I experienced all of these to a much better degree during college. Are you sure you don't just want to live in a city that provides plenty of shared spaces? Relying on your employer for these items seems unwise.
Why? Work is where you spend one third (or more) of your time during your adult life. Why the hell would I not want such a significant portion of my life to not also provide great benefits like opportunities to make friends, meet people, eat great food, and have fun?
If you scoff at people who want to make their workplaces more welcoming and happier, no shit the workplace is going to turn into anti-social, work-only hellholes that nobody wants to go back to. This attitude is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and a root of the problem.
Speak for yourself. I am very experienced. I have worked at many companies, some of which I left abruptly, and others where my close friends were fired/laid off.
But guess what? None of that matters. Just because a friendship starts at a workplace doesn't mean it ends when the employment ends. Some of my best, life-long friends are people I met at work. My current SO, who I will marry, is someone I met at at a past employer. My wedding party is going to be half-filled with people who I met at work, even though I no longer work with them. I currently mentor (and am mentored by) people from past jobs, one of which was actually fired.
This is also a self-fulfilling prophecy that I see in these conversations. People begrudgingly make nice with people at work, and restrict those relationships to only happen at work... and then are surprised when those relationships end when employment ends. If you only interact with your "friends" at your employer, then no shit those interactions will stop when your employment ends. But they don't have to, and for many people, they don't.
It's not any different than any other part of life. I'm no longer in college, but I'm still close friends with people I met in college, and I don't regret at all the fun activities I did during college. I no longer go to my old gym (I switched to a new gym), but I still keep in touch with someone I met at the old gym and I still benefit from the exercises I did there. I no longer live in my old apartment, but I still keep in touch with my friend who lived across the hall from me. Why should my workplace be any different?
You sound SO different from me. I really struggle to form relationships so easily, yet it sounds like you making lasting relationships wherever you go.
I find that kind of fascinating. As someone who just went back into the office with the whole intent on being more social, I still find that my interactions with coworkers are at "arms length" and are very sterile. Hard to imagine a relationship with them outside of work. That line is still very strong.
Kudos to you. But I would ask, is this an intrinsic skill or did you learn this over time?
It works even better if you can manage to remember those things people get excited about. Even if you don't remember anything else about the person, it gives you something to revisit in future conversations.
I've heard from people who are good at this that it comes from a genuine interest in other people. They're able to work through the small talk phase because they're driven by an intrinsic desire to learn more about the person. I definitely do not have that trait.
One thing I would say though: if you believe that this is an intrinsic trait that others have, rather than something that can be learned, then this belief may hold you back more than you may think.
WFH has changed work from a social experience into something boring. I get it, work is work, and maybe treating it as a more significant part of life isn't a shrewd move, but I am definitely missing out something in this current state.
(That being said, I do understand that I may change my mind in 10 years, assuming I have a family. But I can only talk about how this seems today.)
Your point about not over-investing into a company that doesn't care about you is valid, but not relevant.
I think how much you invest into this faceless entity is independent from whether you WFH or the office, no?
> Why? Work is where you spend one third (or more) of your time during your adult life. Why the hell would I not want such a significant portion of my life to not also provide great benefits like opportunities to make friends, meet people, eat great food, and have fun?
I say: aren't you supposed to, you know, work while you are at work? The office is not a social club!
Jokes aside, I always wondered how much time people actually do proper, productive work while in office, in software engineering. My view is rather restricted to my own experience (personal + people around me). I'm asking because if it's, say, 4h a day, I'd rather just spend 4h a day in office, and spend the other 4h however I choose to (alone, with family, or with colleagues, friends etc.), instead of watching YouTube or listen to conversations I don't want to (thanks open plan office!), or whatever people do when they are not productive.
Maybe one day we'll collectively figure out the right amount of time we are actually productive, and get back the rest of the time.
