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On the point of meeting people and socialising..

Have you considered that it might be a self correcting problem ?

The 2 hours you save by not commuting can be used to join a local running club. Suddenly you’re meeting a lot of new people you would have never met before.

My biggest social network is indeed a choir. By far. Most of my friends are from there and many couples are forming there. It's also way bigger than any team I could be working in.

Also, in my current company (many people WFH, at least partly), actually several couples formed because people meet at the seminars, at a time there is no stress related to work, in a relaxed setting. So remote work can be suitable for this too with the right ingredients. The company was not as remote as today before covid, but has been spread across two countries (mostly) for years so this is similar in this respect since the couples are mostly people from the two countries.

I've also built friendships from by previous work, when I was at the office, so this is also true.

I'm sure with time I'll make long lasting relationships at my current company too. We are already happy to see each others when it happens.

I’m the same as you, I’ve made good relationships in office and remote.

I think the social contact aspect is only an issue if you don’t understand or avail the new opportunities you have.

We’ve been WFO for so long, some folks are struggling to adjust to this new reality. That’s understandable !

I hate running but I like my job so that’s not a good trade off for me.

Hopefully it’s clear that running is just an example that can be replaced with any other social activities you enjoy.

My point is you’re not stripped of every opportunity to socialise if you choose to go remote, and it’s entirely feasible to replace the loss of office based social interaction with some other social interaction.

Not everyone has other social activities they enjoy.

Or the social activities they might enjoy, involve some skill prerequisite they don’t have, or time commitments they can’t keep.

Essentially, if someone was already a social person and had existing social groups for those hobbies that the office commute interfered with, then wfh was a gift.

But for those who enjoy their job, and enjoyed in-office collaboration, there is going to be a lot of effort and several prerequisites required to attempt to replace that outside the office.

I’m not arguing that everyone must be WFH.

I’m saying if you choose to WFH or remote you can still enjoy social activities.

The “you’ll always be worse off socially if you WFH” argument isn’t valid.

If your personal situation dictates that it’s impossible for you to social outside a work/office environment and that would hurt your quality of life, you should absolutely WFO.

Just understand that it doesn’t apply universally and WFH and having plenty of social interaction is entirely plausible and within reach for many many people.

My problem was lack of time and energy. The commute and the effort of commuting just killed any desire to seek out social activities after work. Work was not getting in the way of any specific hobby I already had.

Once that constraint was removed, I could actually start figuring out what stuff I was interested in and perusing it.

I was surprised how much stuff is out there once I started looking for things to do.

The reasonable upthread point is that, for some people, working and collaborating in the office gave them their social fix and they may not have the time or the interest to seek out social activities outside of work hours.

The answer probably has to be either live with that or seek out work environments more to their liking. Note that this isn't even wholly a WFH/COVID situation. For years, I've worked with a very distributed group of people. If I went into the local office pre-COVID, there would be people there but potentially I wouldn't run into anyone I knew and almost certainly no one I directly worked with.

Your underlying assumption is that there is some other hobby that I enjoy, have time to pursue, and have opportunities near me to engage in. As someone with kids, free time is both in short supply and sporadically available.

This is separate from my belief that friendships form via shared context not shared activities: https://billmei.net/blog/friendship

Your underlying assumption is I am saying WFH is better for socialising. I’m not.

I’m challenging the narrative that you are strictly socially worse off by working remote.

I think for a lot of people, that social fix is easily within reach in some other form.

> Your underlying assumption is I am saying WFH is better for socialising.

No, that’s not my underlying assumption.

> I’m challenging the narrative that you are strictly socially worse off by working remote.

Your challenge to the narrative has the assumption (among others) that people have additional time outside of work to socialize. Most parents don’t have consistent free time to dedicate to a social activity.

No that’s not my underlying assumption

> have time to persue

The scenario is commute takes time, you save 2 hours commuting. All other things being equal that is your time to peruse hobbies.

> have opportunities near me

Not my assumption, many people socialise over video games over the internet. There are many other internet social communities. Geographical proximity is not a strict requirement.

> As someone with kids, free time..

Not relevant - see comment above about more free time from not commuting.

My actual assumptions are you commute to work and you can’t use that time to socialise. Approximate round trip commute time is 2 hours not including prep time.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere - If your only possible hobby is socialising at work then it sounds like WFO is for you.

That doesn’t automatically mean many other people are socially worse off from WFH. Many people have other social hobbies they can do or don’t mind picking up.

I don't know if that's realistic for most people. Sports is a good one and meeting people during intramural leagues is a good idea, but its not like these leagues conflict with work hours anyway. And its harder since working bleeds into after hours. So it's harder to step away at 5 to play a softball game when you're wfh, or at least I feel like it would be tougher since you're basically always on call.

Overall the people who do these extra-curricular activities will probably continue to do so, but other people may not be any more inclined.

> since you’re basically always on call.

It sounds like this is the actual problem you need to address.

> extra-curricular activities

There is no curriculum at work. Socialising isn’t exclusive to the work place. There are ample opportunities to meet people outside of the office.

It requires a small shift in our thinking because WFO is soo ingrained in us, we get confused once it’s not mandated. That doesn’t mean social contact is not easily within reach.

I think as a society we'd do vastly better to learn how to socialize outside of work. People need to have hobbies and stuff (and they need to have enough free time outside of work to have hobbies instead of coming home and being too burned out to do anything).

Sorry, a lot of my close friends here in Canada were met at a previous company I work at, which was full remote.

Yeah, with kids now I don't make many friends and it's definitely a byproduct of my new life: for friendship to form I need a family with similar ideas regarding educating kids, similar interest in hobbies, close by and with kids of similar age.

It was hard with requirements when it was only me, now it's basically impossible

"I fear a generation of young people growing up with wfh won't be socialized. " - i mean that is a problem they will likely encounter way before even starting a career but they are adults and i'm sure there will be some companies which will mandate offices, so if they choose, they can work for those companies.