After 4 years of WFH, not all due to COVID, I make it a point to go to the office 5 days a week even though my company is hybrid 3 days in, 2 days out. Humans are social animals and even though I am an introvert, postage stamp videoconferencing window s don't cut it.
Where I work almost all meetings are online, because the majority of people WFH. And it's easier to join online than to walk to a common room for those that don't.
If anyone enables their camera that's usually causing a short burst of laughter. Not because there's anything particularly funny, but simply because noone is used to see other people's faces anymore.
The screen space is used for more important things.
You can tell if your coworkers are your friends if you're still friends and hang out after you leave the job.
Having friends at work doesn't mean you don't have other friends, or a life outside work.
At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.
Huh? If you're in the same industry for a long time, you by definition have history in common, and it's pretty likely you've got similar interests if you both ended up at the same place. I don't see how HR could or would want to have an affect on that.
> At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.
Indeed, this is a great example of why forced-RTO is a terrible policy for everyone, including folks who like coming in to the office!
I certainly didn't think it was so extreme that it needed to be flagged.
I simply find it an incredible concept that a person needs to physically leave a building before they can mentally adjust to "being at work"/"not being at work".
I don't have a special 'office space' in my home environment. Over the years I've intentionally trained myself to not need anything other than my laptop to program on. In this way _even before the pandemic_ I was able to work under a tree in the park, at a café, on a train, at home or even (the most noisy and distracting place) at the office.
Admittedly, when at the office I also needed noise-cancelling headphones - along with every single other programmer employed there because of the constant distraction of people talking, managers making personal phone calls, sales high-fiving each other, and so on.
Don't you think someone could say to you that those headphones are expensive and unneccesary, and that this problem simply reflects your lack of work focus? Wouldn't that be offputting and annoying if someone were to say that to you?
There's a very emotionally-loaded tone to this discussion, which I don't think was an element in my original comment. I was struck by the fact that some people seem unable to change their mental state just because they're at an "office" or at "home".
This is totally different to the fact that an open-plan office (all I've ever experienced before the pandemic) is a noisy and disruptive environment, with people talking loudly, making phonecalls, playing ping-pong, eating, and often dogs running around and barking.
For full transparency I use the noise cancelling headphones same as you, I think it's very logical and it does help me in the same way. I don't think that would be a reasonable thing to say to you. But the framing and emotionally loaded tone comes across as comparable to your original comment.
E: and just in case: You will think those are very different scenarios, and your preference makes sense given the context. That's a valid perspective! But the people you were talking about in your original comment feel the same way!
I have my wills, of course, some are doable, some are not. I really want to be immortal, never fell ill, find a large plethora of sex-hungry partners and so on, these are just few examples of not really doable personal will. If the office can economically survive because it does work it will, if the slice of those who want WFH is big enough to kill the office that's how democracy works. I do like WFH, I do not pretend imposing others the same, as long as others do not pretend imposing me the office.
Of course I observe issues and strong points in both models, so the future will be decided by the majority anyway. We will see, knowing that any imposition tend to last less and less as more and more it's imposing and impacting people life.
But, I’m lucky enough to have a home with 2 extra rooms for work (spouse uses the other).
And lucky enough to walk a mile to the office, which I prefer. I’m not an extrovert, but still find it nice to see other people during the day.
This seems to be more about your own poor self-discipline than about WFH/RTO?