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Comment by artdigital | Hacker News Reader

Same. I am just not good with remote work. Slack (our org is massive) and staying up to date with so many things async is stressing, and I honestly miss having my coworkers around. As a single 20s guy, I had fun in the office and was able to create strong connections with my team.

Now everything is just boring, dull and disconnected. I feel like a worker drone just going from task to task, trying to balance slack in the mix to not get left behind. There are other people in the company or my team, but I don't connect with them. They could equally be NPCs.

Same as you, I am also very worried about not being able to advance in my career any further if things continue the way they do

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The company you work for is not your family, you are just an NPC to them, they will get rid of you in a heartbeat as soon as it suits their interest, because the single purpose of a company is to make money, everything else is bullshit, you work for the company to make money as well, as soon as they would stop paying you, you would stop working.

You should build your life outside of any company:

- mixing friendship with work rarely ends well, you might end up competing with your best friend for the same promotion, he might not even be your best friend, just making you think that he is

- dating in the workplace is a minefield, you can easily get into trouble

Don't be attached to a company, you can find another role in seconds.

You don't need to keep up with everything in the company, you just need to be good at what you are doing.

You don't need to be promoted at the company, you just need to improve your skills, it might be easier to leave and join another company, or even rejoin the same one in a more senior role than to go through the promotion process.

I see this sentiment often on HN, but I think it's too reductive. For better or worse, we don't just work for a "company". We work with a group of other real whole humans. And if I'm going to spend 8hrs a day with these folks, I expect our relationships to be on a deeper level than "NPC." I don't think we should be "family." But NPC is way too impersonal for me.

The company is an abstraction layer that allows for very convenience-based relationships.

The point is that at a company you are a line item in the budget and you will be forced out the moment it’s not financially beneficial to keep you around.

Everyone else is an NPC by definition.

> mixing friendship with work rarely ends well

That generalization definitely doesn't hold for everyone. I've made so many great and lasting friendships from work over the years - even picked up some new hobbies and gone on trips together. If I'd come in with the attitude that it's a bad idea to make friends or socialize with coworkers, I would have missed out on a whole lot of life-enriching experiences.

> mixing friendship with work rarely ends well

This sentiment confuses me. Maybe it depends on the kind of company you work at, or maybe it's a cultural thing (I'm in the UK), but I've met many of my best friends through work, as have most people I know. It seems like one of the main ways to make new friends as an adult, and to be honest I've never experienced any downsides to it.

Same here. I have felt completely left behind and burnt out by the WFH shift. I simply don’t care enough to hustle and grind from home to achieve career advancement. Networking has to happen naturally in-person for me; everything on Zoom feels forced and fake.

I truly believe a hybrid schedule is best. 5 days per week in the office is overkill, but 2-3 days a week would help me tremendously. I’m gearing my career towards finding that balance now.

Ditto. Working remotely makes even a simple communication into another ordeal and a quick chat into a meeting scheduled for next week etc. I feel like much more energy and resource is spent just on communication when working from home, both at the personal level and for the organization.

You can go back to the office… but what if your teammates don’t? You’ll be in the same situation.

They go and get a job where everyone is in the office (and ideally everyone wants to be in the office).

My order of preference is:

• Everyone in-office because they want to be there

• Everyone in-office and some want to be there

• Everyone in-office and most don't want to be there

• Hybrid where everyone picks what works best for them

• 100% remote

Why is your 3rd order of preference something where most are unhappy? Are you saying your happiness is preferable over the unhappiness of most others or am I misunderstanding

Because I think in that situation the people who are unhappy either quit or get fired. Plus that was generally the default pre-COVID and people dealt with it more or less OK.

And yes, where I choose to work I do value my happiness more than the happiness of others.

Ah okay. That makes sense. That was my only wondering. We are in a post pandemic world now. So the pre Covid default isn’t the same any more. But yeah I agree overall

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