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Comment by cflewis | Hacker News Reader

I think most people would see not interacting with coworkers in any sociable way aside from video conferences as a net negative. You can’t form relationships that way. I think this is a key difference between people in this conundrum: some WFH advocates just see no value in building relationships with workers past the screen. It just doesn’t matter to them at some core level, and they don’t understand why it does for others (who I think are the silent majority).

You have more time for relationships outside of work, but for myself I find it much easier to work with others if I have some meaningful concept of who they are, and they have some meaningful concept of who I am.

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> You can’t form relationships that way

Plenty of millenials and Gen Z can

We've been building groups online ever since we were little

They think they can, but it's not the same

It's primarily some mental blocker in the old that prevents them from connecting things online to their real-life counterparts. It's like being illiterate and insisting that no one else can read those strange symbols. I'll offer in advance that younger people need to learn to separate the two sometimes.

Or they (some at least) might have a better frame of reference and “the young” people simple don’t know and can’t comprehend what they are losing. My interpretation is on no way less generous than yours.

In the same way junk food is equivalent to a healthy meal (IMO). There is a reason some mental health issues have been skyrocketing, and this is a big part of it.

Gonna need a citation on this one. Not mental health issues increasing, but online communities being the cause

Not ‘online communities being the cause’, rather ‘lack of genuine in person community and physical connection’ being the cause.

Same as junk food isn’t necessarily the cause of health issues - rather lack of enough healthy, not processed to the tits food is the cause.

Replacing most/all food intake with junk food is going to be bad.

Doing it periodically with enough of the ‘real thing’ to compensate? No issues.

The issue is not enough of the real deal. Which is possible until something breaks because of the alternative, but not necessary.

If you put someone in a capsule in say Antarctica, and they only communicated with other people via video chat - would anyone be surprised if they went crazy?

Hell, I think we’d all be surprised if they didn’t.

The challenge right now is a lot of people (including many people here) are de facto in that pod in a way that they can’t see, because theoretically they could walk outside and have conversations, etc.

They just won’t actually do it, because there are less visible factors pushing them away - factors that in many cases they aren’t allowed to see or acknowledge.

My coworkers are extremely wonderful people, however we aren’t friends.

It is possible, and in many places quite easy, to make local friends without relying on coworkers.

Facebook Groups has been very helpful to find local groups.

It’s also entirely possible, even in the worst ‘food deserts’ to drive to a grocery store and make home cooked food.

It’s also pretty easy to demonstrate how there is a direct relationship between how hard that is to do, and obesity and bad health outcomes.

> rather ‘lack of genuine in person community and physical connection’ being the cause

Yes, caused by toxic corporate culture and the modern American work week. There are no third spaces because everyone is busy working, and we all hate the people we work with.

When people say "community", your corporate hell-hole should be the absolute last thing to enter your mind. The fact it's what you turn to and long for really highlights the problem. We've destroyed communities and conned the average joe into thinking work life is their life. Their family. Now we take that away and they're nothing.

The problem isn't the taking away, the problem is getting to a point where the only thing standing between happiness and being a loser is asking how the weather is going by the water cooler.

If you think American corporate culture is bad on that front, Japanese, Korean, and Indian work culture is 10x worse (on average). Seriously.

Oh that started way before COVID.

It may seem normal, if you have never experienced regular in-person relationships (in a work environment).

Even after WFH for a long time I think everyone becomes used to it, but there is definitely something missing.

You really don't need them to be in person. Have you scheduled any lunchtime catch-ups? Got any regular group calls around interests? Just random banter? My work group online is a better experience than I've ever had in the office. It may vary for other people and environments, but "something missing" is not a given just because of remote contact.

I am a millennial with a few online friend groups and they're not really the same thing. For me those online relationships are loose and impermanent. People are continuously entering the group and continuously leaving never to be seen again. There's some level of trust and stability from meeting in-person that I can never seem to achieve online.

