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> I don't see how people don't depend on work for some level of social interaction. How can one want to spend 1/3 of their life not giving a fuck about the people they work with?

This seems to be setting up a false dichotomy.

On the one hand, you have someone saying people "don't depend entirely on work for their social life".

On the other hand, you are saying, "how can you manage if you care nothing for your coworkers".

There's quite a lot of room between those.

I think there's also a big difference between expecting people to get all or most of their social interaction from work, and making sure that any remote members of the team have a good digital social environment with their coworkers—a strong presence on some kind of real-time text chat system (Discord, Slack, IRC, etc), regular not-entirely-serious email exchanges, whatever works for your groups.

The problem comes when you've got an organization that's been 100% in-person for its entire existence and neither knows nor cares how to actually support people when things go remote.

>I've heard this a lot. It seems a point of contention. I don't see how people don't depend on work for some level of social interaction. How can one want to spend 1/3 of their life not giving a fuck about the people they work with? How can someone want to sit at a computer banging out useless shit for faceless corporations and not have the conciliation of suffering through it with people you know and like?

I have enough social connections with family, my girlfriend and friends made in university, other activities, school, etc. I don't need to make friends at work tbh, I understand if others do, and that is one motivation to return to the office but please for the love of god, don't make me waste 3hs of my daily life because you need that.

A good argument for WFH has always been commute -- and rightfully so, because 3 hours with your family/girlfriend is worth a lot more than an hour in traffic -- it makes sense.

It seems people need to bridge/gap that loneliness by having/creating their social structure outside of work. I think it's more painful because it requires you to deal with social anxiety, social planning, rejection, etc. but it's much more rewarding.

YES! I am friendly at work, but outside professional references, I don't really speak to co-workers from past jobs. There are afew I keep in touch with, but I have enough on my plate and honestly many of them are not the kind of people I enjoy being around.

There is human interaction while working from home. The difference is that is that folks aren't trying to fill the entirety of their waking hours worth of human interaction within those 8 hours of work.

I work for a tech company based out of a cornfield (only a slight exaggeration). I've seen too many co-workers who burned out during quarantine because their entire social circle was based around the office and their colleagues. After hours sports were played in the office gym. Two out of the three daily meals were eaten in the office cafeteria. Multiplayer gaming sessions were done in the office game rooms.

Different people require different levels of social interaction. I'm one of those people who require less than the average. Once I had the opportunity to work from home I spent quite a bit more time socializing outside of work than before - not because I had insufficient socialization now, but because I had more energy to put into cultivating those freindships I cared about. Working from an office I was constantly burnt out entertaining my co-workers who required more socialization than I did, and couldn't make time for the friends of my choice.

I see 'mandatory back to the office' talk as a demand by extraverts that their introverted co-workers subsidize their need for social interaction, and I feel resentment at the imposition on my limited social energy. To support a position touting the benefits of workplace socialization I'd need to see it presented with an attitude of 'the option of meeting your co-workers face to face is a costly perk I hope many employers will continue to offer', not an entitlement to my friendship.

> How can one want to spend 1/3 of their life not giving a fuck about the people they work with? How can someone want to sit at a computer banging out useless shit for faceless corporations and not have the conciliation of suffering through it with people you know and like?

It's pretty easy, I just can't connect with anyone at work. This was the case for me when I was in-office pre pandemic too. At 5pm the people I work with cease to exist and at 9am the following day they're back again.

I can't understand how people make friends with their colleagues, the environment in the workplace could not be worse for getting close to people imo. I cannot relate at all because everyone's essentially masking all day long, who wants to make friends with some else's work-sona?

>> Mostly because they are not depending on work for their social life

> I've heard this a lot. It seems a point of contention. I don't see how people don't depend on work for some level of social interaction. How can one want to spend 1/3 of their life not giving a fuck about the people they work with? How can someone want to sit at a computer banging out useless shit for faceless corporations and not have the conciliation of suffering through it with people you know and like?

I'm hired to do a job or a project. I am required to get along with my colleagues, so I will try to help foster a friendly environment that doesn't make them want to commit acts of violence!

However, nor do I want "convenient work friends" that will dissipate to nothingness when I eventually leave the position. Doing that will leave me alone if that's all who I foster friendships with. Naturally, there's a small handful that will be real friends, but in my experiences that appears to be the exception.

Instead, I focus on extrawork activities that aren't bound to where I spend 40h a week. And right now, I'm doing 2-3 activities a week, slowly gaining more friends that aren't connected to work... So when I eventually leave, I still have those connections.

The more sardonic comment I have is "I'm paid to do shit, not to make friends. Don't use that as a wedge to get me to stay in shitty jobs."