From a societal perspective I think we should be working in common spaces so we can be near people and learn to socialize. We’re losing second and third spaces. Fewer people having children also means less forced interaction and I fear we are heading towards a more isolated society.
Unfortunately, not everyone would lives close enough to comfortably go into an office, which leaves people burning 2-3hrs of their day just doing that. And all the commuting also impacts the Earth.
Edit: Adding that I mentioned “common spaces” and I did not mean situations where people are forced to work in toxic environments. I have been lucky to develop many friendships and also help support many relationships that have formed in the past place I worked at. The majority of the people around me were introverts, working around like minded people helped all of us.
I do think the modern workplace isn’t really a good place for this either unfortunately. In my field at least it’s like everybody is a corporate mercenary. They’re going to come in, make no friends, do their jobs and then quietly leave for a higher paying position as soon as they possibly can.
Which is fine, but it’s a pretty poor place to get social nourishment.
Yeah, the normal office is not the place to make friends.
But I guess for a shared workspace for people working remote, it doesn’t really matter what they do or if they change jobs. You can make casual conversation with regulars at the water cooler or coffee bar without the weird forced interactions of working for the same company and “team building”. You’re both in this common space because you want to be there, rather than sitting at home.
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned common space, since those people would want to be there. Being forced to do hybrid ends up being weird since most of those people don’t want to be there and it doesn’t really let you form bonds as much.
Mixing your personal and professional life is a surefire way to be create an abusive and exploitative environment.
The exploitative companies basically want to ‘foster togetherness’ so they can exploit they works via emotional manipulation techniques, and often seek to isolate workers from the outside world or life outside the office.
This is very much based on the industry of course. I’ve formed life long friendships with people from my last job. I just saw one of them I haven’t worked with in 5 years and likewise a few others during halloween. I was in a position to be able to nurture those friendship and workplace dynamics.
I don’t want to socialize with or date my co-workers. I don’t want to play politics to get promoted or have to befriend my boss or navigate office-relationships where I risk getting fired for offending or rejecting the wrong person. I also have had repeated problems with female co-workers trying to cheat on their partners with me, which I do not miss.
For me, working from home removed that problems and got me 3 promotions in 6 years. Because what matters now is my work, and I can do it without being distracted or worrying about upsetting a co-worker who will report me for sexual harassment because I rejected their advances.
Maybe thats just how offices are because I’ve never done office work but get a lot of social interaction out of my coworkers, even if I don’t meet them outside of work.
I agree on trying to bring back some semblance of the other spaces, and I’m an introvert. But work isn’t ideal for that, not only because of potential turnover, but also the rule of thumb on bringing too much personal stuff into work that can backfire on you.
How about more work from home where it makes sense, giving more time back that was spent commuting, and a four hour work week with equal or greater pay. Make socializing possible both in time and income given.
This is why I actually like my hybrid schedule which is two days in the office and three at home. 1 day per week in office would be enough most of the time, but the regular in person does help with feeling connected for a lot of people but 5 days is massive overkill.
We switched to hybrid once covid died down, but the genie was out of the bottle. Most people didn’t want to come back. Since they also implemented a system where people chose what days they were in, it was hard to get proper overlaps. That company is now fully remote and have leased out their offices. As long as the hybrid is thought out, I do think it can work.
We all had the same days in the office so it was worth being in the office, so that was thought out. Some people don’t want to work from home and they work in the office 5 days a week which works for them. I’m just glad we have flexibility!
I can socialize outside of the workplace, thanks. Why would I want to do that with my coworkers? They’re not family and rarely ever have I befriended any and that’s fine.
Edit: I’m all for 3rd places making a comeback, to be clear, but I neither need nor want forced socialization in an office.
Having your coworkers be your only social interaction is a recipe for being exploited.
Third spaces are fine but if you make me come into an office for teamwork I’m finding another job that doesn’t make me pay to commute and be away from home.
From a societal perspective I think we should be working in common spaces so we can be near people and learn to socialize. We’re losing second and third spaces. Fewer people having children also means less forced interaction and I fear we are heading towards a more isolated society.