> For me those online relationships are loose and impermanent

I hate to break the news but most relationships simply are loose and impermanent, we just don't usually notice how brittle they actually are.

As for trust, is it really reasonable to trust someone more or less just because they've been in front of you vs not? And I mean that both ways: too trusting of people in front of us and not enough of people away.

I'm aware that most relationships aren't going to last forever, but the friends I have online are notably less cohesive than the friends I used to work with.

I make no claims to reasonableness. We are not creatures of pure reason and our friendships are never totally rational. All I claim is that there's something which ties offline friends to me and I to them, particularly if we've worked together, which is not present for any of my online friend groups.

> I hate to break the news but most relationships simply are loose and impermanent, we just don't usually notice how brittle they actually are.

Probably true at some level, but I'd wager that's much more common for Gen Z and younger millennials for a variety of reasons, as well as among people who just aren't really authentic, suburbanites, and people who just don't invest in friendship building.

However, that's a bit of a silly comparison, online relationships have some value, maybe a lot maybe a little, but they aren't an equal substitute for a friend in meatspace

> others (who I think are the silent majority).

[citation needed]

But let's go to the core of the argument: there are 2 groups, one values social interaction/bonding at work and the other doesn't. One group likes to have a mental image of who other people are, the other group prefers to focus on their work instead. The first group may even find it more difficult to work with someone with "no bond" whereas the other group just goes on with their work.

The problem is, each of these groups project their vision of co-operation to the rest, that's why the first group insists on hybrid and the other group on remote-only (fortunately nobody except some PHBs insists on RTO...). If you can't understand the other group, it's difficult to have an agreement.

My take is: work for the company that is in accord with your values and the ways you prefer to work. For me it's remote-only and there is no way I would change it, no matter what.

Even if a company prefers RTW (or partial RTW aka forced hybrid), that doesn't mean every employee does. The mismatch is not ideal. Additionally, this limits the company to either hiring from a fraction of the available talent pool, or enduring the strife you speak of. As a company grows, these issues compound and become more likely to present.

That's why the ideal solution here is a choice arrangement (aka flex), where the people who want RTO or Partial RTO can self-organize in the office, and the others can self-organize elsewhere.

Most people can establish friendships that are primarily online. It's not "screen relationships" vs "in-person relationships" for me, it's "real relationships" vs "work relationships". The main thing is that I don't want anything to do with coworkers and would choose not to engage with them even in the office. They're not friends, or family, they're coworkers and they come and go with the money. I had one coworker I liked to talk to, but he got a better job somewhere else and that was the end of that relationship. I would prefer to put more time and energy into actual relationships and not at work relationships.

please understand you are not representative everyone. Most of my friends are coworkers from various points in my career. I also don't care for screen relationships either.

Who else am I representing? Of course I'm representing myself, these are opinions and I'm saying them, which makes them my opinions. The difference is whether you get to force people to go into the office because that's how you make friends.

For some reason I read your post as a negation or dismissive of the parent post.

I dont think there will be a clear solution to the issue. I think companies will sort into those with in person cultures and remote cultures, but there will always be some dissatisfied minority in each one.

The burden will then be on the employee. If you dont want to work in person, dont accept an offer with that in the job requirements. Inversely, if you want in person relations, dont join a remote company.

That's fair. I was also trying not to be dismissive. It's just a fundamental difference in how we see work relationships.

That part was kind of interesting to me. I have both "real relationships", and "work relationships", but they are not at all mutually exclusive categories.

For me, the more the two categories overlap, the happier I am. I like working with people who I deeply enjoy and trust. People I can laugh with and be honest with.

Afterall, the reality of a 40 hour week is that I spend as much time with these people as my wife and family. Life is too short for me to spend 40 hours without real connection.

> Most of my friends are coworkers from various points in my career

That's fine, but contextually it would seem more important what you'd prefer to be the case, not what is the case.

As in, would you prefer to have a greater portion of your social circle made up of friends outside the places you've worked, or are you happier having most of those come from work?

