I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them.
I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial". But thats not the case. If you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.
You can join a club, pick a new hobby, learn a new language, volunteer or even start a revolution. Be as social or not social as you want, but the beauty of it is that thats time you have complete freedom over. I choose that over contrived interactions with a random set of people who happened to do enough Leetcode problems to get in the same room as you.
The flipside is that it takes a lot more intentional effort, which many of us may struggle to put forth. The vast majority of friendships are made in incidental contexts: people you just happen to be around and interact with through the normal course of life. Many adults struggle to make and maintain friendships when they no longer have school forcing them to be around peers, and become very isolated. I think your interpretation is quite overly-optimistic.
Yeah. I'm pretty introverted but the number of good friends I've made in my life that I didn't meet through either school or work is exactly 0. I've never quite understood the anti-coworker-socialization sentiment here. For some people it seems to go beyond that they've given their coworkers a chance and they just don't like them; rather they seem determined not to socialize with coworkers as a matter of principle. Why would it be more likely that you're going to enjoy socializing with your neighbors or your disc golf teammates than your coworkers?
We're basically wired to become friends with people we're physically close to or have intense experiences with. You can imagine the evolutionary benefit to that.
> people you just happen to be around and interact with through the normal course of life
My experience in the military supports this argument. I have a few life long friends through this experience. Some of which I disliked initially.
Although, I do agree with the spirit of GP 's argument. You don't have to be in the office to be social and you get so much of your time back it's hard to justify the time cost if the value proposition is small talk.
You're describing the status quo before the crisis. We weren't suffering from excess happiness and satisfaction. It's time for something new. The new things are yet to be determined.
It is easier than ever before to go out and meet people with similar interests to you. In many places, even relatively small ones, clubs exist for climbing, sailing, all sorts of tech, chess, reading, photography etc. I don't buy the idea that people are so feeble that they can't make friends outside work.
> I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial"
Not all cultures are like this. I had a German coworker who would always complain about how much time we spend socializing at work (while socializing with us).
He would tell us, "In Germany, we come to work, we put our heads down for seven hours and work, then we all go out and spend two hours drinking beer together before we go home to our families".
> "In Germany, we come to work, we put our heads down for seven hours and work, then we all go out and spend two hours drinking beer together before we go home to our families"
Definitely not the case here in Berlin. All of my jobs here had plenty of post-work socialising, some even obligatory.
During work itself, people also tend to spend a lot of time in "kitchen area" or browsing Facebook, chatting on WhatsApp etc.
The "put our heads down for hours" thing is not something I have ever observed.
No, there's no age cutoff for Germany. The Blue Card (4 year work visa) requires either earning more than the national average for non-technical roles (currently more than €72k per year pre-tax) and for technical roles more than €33k. There is no requirement to show that the company was unable to find an EU Citizen, if the salary numbers are met.
Germany has a job seeker visa through which you can come and search for job in Germany. I think you need atleast 5 years of experience to get that. There are other ways to come as well( like having a job offer). I mentioned this in particular to indicate there is no age cutoff, since by the time you have 5 years of experience you are in your late twenties.
That’s what someone said someone said. But if true it sounds like alcoholism. But nonetheless it sounds like focus during the day, get that over with then focus on socialising. Maybe this is deep work friendly.
I mean, when I worked at eBay in San Francisco, going around to bars after work -- more than once a week -- was the expected way to socialize with your coworkers. I didn't participate, but that meant I didn't connect to the rest of the team. I didn't find the idea that people in Germany do the same thing to be much of a stretch.
> I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial". But thats not the case. If you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.
There's practical reasons for that. Socialization centered at school transitions easily to socialization centered at work. Also, probably for the worse, many people have few connections to communities independent of work/school. Creating those connections can be difficult, and many of the modern solutions to this problem are aren't very good (e.g. various relationship-shopping apps like "online dating").
Forgive me if I get the citation wrong, but I believe I remember listening to Ezra Klein talking how for much of the 40s/50s/60s, communities were organized by churches and community institutions. I would easily add military service to this as well.
If you were a doctor, you would still know your community fairly well; whether they be a farmer or another blue collar worker. As we've replaced the prominence of community based institutions such as churches with elite institutions (primarily colleges and workplaces), we've isolated lots of people who aren't able to participate in these communities (due to many inequalities). Obviously these previous community institutions had major flaws (racism/sexism), but they still provided a shared experience that makes a diverse and broad social group easier.
This is a very important comment. The comment made too many assumptions about the "nuclear family" ideal for many people. Sometimes work relationships are the ONLY relationship for some people.
I completely get the sentiment of this; you can't pick your coworkers, commuting is insanely time consuming and you can most likely do most of your work from home.
