Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?
by kelnos on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:43PM
(#34669110)
The problem is that the solution is entirely within your grasp, but you've decided that the only way to solve your problem is through in-office socialization.
Find co-workers who are local and suggest meeting for lunch or dinner on occasion. Hopefully you've developed some level of rapport through video calls and chats so this won't feel weird to you. Your company/team should be organizing regular get-togethers anyway. If not, they are failing at doing remote work. I hesitate to say "find a new company where they are better at this", but that's better than "require everyone to come into an office to fix your social life".
Beyond that, don't center your social life around work. Go to meetups dedicated to topics and activities you're interested in. Just get out and walk!
> I tried to join clubs and a maker space, but no time - I was working all day. The maker space closed early. I'm creative, I like working. I just wanted to go to an office. That's all I wanted. I wanted a routine. I wanted to commute and people watch. I wanted to feel like I was living life.
That seems to be a problem you've created for yourself, and it's a bit selfish to want to require everyone else to go to an office in order to make your choices work for you.
Stop working all day. Set boundaries with your employer. If the maker space really closes by 5pm, negotiate a more flexible work schedule where you get to take a 2-hour break (or something) around lunch or in the afternoon so you can go to the maker space, but then you work later into the evening, or get up earlier in the morning to start work. Also, I'm not sure how any of this would have changed if you were working in an office: the maker space would still close early, and you still would be working all the time and be unable to get there during their open hours.
If you want to people-watch, take a 30-minute walk in the morning and in the evening, to replace what a commute would be like.
> I'm an optimistic person, yet I slip into depression because the only thing I want - to be able to go into an office - will not happen for me.
This is a bit much, frankly. If you really truly are so inflexible that you can't imagine a good life without an office job, find a new job that has an office you can go to! This isn't rocket science. These jobs exist. Stop advocating making life worse for all of the people whose lives have been markedly improved by the extra opportunities for remote work, just because you can't figure out your own life.
Find co-workers who are local and suggest meeting for lunch or dinner on occasion. Hopefully you've developed some level of rapport through video calls and chats so this won't feel weird to you. Your company/team should be organizing regular get-togethers anyway. If not, they are failing at doing remote work. I hesitate to say "find a new company where they are better at this", but that's better than "require everyone to come into an office to fix your social life".
Beyond that, don't center your social life around work. Go to meetups dedicated to topics and activities you're interested in. Just get out and walk!
> I tried to join clubs and a maker space, but no time - I was working all day. The maker space closed early. I'm creative, I like working. I just wanted to go to an office. That's all I wanted. I wanted a routine. I wanted to commute and people watch. I wanted to feel like I was living life.
That seems to be a problem you've created for yourself, and it's a bit selfish to want to require everyone else to go to an office in order to make your choices work for you.
Stop working all day. Set boundaries with your employer. If the maker space really closes by 5pm, negotiate a more flexible work schedule where you get to take a 2-hour break (or something) around lunch or in the afternoon so you can go to the maker space, but then you work later into the evening, or get up earlier in the morning to start work. Also, I'm not sure how any of this would have changed if you were working in an office: the maker space would still close early, and you still would be working all the time and be unable to get there during their open hours.
If you want to people-watch, take a 30-minute walk in the morning and in the evening, to replace what a commute would be like.
> I'm an optimistic person, yet I slip into depression because the only thing I want - to be able to go into an office - will not happen for me.
This is a bit much, frankly. If you really truly are so inflexible that you can't imagine a good life without an office job, find a new job that has an office you can go to! This isn't rocket science. These jobs exist. Stop advocating making life worse for all of the people whose lives have been markedly improved by the extra opportunities for remote work, just because you can't figure out your own life.