They tried denial (WFH is a fad, it will end after the pandemic), threats (companies are demanding workers to return to office or else), this, I guess, is bargaining (come to office, you will be less lonely)...
As if the office grind and general work culture itself isn't one of the big factors why people are lonelier than in the past, to the point of a "loneliness epidemic" (surgeon general's words), and have been such years before Covid and WFH policies...
I was much closer with coworkers at previous jobs where we saw each other in person on a regular basis in an office.
I’m not saying that mandatory in office is a good thing, but I am saying I think all of you insisting there’s 0 benefit to a regular in-person cadence are either antisocial or heavily biased. It isn’t always “the man” just trying to get his way.
Even more so for new college grads who may have moved for a job and don’t have a strong local social circle.
Source: I am not in a position to care if other people are in an office or not, I’ve just worked everything from sitting at a desk 9 hours a day to no local office at all.
Completely agree with you.
I had amazing friends when I went to the office. I 100% prefer remote working and am not coming back, but I have to recognise that it's not better at absolutely everything.
I'm seeing a absurd amount of Arguments as Soldiers[1] in this space. No one wants to have a conversation. It's always straight into conflict, underlying intentions, etc. No regards for truth seeking.
>For some people home life sucks and work is a relief
Those people need to fix their home life then - not to take refuge to work in denial of their domestic issues. Work is almost optional. Home life is mandatory.
Easier said than done? Sure. But anything else is a sugarpill when you have a serious disease.
I think it's the city's fault. People tend to move to the suburbs when they have kids because they are dissatisfied with their options in the US. If people lived close to the office would we be having this conversation? The long-commute both ways kills the office.
The problem is saying this to a crowd where a decent size of the demographic makes all of their friends at the office. Or maybe that’s a bay area thing. Regardless, I always found it really unhealthy. Instead of making this the new normal one should ask themselves why it is you feel compelled to make all your friends at the office and wrapping your life 24 hours a day in the context of work. There is nothing wrong with making friends there, but it seems for a decent number of folks to be their only source of friendship which is a bit of a societal issue.
Ha ha! Yeah, I haven't read it yet, but that headline is just hilariously "corporate". It's like these people have never met the people they're trying to convince.
[edited after reading]: okay, well nothing new there. Unrelated studies, implied as relevant; studies they claim show connections (maybe? it's vaguely worded) but don't provide links to; quotes from gen-z that don't necessarily mean what it's implied they are saying; the same old drum-banging about having 'mentors' around you to chat with, or having coworkers to go out to lunch with, just proving that those companies aren't doing remote work correctly. Nothing new here worth diving into, at all!
Everyone in commercial real estate keeps hoping for a return to pre-covid work patterns, but it isn’t going to happen. Not paying thousands/millions a year for a location is a huge advantage.
It is, but it should often be compared to the loss of tax breaks to have the building. Many large companies got deals because they would bring X number of workers to the area. Those deals are predicated on reports about building utilization. Cities overlooked those reports during covid, but now care. So you might have a $10 million dollar building (that you can't sell), but you are now also liable for $1 million in taxes because you broke your deal.
>You know, the things you can’t do when you commute 2 hours a day.
This is an important part. The commute represents an obscenely large amount of our lives in time alone - forget sanity - that we give to employers for free. Is it because that's what we're willing to give for a job? Fucking no, of course not: It's because, historically, there was simply no other choice for most jobs, so it just became another part of the bargaining (I'm willing to sacrifice a bigger chunk than you, so I do better in the job market). Removing that has immeasurably improved the wellbeing and quality of life of everybody I know. Even a single hour round-trip (chair-to-chair) every day is a burden when you consider how our society has become so optimized in filling every available hour of the normal citizen's day.
Prior to COVID and WFH I had a 2-2.5hour (each way) commute. This meant I would leave for work before my infant child woke up and would get back from work as she was going to bed. I pretty much didn't see my own kid on the weekdays. The wellbeing difference once WFH started was enormous, and for this reason I'd never go back to commuting.
Without that 4-5 hour wasted block of time, I now see my kid/family more, have time for hobbies, socialize with friends and people I actually like (rather than the at-work "performative socialization" with co-workers). Night and day difference.