I've probably been brainwashed by "popular culture" and the "corporate narrative" that they prob wanna push on us. I'm in my early 30s and my hobby is to build things, I've always loved that, now mostly software, but also hardware electronics etc. My biggest dream is to have something like General Magic or early Apple or some other startup building something crazy with a small group of people that are brilliant and driven.
Again this is probably just because I've been brainwashed, but I really don't see that scenario playing out over a Zoom call for instance: a brainstorming session on a whiteboard where everyone is excited and trying to solve a huge challenge together, building on each others ideas etc; It's right now just not how our zoom calls usually plays out.
I'm all for anyone being able to work remotely, and picking talents from wherever they might be, but I just don't hope this is 100% of what the future will look like.
The current psychological consensus is that critical thing (one of three IIRC) to build friendships are repeated regular meetings/gatherings with (group of) people, forced by some external factor (school, gym, military, office, etc).
WFH will strip 'friendship creation factor' from work. Definitely not to zero, but it will in effect reduce fun from work because 'working with friends' will be less often (unless you start work with people you're already friend).
I've been doing WFH for years. Some of my collegues I've never met in person. I still consider many of them "work-friends" and I feel satisfied with my work/social factor. We are still in repeated regular meetings, even if they are tele/video conference. In fact, thinking back to the last 3 in person teams I've worked with, I enjoy my job and team more with all of us WFH than in office.
The issue is not that you can't or won't develop work-friends on a distributed team, its that those work-friends have difficulty translating to "not work friends" because they may be in a different state/country than you and can't come over for a pizza and beer afterwards.
> I've been doing WFH for years. Some of my collegues I've never met in person. I still consider many of them "work-friends" and I feel satisfied with my work/social factor. We are still in repeated regular meetings, even if they are tele/video conference.
IMHO, the difference between a "work friend" and a "friendly relationship with a colleague" is "do you frequently disengage from work to socialize together." For instance: taking breaks together to chit-chat. I can't see how someone you're in "repeated regular meetings" with could quality as a work friend, unless those meetings are not work related.
I’m the team lead and I’m on the phone with my team members at least half a day every day. We definitely chit chat and talk socially as a matter of course throughout the day.
> I’m the team lead and I’m on the phone with my team members at least half a day every day. We definitely chit chat and talk socially as a matter of course throughout the day.
I chit-chat with colleagues too, but they're not work-friends because it's usually in the context of doing work (e.g. a few minutes of friendly small talk before we get down to business).
A work-friend is someone you go hang out with just to hang out or talk with just to talk. The main difference with a friend-friend is that doesn't happen outside of the workplace or work events.
Working in office is not equal to socializing, but face-to-face communication has great values, at least to some people. I'm just not sure it's a universal truth that working from home is a greater benefit to every employee, as so many comments passionately argued here.
Case in point, I'm an introvert in every way: hate going to loud places like bars to socialize, prefer chatting with small number of friends in a quiet setting, prefer staying home reading , think Americans' obsession with sports is insane (not that I don't like sports. I myself was reasonably athletic and was in school's track and field team for years), can't understand why students in school were so obsessed with being popular... You get the idea. Yet I'm still more productive in office, still prefer 1-on-1s in person, and still miss the days when I worked with my co-workers on a whiteboard.
Absolutely. If I could have one day a week in the office and four days from home, it would be ideal. That 1 on 1 connection ends up being so important, useful, and facilitates much easier communication using remote tools after the fact.
According to The Paradox of Choice[1], more freedom doesn't necessarily lead to more happiness.
Without choice, people can grow on each other. With friends, we move on if it becomes difficult. With coworkers we have an opportunity for personal growth. In a way, coworkers are more like family than friends.
> With coworkers we have an opportunity for personal growth
I read this as an opportunity to act like someone you're not, aka, conformity. With friends, I can be myself, and surround myself with people I actually like, vs trying to convince myself to like people that I'm around.
> With friends, I surround myself with people I actually like
There's a very strong correlation between how much we like someone and how similar they are to us. We like people with shared values and hobbies and opinions on important topics. Our friend group has a tendency towards homogeneity unless we actively try to avoid it.
If we assume that diversity of thought is a good thing, being forced into situations where you can't choose the people who will surround you (school, college, workplace) is probably a good thing. Seeing things from the perspective of folks different from us is the personal growth GP was talking about.
To me, this is the other way round. Since coworkers cannot leave, there is no benefit in being somebody else. The only conformity is towards the boss because it is a non-equal power relation.
The personal growth comes from accepting somebody else the way he is.
Friends on the other hand, also choose. So if I want to spend time with them I have to conform to joined values. It's a non-issue most of the times because friends are chosen among people with similar values. Still, when it comes to conformity, it's the friendship that depends on it.