Because if you live in a great place, all those things are available to you without discontinuity regardless of WHO you work for. The reason that there's such a disconnect between 20-somethings and everyone else on this issue is because everyone else has been through it already. Sure, there's a possibility that you will remain friends with people at your former place of work after you leave. There's also a VERY strong possibility that the people who are at that workplace are socializing with the people AT that workplace. The longer you stay away, the more people you DON'T know, and the less you fit into their social crowd.
And how is this an argument for not also getting those things through work?
I have many hobbies outside work. I live in a great place where I am able to spend my free time meeting people and doing things outside work. I still want those things from my workplace, too.
I like having fun, and I like making friends. Being limited on time, I want to maximize the percentage of time in my life that I spend having fun and I want to maximize the amount of opportunity I get to make friends. It's great that I have personal free time where I can do that, but why would I not also want 8 more hours per day at work where I can also have fun and make friends? It would be silly not to, that almost doubles the amount of opportunity I have to have fun/make friends!
>and those relationships don't always follow you to your next job.
See my other comment in this thread. I haven't found this to be the case. Sure, not every relationship follows you, but that doesn't mean I'm going to forgo the opportunity to cultivate relationships that will follow me to my next job, or even for the rest of my life.
I'm sorry that apparently you haven't been able to (or just haven't bothered to) build the relationships I have been able to, but work is unequivocally an indispensable part of how I (and many others) enjoy life and meet people. I absolutely wouldn't give up the friendships that I made at my workplaces for anything.
Some employers will be very happy with blurring work/personal life boundaries: employees make friends (but the real quality of friendships will only surface after you've changed jobs, unless you plan to stick to a single job forever), eat great food (because maybe it's cheaper than simply paying the employees more) and have fun (enough to make impression of a laid-back place but not too much, because it would hurt company's performance).
It's because all these 'perks' are built on completely different goal. I used to think they're mandatory for me to feel satisfied with the job - looking back they now seem artificial.
That's why I personally love WFH - it let's me focus on the essence of working which to me is providing value for my client. For everything else, there's time outside of job.
Of course you can argue about how employees, despite being "in the office" are only productive for 2 or maybe 3 hours of their 8 hour shifts. But that's now how management sees it. Having a person visibly in a chair makes management feel like they are getting their money's worth.
I also don't get how people expect to get paid a full living salary for working less.
For many types of thought work, 3-4 hours is pushing it anyway; the default assumption of 8 hours doesn't make sense with the heterogeneity of what different types of work actually entail.
They may provide some of those either explicitly as an incentive, or as a side-effect of putting a bunch of people in close proximity, and that's great. But when profits are looking iffy, I don't think you can rely on it. It makes more sense to be less dependent on your job, which might go away, and to build those social experiences outside of work so you still have them to fall back on if you change jobs.
I expect to treat my co-workers with respect, but that is no different than what Open Source projects have done for decades.
But there's plenty of room to be critical of companies without sacrificing the positive things you've listed above.
I surely hope this is rare. Even a 40h work week is less than a quarter of work per week and that doesn't account for holidays, vacation etc.
Workmates might become friends but more likely they are work colleagues that vanish after a contract ends, especially if they didn't mesh with your network.
In my circles we as a group often get work at a company. At least do referrals etc. We also leave together to find new opportunities when the place goes feral. This is partly why we think office work is less than good a lot of times.
I'd argue most offices devolve into hellholes as management forget about people and treat them as things.
40 hours a week is a huge chunk of my life. I don't want to just be a robot during that time, I want to be part of a community of some sort. (Even as I do try to maintain connections outside of work too!)
As these offices are sitting empty and are no longer required, instead of letting them sit empty, let them be free to all. Community involvement is the only way to get this done.
The lack of of "community" is not due to lack of concrete boxes, in my opinion. How busy is your local library? From the odd occasion I've been, mine is not very. And seemed to be almost entirely frequented by people who had come to use the free computers/internet and were pretty solidly absorbed in facebook / paying bills / online shopping / whatever.
I don't think people like to invest a lot in public shared spaces because antisocial behavior from a few can easily ruin it and is difficult to police without being extremely restrictive.
