despite its flaws. The primary flaws of office life for me are:
1. Commute. Currently not a problem but it will be in the future for me. 2. Open plan offices are the norm and make focusing more difficult. 3. Slight more difficulty in eating home-cooked food as if you aren't organised, you end up buying lunch rather than cooking at home.
I don't think I have a perverse addiction to conflict.
Major advantages of working in an office include:
1. I work more productively usually. The environment helps me focus, rather than goof off. 2. It is much easier to have impromptu coffee and lunch conversations and interesting discussions, both work related and otherwise. This increases team social bonding and speeds up knowledge transfer. 3. The people I work with in the office regularly are easier to relate to and think well of than faces online.
It might be safe to say that one group likes being in the same physical space as their peers [0] and another doesn't, and that both these groups are judging each other for their choice (typical in-group / out-group bias).
> Why burden business relationships with forced several hours/week physical presence when nobody would impose that on a customer or a vendor, and lockdowns have shown that even (especially) marriages aren't designed for people to be stuck together that long.
See also: Chesterton's fence when advocating for fundamental changes in the way things work [1].
I don't think friendship is a substitute for the socialization an office provides. A roommate situation might be, but that has other serious challenges.
For many people, making new friends as an adult gets harder with age. Part of that is that we're not compelled to join things like we were as children. Part of it is that we have the cumulative time and means to create our own favored environments - my house has some kick-ass stuff in it and air conditioning, so why would I leave it? :D I kid, but kinda not.
As I've gotten older, I've made a point to get more involved in entirely voluntary organizations (collector's groups, church, etc) and it takes work. It's rewarding on the balance - good for my personal growth and good for the group assuming they would agree that I bring a modicum of value to the table - but it takes a dedication that doesn't come easy. Kind of like exercise, right?
An antipattern here is expecting to replicate your quality childhood friendships quickly. Friendships, particularly intimate friendships, take a long time and many shared experiences. 80% of the job is just showing up, so nothing kills budding friendship opportunities like flaking out one too many times. Show up!
In my experience, being forced to be a Slack @tag or DM away from coworkers who see you as a screen name rather than a face is far worse for conflict.
Remote work doesn't mean employees get to withdraw from social interaction and isolate themselves. It just moves the interaction to a different medium.
I've managed in-person, mixed, and full-remote teams. Conflict always gets more heated in the remote teams. When you're in the office with someone and talking face to face, people are more likely to treat each other like humans. When you're trying to communicate through emotionless Slack text all day, some people misinterpret harmless comments as being aggressive and struggle to treat their coworkers differently than screen names in an internet flame war.
I had a manager in one of my first jobs tell me to always have a hard discussion in person, if you can, because "there are eyes". It stuck with me then, and it makes more sense all the time.
You definitely miss some important indicators being on Slack all day.
Many probably don't realize (yet) that there's a difference between working with people in the office then being remote and just being remote.
If you've spent some time with somebody, it's easier to assume tone and intent behind something that may seem hostile in isolation.
I see where you are coming from, but honestly the workplace is one of the rare places someone can easily make friends after 30, precisely because someone is forcing you to be together with other people.
There are obviously other ways to do this (hobbies, etc) but they typically aren't as simple and you're now setting up a second thing you need to participate in. I don't think people love being in the office; they love being with other people instead of being stuck by themselves in their home or quietly sitting by themselves in a coffee shop.
You have the choice to choose your own employer and if you don't like the terms, the choice to leave.
A lot of people were hired on the condition of going into the office and I find it all the backlash from employees after being asked to go back into the office a bit absurd.
That assumes two things:
1) That a company exists that will grant you your (let's presume reasonable) terms, and
2) That there are enough companies accepting those terms such that there are enough jobs available for everyone who wants those terms.
My ideal job would be a part-time gig where I get the benefits of a full-time gig (health insurance, 401k, equity, etc.), but can choose my hours (essentially 100% flexibly), perhaps with some sort of weekly minimum, and get paid by the number of hours worked. It would be fully remote, and I could work from wherever I want. But there are very few companies that will agree to terms like that (maybe even no companies), even though I'd be just as (probably more) productive than their "standard" full-time employees.
> A lot of people were hired on the condition of going into the office and I find it all the backlash from employees after being asked to go back into the office a bit absurd.
It's not absurd, it's people who have traditionally been on the bad end of a power imbalance (employees) finally getting the flexibility they've always wanted, proving that they can be just as productive that way, and then being pissed off that employers are requiring them to go back into the office for little reason other than management's desire to control their employees' lives.
And it's really funny that you find that absurd, because many of them are doing exactly what you claim they should do: leave and find a different employer that will accept their terms. Post-pandemic there are a lot more employers that will accept flexible/remote work arrangements than there were previously, and employers that are requiring employees to come back to the office are going to lose some talent.
