WFH means you can do other shit more easily because you have more time available to go to the gym, cafe, walking around, party etc..
Not to say that friends made at work cannot be friends, but all it takes is a trivial severance of that to reveal how close that connection was.
That's an interesting approach - how do you even do that though?
Honestly - WFH isn't much more time liberating for myself. Any amount of commute time I had (which was never very much - always under 20min each way, closer to 10min) was taken over by extra work demands or blurring separation of lines. On top of that - there's no happy hours, fun lunches, or what not now because WFH.
And I agree - but I guess what I'm saying is... You don't need lasting friendships for socializing to be enjoyable. Situational socializing can still be fun and it doesn't have to be this thing where you are going to have these people be your best man at your wedding.
Absolutely agree. This is why I mean more specifically that this shouldn't be relied upon entirely. If you stop being in the office, and your social life goes away, then maybe too much is coming from your work social life, whereas my opinion is just that it should be an augment. You may not need your casual work buddies to come to your wedding, but you probably want someone to come to your wedding, and it probably needs to come from somewhere else.
It's just a common thing I've heard—from particularly 9 to 5, somewhat more socially anxious people—that they have no idea how to make friends now that they realize their work friends don't necessarily want to go have a picnic. Work tends to usurp their personal lives in this sense, though I don't necessarily mean it to be so dramatic.
> That's an interesting approach - how do you even do that though?
It takes time and breadth. It's probably a better idea in general to just meet people through other means, but the big thing is simply forming enough of a connection with a small subset of your colleagues that they'd invite you to a party or something, then you might get to meet some other people, of which a small subset of those will vibe well enough with you.
It's just like meeting the friends of your current friends in that if they move away, you have redundancy. You wouldn't want 10/11 of your social group dependent on that one person you met them through, but that one person might give you exposure to the other 10. Ideally you get to a point with the other 10 where you'd invite them regardless of your first friend's availability.
Sure, as can be true after leaving school or moving away from family. Reason enough to always foster the skill of both making and keeping friends.
Until there's a conflict of interest between the two zones or between two colleagues and it all goes to shit.
Trust me, keep work and friends separated.
That's what you do by changing jobs. When you move on to the next company, those guys you met on the job become just "out of work friends".
I know, and I try and socialise with people who know, that work is just work, and its not worth sacrificing personal/social life just to simp for a boss.
I've met my best friends at work. I've moved across the world to another country with former colleagues. Created extremely deep connections with colleagues who've lead me to much personal growth.
It's not a bad thing per se. The problem is that it seems in some places there's no alternative
I joined a banking grad scheme many years ago in my first role out of uni. Have about 10 friends from there now 20 or so years on that I am in regular contact with.
I have moved to several different jobs since and pick up maybe one friend along the way but nothing as close as from our first job. Obviously age / place in life at the time was a big factor.
Damn, I've seen some random ass video on yt called "normal day of Googler" or something like that and it shocked me hard that "normal day" meant hanging out with coworkers
Don't get me wrong, it's not like we don't do it "here" - like going to pub or something, but it's definitely not normal day.
It's not an either-or. Both modes of working will exist in the future.
People work differently and I think that an employer should accommodate as many types of work environments as possible. There should be a choice between remote or in-office and neither choice should be seen as better or worse.
In the end, the whole walking around was a gimmick and 99.9999% of the time it was not used. But yeah, while you cannot smell your coworkers, you can have the same convo's etc. Just have everyone when they start working enter the video chat.
It's not the same if you make it not the same.
I'm not very good at it, but since then I try to work on both sides.
Technical skills almost solely put me in the 1%. Although, I am sure that if I stayed at my 1st job I would have gone nowhere due to my lacking interpersonal skills. I also sincerely doubt that I would have made millions if I had mediocre technical skills and mediocre interpersonal skills instead of my pretty good technical skills and subpar interpersonal skills.
For full time employees going through a career with no interpersonal skills is very hard, they stick around with the same bunch of coworkers for a lot longer than consultants. If your technical skills are top notch and you lack interpersonal skills, doing consultancy not only makes more sense financially, it's also much easier.
What percentile would you rate your technical skills?
The anecdote I have for my office is the complete opposite of the parents comments anecdote. The least productive members stayed at home as much as possible, and the most productive ones are in the office every day (because they all know that collaborative work is so much more efficient in person).
Collaborating with others works as well for me over a video call as it does in person. Further, the hours I save commuting to the office I can use to solve or collaborate on something else.
Most people I've talked to concerned about those not being in the office appear to think those out of office are on holiday. If a manager is worried their remote staff are not on task, why not give them a call?