Private clubs, groups, organizations are much more successful, and those are everywhere and (in my small experience) have good community spirit. You just don't necessarily see them easily because you can't necessarily walk in the door and start doing what you want.
I agree with the person you respond to: we kinda haven't figured out the social spaces thing, nor had to figure it out, for a very, very long time. All of our current shared social spaces are conventions from a time past that we continue because they're still relevant (bars/pubs, clubs, private clubs, restaurants, etc). Not complaining about any of these -- they're fantastic. Just noting the absence of modern social spaces.
Its the reason I really love Summer where I live. Always a festival or event to go got and get lost in a crowd, meet new people and celebrate whatever's on display that day. Aside from those, there's very little of what I'd call modern "social spaces" around me. Seems like a void needs to be filled there in the community.
People don't prefer to socialize anywhere. Libraries definitely used to be a much more social community hub though. But I'm not just talking about socializing but "shared spaces", as OP said. People working, meeting, relaxing just weren't there. And it is not for lack of room. The people there as I said using the facilities I didn't mean they were wasting it or using it other than its intended purpose, the opposite they were. They were there for a free service they didn't have, but almost certainly if they had a little bit more money they would have prefered their own internet/computer/phone and used it somewhere not in a shared space. Like everybody else who didn't have to be there to use the internet.
> I agree with the person you respond to: we kinda haven't figured out the social spaces thing, nor had to figure it out, for a very, very long time. All of our current shared social spaces are conventions from a time past that we continue because they're still relevant (bars/pubs, clubs, private clubs, restaurants, etc). Not complaining about any of these -- they're fantastic. Just noting the absence of modern social spaces.
There is no absence, they just aren't used as I said. And what do you mean we haven't figured it out? Everything is figured as we go continually. We have arrived here because there is actually less relative demand for these shared spaces than there used to be.
> Its the reason I really love Summer where I live. Always a festival or event to go got and get lost in a crowd, meet new people and celebrate whatever's on display that day.
Is the problem this meaningless new phrase "shared space"? We've always had festivals and markets and shows and concerts and things like that.
> Aside from those, there's very little of what I'd call modern "social spaces" around me.
I don't know why "aside" -- as I said those are not modern things. Would help to define what you mean, the first post didn't seem to be advocating for more crowded festivals but rather taking over empty office spaces and turning them loose to the public with some unexplained goal in mind.
> Seems like a void needs to be filled there in the community.
Sounds to me like the void is lack of community trust and cohesiveness and therefore willingness to share spaces. As I said, that will not be improved with more concrete boxes.
> Is the problem this meaningless new phrase "shared space"? We've always had festivals and markets and shows and concerts and things like that.
The point was that this is all where I live in terms of shared spaces and I seize those opportunities. The idea being, there is a need for shared spaces. For example, whenever a block party is organized here there's not really any public space to host it. Not enough greenery per district where daily activities of the locals can vary but special events, for said locals, are easy to put together. That's a void.
As for the term, I understood the spirit of it to mean public spaces to socialize, where any variety of activities can be done alone or with others. Examples include parks with chess tables, public pools and nature reserves. You can easily go to these kinds of places, socialize with perfect strangers or go alone and still be surrounded by people in your community. Again YMMV and that's OK. I'm open to any ideas so long as those spaces exist.
I agree and think it'll always be hard to trust strangers. But the more opportunities communities have to socialize, the easier it is to build that trust -- but they have to exist. When there's a lack of spaces, that just compounds the trust issue.
Suffer what same issue? You said there is a void of "modern social spaces" around you. Is that the issue you're talking about? I'm saying opening up empty office space to the public carte blanche won't turn them into vibrant engaging places that the community will gravitate to.
> The point was that this is all where I live in terms of shared spaces and I seize those opportunities. The idea being, there is a need for shared spaces. For example, whenever a block party is organized here there's not really any public space to host it. Not enough greenery per district where daily activities of the locals can vary but special events, for said locals, are easy to put together. That's a void.
Isn't a block party specifically organized on the block for local people to turn up to without having to go far? Isn't the block exactly the desired public space for this? I don't see what the void is there, sidewalks and verges are public spaces.
