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Comment by ryanmcgarvey | Hacker News Reader

This dilemma is precisely what people who benefit from remote work went through when most companies weren't remote friendly.

My honest opinion is that most people that enjoy the office enjoy it because it's where they've gotten most of their socialization in their adult lives. As a result, they haven't built up lives outside of work. To make matters worse, our communities haven't developed to support people having "lives" outside of work (at least out here in the suburbs).

My hope is that as remote work becomes more prolific, people will rely on their local communities more for their social lives and all of these wonderful small towns will thrive again.

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It surprises me that the biggest knock on HN against people who prefer the office generally boils down to "get a life." Honestly, it's pretty insulting.

And I've never seen someone comment, "I'm pro-office because I have no social life." So why is that the prevailing sentiment?

To me it's more like those in favor of remote work find people who prefer office work very threatening and really look to knock them down a peg or two and discredit them. And what better way to do that than ad hominem'ing and insulting their social life?

> And I've never seen someone comment, "I'm pro-office because I have no social life."

It’s not that surprising because it’s difficult to admit to oneself.

It’s also difficult to admit to oneself that one is just insulting others because one dislikes the others’ opinions and has no evidence to back up one’s insult.

Just one’s observations though.

You're taking what OP said in bad faith. But in my experience most of the people who want to come into an office is precisely because they're lacking a certain social component in their normal lives.

There are so many quantifiably superior reasons to want to work remotely:

- Commute time

– gasoline savings

– can walk one's pets

The only pros I can think of for going into an office are a little more contextual to the specific employee:

- Poor home environment (noisy, distracting, etc)

– Loneliness

> Poor home environment (noisy, distracting, etc)

> Loneliness

I mean those can be pretty huge issues.

And no, I’m not taking what OP said in bad faith. I’m taking it as exactly how they meant it.

They have no actual evidence (besides their keen observation and desire to discredit in-office work) and to say that people who prefer office work have poor/nonexistent social lives.

Yet they claim that people who prefer office work have poor/nonexistent social lives. I’m not sure but the traditional context of saying someone has a poor/nonexistent social life is rarely that of a compliment.

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