I like it

However, the way I view it, having fewer friends from work doesn't imply making more friends outside of work.

I spend 40ish hours the the workplace either way. If I categorically avoid seeking or making friends there, that doesn't mean I'm spending more time looking elsewhere. It just means I'm spending 40hrs/week friendless.

> I spend 40ish hours the the workplace either way

Lets call it 45 or 50 due to commuting. With that said, that seems to be begging the question. If you weren't spending all that time in the workplace or commuting (in other words, if you worked remote), you'd have more time and opportunity to make friends outside of work.

Still seems like a trade of 40 hrs for 10hrs, no?

Of course, none of this stuff is binary time spent.

I'm sorry, I'm not quite following what you mean by "a trade of 40 hrs for 10hrs".

Working remote, for example, you could hang out with friends or family or neighbors in the middle of the day for lunch, the commute savings time is just a bonus.

In theory you could, but I don't think remote work necessarily enables substantially more in terms of mid day relationship building, at least not if you're actually doing anything substantial during the working day and don't want to sacrifice your evening time by working into it.

I'm counting the 40 working hours as possible time with friends.

I take your point, but to me it doesn't seem like much of that time would be spent in friendship mode anyway, and if you can legitimately call them friends (instead of something more akin to casual acquaintances you met at work and might still have the contact info of or occasionally play games with), you'd need to spend that time outside of work anyway to cultivate those relationships more substantially. Imo there isn't even close to enough time in that 40h block to form enough of a relationship—one that will survive on its own on a regular basis outside that workplace—without also going to a bar after, getting coffee on the weekend, etc..

At least, I'd think the point would be to spend other unrelated time doing other stuff with whoever you have chemistry with, and maybe go so far as to suggest if the only capacity in which you've spent time with someone is at work, it's not really a friendship.

> coworkers and would choose not to engage with them even in the office

Which is fine and understandable. Some people actually enjoy their work and like spending time with their colleagues (due to shared interests, worldviews etc.).

> actual relationships and not at work relationships.

I don’t see a difference or rather why can’t there be a significant overlap between the two (after this has always been the case for most people). Why wouldn’t you choose to work with the people you enjoy spending time with if you have the option?

> Why wouldn’t you choose to work with the people you enjoy spending time with if you have the option?

Because in practice this doesn't work. Someone gets mad at someone, someone leaves the company, HR gets involved, etc etc.

It's all fun and games but I can't call my work friend a dumb bitch, can I? Well then how good of friends are we?

Similarly, I have many friends who I love dearly, but if I had to live with them, I know our relationship would implode. Being roommates and being friends are ALSO two different things. And, often, living with your best friends isn't a treat - it's a nightmare.

Why should I seek out personal relationships with my coworkers? What relevance does their personal life have on work? What business is it of theirs what I do in my own time? We’re all job hopping to chase salary anyway. Everything in business is ephemeral and shallow. Meaningful relationships happen in the real world, not the office.

I want to build relationships with my coworkers because it makes my life better - I like being around people. It also creates strong feelings of trust, which then improves work quality of life, and therefore my work. Furthermore, many people at work don’t treat people they don’t have a relationship with in the same manner as someone they know.

People’s personal life and people being interested in you is just that : people. Most people do this naturally for the reasons stated above.

Not everyone is job hopping, and I’ve made plenty of friends in the office.

Right, but you can do this outside of work without any of the downsides (i.e. reduced salary, sexual harassment and other HR type complaints, no forced time together).

You're paying by not job hopping, and your friends aren't that deep of friends. You bet your ass you can get into hot water with them when you have the corporate power structure standing in between.

I don't know why someone would be content taking the risks and downsides of corporate America into their personal relationships. I'd rather gain more time, by working from home, and then using that time to make friendships. And then also hop around and make a bunch of money without guilt.

I don’t live in the US .

In my case I’ve made lifelong friends in the office - we’ve had different experiences in our respective jobs.

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