If you think buildings anybody is free to go in and out of to have parties in would be a good idea, I'm not sure what to say.
People are perfectly free to open their houses and invite neighbors to have a party too (which occasionally happens on my street). Or you can book venues or organize to go to a partk (where do you live that has no parks in walking distance?). The point is this rarely happens because people don't really want to invest in this. A block party takes very little investment in time or money or location.
> As for the term, I understood the spirit of it to mean public spaces to socialize, where any variety of activities can be done alone or with others. Examples include parks with chess tables, public pools and nature reserves. You can easily go to these kinds of places, socialize with perfect strangers or go alone and still be surrounded by people in your community. Again YMMV and that's OK. I'm open to any ideas so long as those spaces exist.
I'm just saying they exist everywhere (including side walks and verges if you want a block party) and are under utilized. The demand is not there.
> I agree and think it'll always be hard to trust strangers. But the more opportunities communities have to socialize, the easier it is to build that trust -- but they have to exist. When there's a lack of spaces, that just compounds the trust issue.
Turning the public loose on vacant buildings I guarantee will not do anything to increase trust. The results will make people rightly very angry.
> entirely frequented by people who had come to use the free computers/internet
This is a problem with a lack of investment into the space. If half of NYC was shared space, they would find their space and you would be in another. I find Central Park to be mostly pleasant, and that's a shared space. When it's 0.01% of the space, there isn't enough room for the required segmentation of the different tribes and it ends up toxic.
I might be missing something. You're making it sound like there is some short term or new phenomenon happening here. COVID certainly has not been the cause of the decline of community cohesiveness, and certainly not behind any rise in demand for people "sharing spaces" with strangers.
> This is a problem with a lack of investment into the space. If half of NYC was shared space, they would find their space and you would be in another.
Well I disagree with that characterization that it's a problem or that a solution would be to spend vast amounts of money on it. As I said, people don't want to share spaces. The "problem" is not lack of shared space. If you don't like the lack of community or people willing to share and invest in their shared spaces, the root cause is completely different. A top-down decree of more will not fix it.
> I find Central Park to be mostly pleasant, and that's a shared space.
Parks are one thing that can work if they are quite remote or highly policed or in "good areas", but that's because people tend to go there for few reasons, there isn't much in the way of infrastructure or services to be ruined or hogged or stolen.
I don't see many people working, cooking, or gardening in shared spaces though. Sure there are some college kids, occasional professional who takes their laptop there for a few hours to work, sometimes people will have a BBQ and there is the odd community garden project. But even with the meager parks there are, I don't see a lot of them overflowing for places to sit and work.
> When it's 0.01% of the space, there isn't enough room for the required segmentation of the different tribes and it ends up toxic.
Dangerously bordering on anti diversity wrongthink... but true. However increasing space doesn't really help all that much when there is a lot of crime and not enough resources to police it.
This is a brilliant sentiment and can be tide to multitudes of other items. The more that can be voluntarily decoupled from the employer-employee relationship, the more should be.
This is a lesson I learned in the last year. Even though I've made real friends with colleagues and I wouldn't change that, I would still advise caution. It can be tempting to make friends at work because spontaneous regular encounters and shared experiences are the natural basis for cultivating friendship. However, making friends at work has hidden hazards.
Most (but not all) colleagues are like fair-weather friends. It is easy to confuse someone being friendly with someone being a friend. If you couldn't imagine spending time with this person outside of work, they are probably friendly but not your friend. If it would be weird for them to call you outside of work to ask how you're doing, they are probably friendly but not your friend.