This is just fundamentally untrue. Depending on your office culture, processes, personalities of the people involved, and any number of other things… it can be _good enough_. But you are always going to make compromises to communication and collaboration by all working in completely different locations.
I think this is one of the reasons everybody gets so frustrated by the WFH discussion. Sure there’s lots of reasons why the WFH experience can be better for the worker, but most of the discussion on the topic is so completely dishonest. The detractors will grossly exaggerate the downsides, and then comments like this refuse to even acknowledge that compromises are being made.
I have found video calls can help me and others keep to the point. It certainly may not be the same for everyone.
I'm certainly not 100% against office meetings or working some days in an office.
I was way more productive in the office. Home is too fun and distracting. The sounds and vibe of the office have work associations in my brain.
> Problem is when people mix the office with their entire social Life.
You sound like a joy to work with.
What's wrong with making friends at work? I have other friends (although age makes meeting new people harder) but work friends tend to be techie people who are interested in similar topics to me. My wife's eyes glaze over when I start talking about the finer points of my job. It's nice being around other technical people for a few hours a day.
You’ll find that once you’re not used to that anymore, reaclimating to it will be a nightmare (and very stressful)
I've made some really great friends in the workplace. Considering how much time you spend working, there's nothing wrong with cultivating relationships there, and often those relationships can outlive the job.
Everyone’s job is different, everyone is different. There are productive engineers who are introverts and there are productive engineers who are extroverts. Making jokes in the office and having conversations does not take time away from doing good work - no dev is productive 100% of the time.
Humans are social animals, and working _with_ someone is important. I don’t care if that interaction is over chat or in person but this idea that people are productive in isolation needs to die. This is especially applicable to new hires. The most productive engineers you talked about have habits and work they do that cannot be taught over chat or VC. It just doesn’t work that way.
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
and yet, you assert
> Humans are social animals, and working _with_ someone is important.
The most productive engineers are all different. But empirical evidence has suggested that those who are _the most productive_, such as people like Carmack, are productive in isolation (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16518726 about his programming vacations).
Of course, i don't deny there are productive engineers who do their most productive work in a group setting. But i would also not want anyone to assert that social interaction is required for it.
I would go even further than that in your criticism of the overgeneralisation: there are engineers who are introverts and want to go back to the office.
I'm sure this is very dependant on the local or office culture, but introverts can very much miss social contact in the office as well.
I prefer an office for the same reasons - separating my work life from everything else. Out the door by 5pm. An emergency in the middle of the night? Nothing I can do about that.
Everyone else prefers working from home? Great; less noise!
The issue I see exposed is rather the top-heaviness of many modern companies where there are too many managers and too few people that do actual work.
If you're a manager and doing low level work you're doing it wrong. Your role is to remove the interpersonal roadblocks, get people to pull in the same direction, inspire with your vision, hire the right people, and fire the people that don't fit.
A manager doing these things properly has value. But that manager has to manage enough people to make these efficiency gains worth more than the manager's salary.
Being a good manager is actually a thankless job, because you have to deal with all the crappy stuff, like keeping office politics in check, shield your team from budget and bikeshedding discussions, order equipment etc to keep your team productive etc..
The unproductive ones that invite for coffee, make jokes also have successful careers as they are perceived to be - friendly, high in openness, and high in consciousness. Now, I'm skeptical of your claim that these people are unproductive, not sure whether such an individual would survive a highly competitive environment. I could argue that they are productive enough to have time not just for work but also to engage in things outside of them.
I'm that type of person, my career growth has improved tremendously due to this ability of mine though it is natural for me to engage with people in my workplace. I am the guy people come to build XFN features and products because everyone knows me and I don't come off as a threat. This is a huge plus in large-scale enterprises where each BU works as a startup of its own and collaborating with them becomes a hassle.
This is more applicable to managers, who have a lot to lose and might feel compelled to protect their dubious skills/roles/responsibilities, which are now being eroded and automated by 'Bossware'.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/01/bossware/#bossware
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/inside-invasive-secret...
Being able to WFH comfortably is not a luxury everyone has.
These positions are part of the incentive system: "if you're loyal and work hard, you might one day get a job like that." For most people, being able to lord over others is very seductive and motivating.
The managers just want to continue to experience what they construe as their "reward" for loyal careers.
The most productive engineers, and the ones I enjoy working the most are the remote ones. The only way they have to justify their time is with what they ship.
I don't go to work to be a family, a brotherhood, or whatever....I do that at my pub, at the gym or with my friends. I go to work to work, ship stuff, grow my career, learn and earn money.
Problem is when people mix the office with their entire social Life.