> My job dictating my friends, romantic attachments and other social connections is incredibly disgusting and dystopian to me. Meaningful social activity has only occurred outside the workplace, to me.

last stats I found is that 43% of marriage come from the workplace so it's most certainly not something to discount that easily

Shocking statistic if true. Especially after considering gender imbalances it's hard to imagine, particularly in tech

“Met at work” doesn’t necessarily mean “met coworker” - if you marry the barista at your coffee shop you did the first but not the second.

I find it hard to believe (unless it's data from the 80s). Online dating has absolutely devoured all other ways to meet people romantically

Your job isn’t dictating your relationships - it’s giving you an opportunity at making some.

Disgusted? By… a company… having an office? We have shockingly different interpretations of dystopian!

It's not just having an office. It means work-life balance is so tilted that your workplace is basically your whole life. That implies all sorts of terrible things.

Why even leave work? You'd get all sorts of nice marriage statistics if you force people to live in a prison-camp environment 24/7

The point is that alternative (sitting around in home working on your computer) is not more social.

There are severe social costs to pushing/forcing people to relocate away from friends/family and spend time commuting, so I disagree with that conclusion

Do you go to work to accomplish your assigned goals or do you go there to socialize? These things seem contradictory.

A salaried employee who can maintain productivity in a WFH environment has far more time and freedom to socialize, wholly on their own terms, than an employee who is forced to expend some amount of time on commuting.

For people who go to work to get work done, WFH is the obvious best choice.

> Do you go to work to accomplish your assigned goals or do you go there to socialize? These things seem contradictory.

I mean if you can get 8 hours of solid uninterrupted coding, good job, but otherwise social interactions gonna happen.

And while some also happen over remote chat, it is nicer in person. Of course that flips if you hate your coworkers or don't share any common interests.

But yes, trading for 2h commute is definitely not worth it. 15 min commute to work ? Why not. Especially if you can do some shopping along the way.

Honestly, hybrid 1 day-at-work currently work well for me. The on-site day is mostly planning, some gossip and whatever requires some bigger coordination, then rest of the week nobody bothers me.

>I mean if you can get 8 hours of solid uninterrupted coding, good job, but otherwise social interactions gonna happen.

I see these interactions as overhead related to work ("hey I need your help with $COMPLEX_PROBLEM" or chitchat waiting for a meeting to start), not a conduit for genuine friendship. They're (hopefully) cordial and pleasant, but almost completely work-related.

I don't use work time to discuss hobbies, music, or other interests at length. I do mention these things in passing, and if a coworker shares interests and wants to talk more, we sync up outside of work hours. Is this not the way most people operate?

> The on-site day is mostly planning, some gossip and whatever requires some bigger coordination, then rest of the week nobody bothers me.

That sounds like a pretty good balance if everyone is local. For more distributed teams needing 'virtual onsites', there are some interesting concept such as Gather

https://www.gather.town

https://sea.ign.com/ign-sea/174057/news/how-virtual-office-a...

You're not locked in at home. There's very little stopping you from joining a coworking space, going to the coffee shop etc and working in an environment outside of your home. In fact this is far more beneficial for your career because assuming other people are doing so, you are passively networking with people outside of your company and finding better opportunities.

People have gotten so use to the corporate propaganda of work being your life that they cannot understand you can live and socialize outside of work, and that it's far healthier to do so. I've made friends at work and while working full remote but corporations use this to add friction for people to stay.

> There's very little stopping you from joining a coworking space

I know my employer wouldn't cover this cost, and I'm guessing most of them won't, so why on earth would I take money out of my paycheck to be able to work from an office instead of the one my employer provides? Further, confidential discussions with customers or coworkers in a space filled with people working for other companies sounds like a very bad idea.

Co-working spaces have private booths and such for sensitive discussions. And ultimately because it's cheaper to go to a nearby co-working space on occasion than it is to move and live close to the office.

I'm full remote. Moving to the office would quite literally cost 1.5x in rent.

Regarding cost, some employees might still find it worthwhile to use a co-working space at their own cost, if they save enough on commuting (which employers also typically don't pay for), or if they earn enough to be able to absorb the cost.

Regarding confidentiality, using co-working spaces needn't be full-time, but could be combined with WFH, just like going to the office can, which could help somewhat.

> Your job isn’t dictating your relationships - it’s giving you an opportunity at making some.

This is abuser level rewording. Are you a manager?

Seriously though, if 'work is giving you opportunities to make relationships' to the point where it's a significant downside to get rid of it in some capacity, then we should consider that we're in a live-to-work system, which is dystopic.

Disgusted by companies encouraging you to become entirely dependent on them for your social life, making it much more difficult to stand up for yourself, ask for a pay rise, or leave.

I've seen severely underpaid people stay far longer than they would have out of a misplaced sense of loyalty towards their peers. The only entity that benefits from that arrangement is the company.

It's also IMO a significant part of how some companies retain people.

In years past there's always been a persistent strain of criticism of perk-heavy offices because "it's a ploy to get you to work late" - I think the criticism has actually been off the mark. It's actually a little bit more sinister than that: the perks create a culture where your entire social world exists at work, and massively raises the barrier to quitting.

If you've worked at a perk-heavy FAANG like Meta or Google you've met them: the people for whom nearly all of their friends are from work, who relish going into work for the social contact. For them leaving the company isn't just leaving a job, or even colleagues they like, it's the near-total obliteration of their social world.

I don't begrudge people for making friends at work - you have to do a job, you may as well make the best of it, but I would heavily caution people against forming the bulk of their social world around their workmates.

Having a life outside of work isn't just good for you personally, it's IMO pretty critical to your career's success.

Correct, this is what companies build "culture" for. Turnover goes way down in situations like this and once their employees have a mortgage and fixed living expense they basically only need to give them cost of living adjustment for 20+ years or they quit

Replace office with school. They're extremely similar in concept. Is making friends at school dystopian to you?

The modern school system is incredibly dystopian and prison-like, yes.

Many people talk about surviving school, especially people with autism or similar divergence from the acceptable norm. Making friends at school is a small non-guaranteed consolation prize for them, and it comes at the cost of lifelong trauma.

Let people, including children, socialize on their own terms.

Agreed. I think it is even worse than the workplace. My social skills were stunted because I mainly learned how to attempt to socialise in a structured prison-like environment. I was trained to obey the authority figure saying to ignore friends if they tried to speak to me during class. Forced into classes with people I didn't get along with. Often my friends were put into a different class so I was forcibly segregated from them, damaging the relationship. I'm in 30s and still have nightmares about school often

It’s easy to find friends in a group of people you have things in common with and spend lots of time with. I know not every job is like this, but some of my best lifelong friendships started at workplaces. (And outlasted the companies that they started at)

If I could upvote this more than once.

Been working 12+ years remotely in a company that has been doing it even longer in some departments. It works and you can get around all the complaints no problem. I understand some people prefer to work in an office and I understand it also depends on the type of business you are it. I get that but people also need to remember times change.