Why wouldn't you want to cultivate true friendship in the workplace? Don't expect workmates to continue to be friendly when you switch workplaces. If you're not engaging with them outside of the workplace, their friendliness will simply fizzle out. Secondly, confusing friendliness for friendship makes it easier to be exploited. I've stayed at a dysfunctional workplace far too long because I liked my "friends" there. However, when I finally did switch and these "friendships" fizzled out, it became much more clear that these were simply friendly people. This doesn't make them bad people, it's just a social lesson I learned. Finally, the last hazard of workplace friendships has to do with the insulating effect of selection bias. Especially in the tech sector, workplace friends will tend to be a much smaller slice of class, race, and gender and it's easy to have a narrow worldview as a result. Maybe the importance of that differs from person to person, but it makes it easier to wake up one day and realize, "Huh, I have only middle class white guy friends. What's up with that?"
As far as chatter goes, nobody wants that. It's distracting to those around you. When we were at the office we were chatting over IM to cut down on the noise. Guess what? We're still chatting over IM while WFH.
Besides, many companies are adopting a hybrid plan anyway. My team, which includes many young professionals, wants to go to the office once per month. Make good use of that time to build your network.
I interpreted "social chatter and engagement" not necessarily to mean people are yapping at their desk, but that people say hi in the break room, have lunch together, etc.
> Young professionals need to learn the difference between friends and colleagues.
I hear that a lot on HN, and I'm sorry if I have to roll my eyes a little. TONS of humanity make friends at the place where they spend nearly half their waking hours, and there is nothing wrong with that. It's fine that not everyone does, but this "rule" people like to spout about "your co-workers are not your friends" - well, maybe your coworkers are not your friends, but I've made plenty of deep, lasting friendships through work.
I just like talking to people. I like being able to go down the hall and solving a problem in 5 minutes that would take 3 days and 3 meetings WFH. I am "friendly" with many people in the office. I socialize with them.
They aren't dear dear friends but they are acquaintances that have helped me out of tight spots and I helped them. I can't tell you how many times I've been helped through these sort of relationships.
If you're introverted just say it. There's nothing wrong with it. But there's nothing wrong with socializing either.
Once allowed we'll be going out to lunch again. I always made it a point to go out to lunch with people - people I work with now, people I've worked with in the past, and people I've met through meetups. I like going out at a minimum every other week and prefer once a week.
Maybe it's company culture? We're in multiple states and have multiple locations within the same state - and I need to work with people from all these different locations and so we've solved this "working together remotely" problems ages ago. It's an important part of our corporate culture. WFH just solved the problem of working in a big, noisy area.
Some people make friends at work, others don't. While you may struggle blurring friend from colleague in the office, others may struggle WFH with separating their house and leisure from work. Not everyone has a luxury office to walk into. Some work in their dining room.
There are pros and cons, and those pros and cons change depending on individual circumstances. But ultimately you are working for a company that needs to make money and they need to make a decision. You can choose to stay or leave.
Some of my best times were working in a university department. We did all this, though the talking to people outside your team was at proscribed coffee times in the staff lounge and sometimes over lunch.
But they remained colleagues not friends. Outside the few parties a year we didn't go round people's houses. We collaborated and fought over work, as that was what brought us together.
I make the distinction between colleagues and other employees as not all employees are colleagues. Colleagues help each other out of tight spots and talk beyond "Nice weather". Friends could be either, but in my experience once everyone is married and has kids, the closest will be "friendly" rather than "friends".
'Colleague' just refers to someone you work with who is of the same rank as you, and probably on the same team. It's closer to 'teammate' or 'peer' than it is to "workmate you have a friendly relationship with". You can dislike a colleague, and you can also barely talk to or really know a colleague.
I think the point being made is that this is totally okay.
There's an undertone in this greater thread that "people you work with aren't really your friend" and it implies that these "not-really-friends" aren't pleasant to be around. But that's not necessarily the case. For many people, being around "colleagues" and making small chit-chat is enjoyable, desirable, and helpful, even if they aren't (and never become) your "friend".
I didn't say they are "merely pleasant". I said they are enjoyable, desirable, and helpful.
My point is, there isn't a right or wrong here. It's frustrating see the WFH warrior brigade come out and diminish other's experiences just because they had a bad experience. It's simply not universal.
Things could be perfect, but (with high probability) a relationship will abruptly end and managing every social aspect can be difficult.