I think this is the reason people's closest friends often come from school. It's so easy in adult life to avoid the difficult work of connecting with people who you don't immediately click with, and it seems like many people take this easy choice once they're out of the mandatory school environment. This is a problem I struggle with even in the office, and I'm beginning to realize how much worse it can be when working remotely.
Alternatively, my time is a lot more valuable than it was when I was stuck in school all day every day. I am not limited to where I can meet people. Why waste time trying to start a relationship that begins with difficulty when theres so many options that don't.
Agreed, I'm always surprised to see comments like the one you're replying to, and how often they're upvoted. I suppose HN tends to attract a slice of humanity that tends to appreciate casual social interaction a little less, even when compared to the tech sector as a whole. But in my experience transitioning from a very awkward asocial teenager (who would have shared such a view) to a slightly less awkward adult, I've come to really appreciate the trust and camaraderie you can develop even in the workplace setting. After all, humans have evolved to be social creatures and it's not random happenstance. There's tremendous value in being able to really know your teammates, to be able to rely on them, and to have them also be able to trust and rely on you in return. And a lot of that flows from basic social interactions that could be described as "chit chat."
Curious, do you have meaningful hobbies and activities outside of work? I often find that people who are so keen on social interaction at work don't have other things they are passionate about.
I am not saying I hate social interaction. If I had to chose between being locked in my basement and not seeing anyone and going to the office, I would chose the office. However, if the choice is between more time and freedom outside of work vs more in office interactions, then I chose the former.
Again though, if you are the type of person that highly values that in-office camaraderie, you are free to join a coworking space and get that. You can still commute and ask your deskmate how your day went.
Im not like that though - I like to wake up early, get my work done, and spend my afternoons rock climbing with a different group of people who are my close friends. The value I get out of this is way higher than building (often) superficial relationships with my coworkers.
Thats the nice thing about working remotley - you can pick what you do with your time. Forcing everyone to indulge in office socialization just because some people enjoy it is a disservice to those who don't.
Some of my best friends are former coworkers. Given that we work at the same place on the same problems, there's a really good chance that at least some of us share the same interests outside of work.
My family likes to joke that they can tell who my former coworkers are or online friends because they call me jedberg instead of Jeremy.
100%. Not only does strengthening social bonds with your coworkers make work more enjoyable it also makes the work product better. People that have the mentality like they're just a robot cranking out work units do worse work and they make their teammates worse. In many teams a moderately skilled engineer with very high social IQ is worth a lot more than another technically talented engineer with poor social IQ.
But it has an impact on your team's ability to deliver value over the long term. Social bonding increases generally increases trust and trust increases willingness to communicate. If I've had multiple positive social experiences with you over time (IE chit-chat), then I'll be more willing to communicate with you about technical issues as well. If you make me uncomfortable and nervous socially, I'm going to wait longer to bring up a possible integration issue or requirements conflict. Over time that is WAY worse then slower deliver of features in isolation.
Different projects and organizations vary, but I've been on teams where a "brillant" but anti-social person left (or was ejected) and seen overall throughput for the team shoot up. And I've seen people brand new to coding (and without much skill in it) still deliver value rapidly because they are relentless communicators. I've stopped valuing the former and started valuing the later.
> you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.
This assumes that work expectations won’t expand to fill the space. I’ve kept pretty strict 9am to 6pm work from home with a 1 hour offline break to eat and clean and I still find the expectations creeping in, especially since some coworkers have migrated to other time zones to be with family.
Overall, given the history of labor in the US, I am sceptical that we will see an opening up of free time because of this shift.
I think there is merit to the point that the "forced" social interaction (of the office) is what makes (a lot of) people even have social interactions at all. For example, it was easier to make friends in school and college because of forced interaction; similarly, anecdotally I see a lot of friendships made among coworkers of mine, some of them became groomsmen/bridesmaids for each other at their weddings.
Having said that, I'm not one of those folks, and I actually agree with your points and I am 100% for remote. I am at a remote role right now and could not be happier.
I think the great group of work friends is largely an illusion, revealed by what happens when you leave the company. Very rarely do those relationships remain intact beyond basic career building/reference things. Some do, for sure, but the vast majority don't. This is a strong indicator to me that these are just "friends" of convenience, and are really just acquaintances and not the kind of meaningful relationships in our life where someone will have your back through tough times.
Working from home has many advantages, but to paint this as an advantage is a disservice.
First, that's a nice way to respect your coworkers that they are a random set of people who work with you because of their Leetcode skills.
Having work relationships is much more than get a PR reviewed, or asking for feedback on documents. Working together, involves interactions that humanizes your fellow co-workers. Since, I've worked with people before, now that we have to remote collaborate I understand the social cues, people can come stand-offish or rude, in remote meetings, because video and voice calls can rarely bring out emotions.