- very healthy hourly rate - min commit of X hours per month (I think it was 80), then work as few or as many as you want beyond that (though for planning purposes we'd often ask people to give us a rough idea of their plans for the next few weeks) - various bonuses that would kick in when the group reached different milestones each month (this was a consulting company, so a lot of them revolved around billable hours) - no additional paid benefits at all
That last one took the most time for people to get on board with initially, but ultimately proved to be really popular. I think it had to do with how entrenched the mindset is around the norm, but concepts like getting paid even though you're not working, or having your employer be involved with your health insurance are pretty odd if you think about it. Things like sick leave, paid time off, etc. are also things that look nice on paper but IMO tend to be a net loss for employees - they tend to be assigned inflated values by the companies and are used as leverage against employees.
> A lot of people were hired on the condition of going into the office and I find it all the backlash from employees after being asked to go back into the office a bit absurd.
For all of the negative stuff coming from people who do not want to return to an office I find one thing in common: they all usually really like their company and job.
While "If you don't like it, leave" is the reality of the situation it doesn't change that this is somewhat irrational behavior. It is the {CEO, Boss, Manager}'s decision as to who gets to work remote obviously. That's the power dynamic at hand. However, if you think of this in any other situation you can see that there's something about remote work that makes some managers loose their cool. Imagine employees saying this:
1. I have back pain and if I had an (ergonomic chair|standing desk) I'd be able to work for longer without getting up and walking around. This would make me more productive.
2. The coffee machine makes bad coffee and everyone walks to the coffee shop across the street 3 times a day. If we just got good grinds and a machine in the office we'd all save money and we'd save ~1hr/day/engineer on context switching for coffee.
A {CEO, Boss, Manager) has every right to say: "If you don't like your (coffee|desk|chair) then you can leave" but they are obviously acting pretty childish here. If you look at all of these situations logically you're looking for a small input effort for a large continuous return on investment.
If you add into the fact that myself, and many others, think working from home makes us MUCH more productive you can arrive at the following conclusions:
1. We are not more productive, we just think we are. 2. We are more productive, and we commute less (save money + sanity).
If we think out this decision matrix:
- Employee + !Productive, Boss + WFH: the employee is no more productive - maybe even slightly less productive - and this comes up in their performance reviews and they're asked to come back to the office. The employee will probably see that WFH does not work for them if this performance review is fair (ex not "You called into the meeting but since you didn't come in person you were obviously not listening as well").
- Employee + Productive, Boss + !WFH: The employee can quit and find a WFH company. The employee may be willing to accept *less* money and will produce *more* value for the new employer. This new employer now has a major leg up (in most industries) over the old employer.
- Employee + !Productive, Boss + !WFH: The employee could still jump to another company for less wages at a lower output if WFH means a lot to them.
- Employee + Productive, Boss + WFH: Company gains efficiency for no extra money. Employee is happier.
Most companies are asking for partial return to office, which IMO is already a concession, and people are up in arms over it.
I'm not against remote work, I just think people are being too entitled about it.
Does this not personify the relationship with the company a bit here? This is a negotiation. Skilled laborers have the ability to throw their weight around here a bit.
I personally don't think using bargaining power and leverage to ask for more (perks, pay, etc) is entitlement. The employer is allowed to say "no" and the employee is allowed to look for some place else that will say yes.
I think the mental framing that "people are up in arms over it" might be playing a bit into how you envision this working out. Most people I've spoken to have just said something like "I really liked working from home and if my boss asks me to come back I'll look for another job".
That's one reason to go into the office: to leave your spouse alone for a few hours. It's much healthier to resent your coworkers than to resent your spouse.
Many people are in bad relationships. Many married people spend little time together.
Some people can manage that separation with a home office. Others prefer a physically separate workplace.
For me, I didn't think I would like WFH. When forced over the last year, it was better than expected. Certainly not having a commute was nice, not having to "dress up" for work was nice, but both my productivity and the amount of direction on tasks/priorities fell off a cliff. Interruptions were about the same, but when they come from spouse/kids (especially spouse) they are harder to deflect.
Or the other way around. That's the rarely stated but arguably common case, particularly for middle-age people: office is a place of escape/relaxation/recharging where your spouse and your little children and/or your inlaws don't interfere.
I love my WFH, I have it worked out with my wife and our family, and I don't want to ever have to work in an office on a regular basis - but I do understand this point. Parenting is hard. Marriage is hard - and COVID in particular threw a lot of people into uncharted territory. Despite all the romantic ideals and the condescending opinions of some people, modern marriage in western world is designed around partners spending significant time apart. Our current pandemic suddenly forced every couple to live a lifestyle most don't experience until retirement. Few were ready for this.
Why burden business relationships with forced several hours /week physical presence and face time when nobody would impose that on a customer or a vendor, and lockdowns have shown that even (especially) marriages aren't designed for people to be stuck together that long.
The only other situation you spend that amount of time with someone is a cellmate in prison, and the inevitable and necessary conseqeunce is micro-power struggles over the least significant things because in spending that much time together, you literally exhaust every other way to relate.
Show me someone who loves office life and being around people who are forced to be together, and I will show you someone with a perverse addiction to confict. When extroversion becomes immoderate, they become masochists who crave attention and interpersonal intensity. As a result, whenever someone tells me they are a "people person," I give them a wide berth because I remember the advice I was given as a young boy which was, "you are what you eat."
I can't imagine re-adapting to something so insane as an office ever again.