But there's so much negativity in these comments. Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?
After I got married, I understood what everyone was too nice to tell me. Hey, you're cool and fine, but... no, thanks. After my daughter was born? I'm spending all my time with her, except for the times my wife is happy that I go play basketball or tennis so that I don't fall unhealthily out of shape. It is crazy how quickly my switch flipped after marriage, and then flipped even more extreme after having a kid.
If the socialisation time is always outside work hours, then yeah, people with young kids will basically never come.
Despise? No. But, the decision isn't spend time with coworkers or don't spend time with coworkers. It's spend time with coworkers, or spend time with family/friends. I pick the second option. I'm already spending 40 hours a week with my co-workers. Let me spend the few remaining non-busy, non-tired hours I have with my friends.
But, what do I know. I never go out of my way to spend time with people I don't have a shared interest with anyway. So maybe I'm an exception.
1. After work activities are voluntary 99% of the time (even “required events” I’ve personally skipped many times)
2. I prioritize my family over everything (leaving jobs over work-life balance), but that doesn’t mean having time out of work with co-workers is necessarily bad
3. I tend to value my coworkers as friends and have even invited some to weddings, etc. I don’t think it’s all that odd to have fun outside of work
All that being said, I also hate cutting into family time. But not everyone has a family or solid friend group, so activities through work are probably a good thing
And they never will, if they stick around at work after work.
Why is that the only way?
> Does everyone here despise casual time with their coworkers or what?
What’s with the trend to hypernormalize human agency and preferences?
Why are alternative approaches to life forbidden? There seems to be a religious like statefulness in people where we see a typical human and assume “they must be like me, and they’re being negative if that’s not true.”
Well, you don't want to ask people to donate time. You don't want to disrupt work too much either and it shouldn't be mandated. A loud mixer mid day for people who really can't spare the time can be distracting.
I think you’re just going to annoy people who would rather go home and people who would rather use that hour to work.