We went from cracking a jokes at the beginning of a meeting and chit-chat while walking to meeting and walking back from meeting rooms to more formal remote meetings, since people are concerned that they won't be interpreted correctly over a call (the fear is rightly so given video calls are inherently bad at this)
There's no reason to detest your colleagues, they're people with priorities and one of them is work. There's going to be weeks where you'll be spending way longer than 8 hrs a day together and nights where you will need to call them in the because of an ongoing issue in production. To dehumanize these relationships would be a great loss.
If you want to build long lasting friendships, you can definitely do that at work. I know people who have made friends on same and different teams, through work related happy hours and hangout casually now (meeting people outside your team is severely crippled with the current remote work culture), heck people get married to people they meet at work.
I have found that I'm more social (and more socially available) with my colleagues in an all-remote company. I chat with them day and night, regardless of time zone. Our kids video chat with each other. We listen to each other's music.
Rather than feeling like statues that live in an office and turn to stone at 5PM, only to reawaken the next morning, my colleagues actually feel more like human beings in this config.
The "best" solution is a mixture of working from home and going to a central office as needed from time to time.
How often will differ from employee to employee obviously.
My hope is that once this settle down companies that are able to have employees work from home without a negative impact to performance allow them to do so freely.
> If you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.
In practice we might just end up working longer hours.
It sort of did for us since we went remote. In case of that 2 or 3 colleagues I actually like to speak with, it's a shame, other than that, it would be ideal if I wasn't cut off from my other friends and groups.
Exactly this. It is much easier to mute a thread when some colleagues are having a slow day than it is to move desk in an office when those same people are having an all day conversation as you're trying to work.
Of course you could tell them to STFU (perhaps in a more professional vernacular) but that can be difficult to do if you're not an assertive or confident person.
Speaking cynically, you've just outlined the case against a work from home policy. You intend to use it to reduce your integration in the workplace by cutting out an hour of smalltalk with people in the office.
Even the fact that business relationships are fairly shallow - all the more reason for the businesses themselves to encourage them.
Yeah but you still work at least 8 hours with those people. Every time you need someone to review a pull request, split work or bugs, collaborate, all those minutes you mingled or not matter
Why do those interactions matter? Surely the time you work together matter but why do I need to know where you took your vacation to provide useful code review comments? How is that relevant?
sleep takes 1/3 of our day, work takes 1/3 of our day. by your logic we have to fit all of our socializing plus everything else about our lives in that additional 1/3.
Socializing is just as easily possible when working from home. Just meet for a coffee in Zoom or Skype or Whereby and "video chat" for an hour or so. Those are usually my most productive meetings.
Why would I "socialize" with colleagues? I'd rather do that with communities I actually share an interest with. (If a colleague happens to be part of it, ok, but it's rare.)
For many of us, a workplace is a very small piece of our consciousness, and thus, the amount of shared interest with colleagues is bleak.
I think having a choice of being on-prem and/or completely remote is fine
But I'd like to mention that it seems like a few people are forgetting about how they met their friends in the first place -- for a vast majority of us, the answer is school, something we sort of had no choice over and were sort of forced into. I participate in quite a few forums and sub-Reddits, but how many of them turn into actual real connections beyond the digital ones is slim.
Secondly, in response to those that want to only choose who they want to hang out with -- the flip-side of that is group-think and echo-chamber-ism by not subjecting oneself to orthogonal perspectives...
Lastly, as people in technology, we have choices about where to work -- find a place that works on something that you like with people that you like. I have a hard time empathizing with those that say, "we don't have a choice". Yes, getting a job, as a dev can be a grind, but imagine being a musician or an artist or an architect. Honestly, people in tech have it best -- in all other fields you're absolutely stuck and we're here bitching about WFH policies...
It is good for your work to have a rough idea what your colleagues are working on and what they're thinking about. This eventually builds "gut feeling" about who might be able to help you with your current problems if you're stuck. Just chit-chatting with them seems to be an effective way of sharing this information.
This is what I worry about losing with remote work. I'm functioning just fine now because I already knew all my co-workers well before we started WFH. But if I were to go to a new company and start remote, I would feel completely lost. All the chit-chat can feel like a waste of time, but IMO a lot of useful information about the company is transferred that way. And there's no way I would jump on a video call with someone I don't personally know to just talk for an hour. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial". But thats not the case. If you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.
You can join a club, pick a new hobby, learn a new language, volunteer or even start a revolution. Be as social or not social as you want, but the beauty of it is that thats time you have complete freedom over. I choose that over contrived interactions with a random set of people who happened to do enough Leetcode problems to get in the same room as you.