Unfortunately, not everyone would lives close enough to comfortably go into an office, which leaves people burning 2-3hrs of their day just doing that. And all the commuting also impacts the Earth.
Edit: Adding that I mentioned “common spaces” and I did not mean situations where people are forced to work in toxic environments. I have been lucky to develop many friendships and also help support many relationships that have formed in the past place I worked at. The majority of the people around me were introverts, working around like minded people helped all of us.
I do think the modern workplace isn’t really a good place for this either unfortunately. In my field at least it’s like everybody is a corporate mercenary. They’re going to come in, make no friends, do their jobs and then quietly leave for a higher paying position as soon as they possibly can.
Which is fine, but it’s a pretty poor place to get social nourishment.
I don’t think those kinds of positions would really benefit from being in office given the competitive nature.
Yeah, the normal office is not the place to make friends.
But I guess for a shared workspace for people working remote, it doesn’t really matter what they do or if they change jobs. You can make casual conversation with regulars at the water cooler or coffee bar without the weird forced interactions of working for the same company and “team building”. You’re both in this common space because you want to be there, rather than sitting at home.
Yeah, that’s why I mentioned common space, since those people would want to be there. Being forced to do hybrid ends up being weird since most of those people don’t want to be there and it doesn’t really let you form bonds as much.
Mixing your personal and professional life is a surefire way to be create an abusive and exploitative environment.
The exploitative companies basically want to ‘foster togetherness’ so they can exploit they works via emotional manipulation techniques, and often seek to isolate workers from the outside world or life outside the office.
This is very much based on the industry of course. I’ve formed life long friendships with people from my last job. I just saw one of them I haven’t worked with in 5 years and likewise a few others during halloween. I was in a position to be able to nurture those friendship and workplace dynamics.
I don’t want to socialize with or date my co-workers. I don’t want to play politics to get promoted or have to befriend my boss or navigate office-relationships where I risk getting fired for offending or rejecting the wrong person. I also have had repeated problems with female co-workers trying to cheat on their partners with me, which I do not miss.
For me, working from home removed that problems and got me 3 promotions in 6 years. Because what matters now is my work, and I can do it without being distracted or worrying about upsetting a co-worker who will report me for sexual harassment because I rejected their advances.
Maybe thats just how offices are because I’ve never done office work but get a lot of social interaction out of my coworkers, even if I don’t meet them outside of work.
I agree on trying to bring back some semblance of the other spaces, and I’m an introvert. But work isn’t ideal for that, not only because of potential turnover, but also the rule of thumb on bringing too much personal stuff into work that can backfire on you.
How about more work from home where it makes sense, giving more time back that was spent commuting, and a four hour work week with equal or greater pay. Make socializing possible both in time and income given.
This is why I actually like my hybrid schedule which is two days in the office and three at home. 1 day per week in office would be enough most of the time, but the regular in person does help with feeling connected for a lot of people but 5 days is massive overkill.
We switched to hybrid once covid died down, but the genie was out of the bottle. Most people didn’t want to come back. Since they also implemented a system where people chose what days they were in, it was hard to get proper overlaps. That company is now fully remote and have leased out their offices. As long as the hybrid is thought out, I do think it can work.
We all had the same days in the office so it was worth being in the office, so that was thought out. Some people don’t want to work from home and they work in the office 5 days a week which works for them. I’m just glad we have flexibility!
I think any company that isn’t flexible and forcing 5 days in office (for those who work on computers) is on borrowed time.
I can socialize outside of the workplace, thanks. Why would I want to do that with my coworkers? They’re not family and rarely ever have I befriended any and that’s fine.
Edit: I’m all for 3rd places making a comeback, to be clear, but I neither need nor want forced socialization in an office.
Having your coworkers be your only social interaction is a recipe for being exploited.
Third spaces are fine but if you make me come into an office for teamwork I’m finding another job that doesn’t make me pay to commute and be away from home.