I like to go to the office once and awhile. I do not have very many friends. The only interaction I get these days is from the office. What few friends I do have all moved to different states ages ago. Also you do not want 'to be the old guy at the bars'. WFH made it much more lonely. Getting out and having some interaction is OK even with your icky coworkers.
I wholly approve of the office as a place where people can socialize. But it's patronizing to try to make that argument to people who don't get anything from it, since you are essentially telling an adult that they don't know what's good for them, that they aren't getting what they think they are from virtual socialization, and that their absence is somehow harming the socialization of others. And even people who don't get anything out of it are usually coming to a physical get-together occasionally anyway.
2 hours a day!? I wonder how overlapping the "have no interest in return to the office" crowd is with the "2 hour commute" crowd.
I don't think I know a single person that has any interest in continuing to work from home. But around here the commute is a 20 minute train ride, and homes are small.
Any chance you're in the USA, in a big house, in the suburbs?
20 minutes going, 20 returning is 40 minutes a day. Unless you live by the train station, it is 10 minutes going there, and you have to wait for the train, 2-5 minutes. That is at least an hour/day, 2 hours/day are not that far away from you.
It is important not to idealise the perfect timing, what it should be if there were no cars on the roads, no traffic jams or the train comes exactly on time. Take a chronometer and measure it every day and you will be surprised by reality. I did it lots of times.
I have been living in big cities around the world and almost everybody spent an hour or so going to work.
I had a small apartments but was living alone and did as much remote work as I could.
I won’t say my experience is either like you or the GP’s post. Average commute time here is maybe 10min - 1hr and yeah it probably involves a train. Not too many people living far away from their other colleagues, among the folks I know. Montreal is dense enough.
But I’d say maybe only a quater or less of people I know would be positive about a return to office. (Me excluded, surprisingly)
It’s a pretty low percentage of people because it’s low flexibility for pretty much no benefits unless you’re a special kind of weirdo (myself)
I live a 6 min walk to my office, and like the amenities + chatting.
I live in Europe, and have friends in other countries that are not the US.
I know a grand total of zero people, among friends and extended acquaintances, that showed any preference to work from the office when given a choice, irrespective of the commute time.
I had a 2-3 hour daily commute (1-1.5 hour one way) in the big city in Europe. Regardless of taking a car through clogged center, or if I took publick transit, because it equated to about the same - 5 min walk to the station, 10 min wait, 10 min ride, 5 min change to other line, 5 min wait, 20 min ride, 15 min walk or shuttle to the office.
That's not even a commute across whole city, only across about half of it. And majority of the people had the same times. Lucky ones maybe had 30-40 mins.
I live in Europe. Out of an office of 9, only 2 want to go back. One person is in sales and I assume is very extroverted, the 2nd is an old man, who likes the whole "dress up, get to the office early, I'm a serious businessman" cosplay. The 2 GenZers don't seem to mind working from home, and this is despite the fact they've only recently moved here.
There are lots of living and working situations between your living on a subway platform for a company located on a subway platform and a big house in the suburbs. I'm assuming of course that your 20 minute train ride had zero minute connections on both ends since you excluded them.
I live 10 minutes from my office. I still only go in 1 day a week. I prefer working in the comfort of my home and being able to take a walk or mountain bike at lunch.
I think people paint this as propaganda, not realising everybody is different. I was a staunch WFH believer. I fought it to the point where I'm one of the few remaining employees allowed remote status at my company. I now feel it was a mistake and plan to return to the office soon.
I remember a few years ago the concept of a 'third place' was a big thing. You have home, work, and a third place (e.g. church, a sports you play with, gym). Now, a lot of people don't even have a second place. WFH has definitely impacted my mental health and my relationship. Obviously it doesn't _have to_ but if you don't have the built-in motivation to get out and do things often enough, you will spend far too much time at home, around the same person, driving yourselves crazy.
Some people need to be 'forced' to do things or they will let life slowly pass them by. When I had to go to the office I got outside, fresh air, walking, talking with colleagues (even if the interactions weren't very deep) and there was a much greater chance I would do something social after work (with friends, not colleagues). Just being part of the hustle and bustle of the city is something I miss greatly. Like I say, obviously you can do all this and WFH, but personally, I find it very difficult.
At the time I thought Covid + WFH didn't impact me all that much. I didn't feel particularly concerned about it although followed the laws/guidance closely. Looking back as we close in on four years since it started, I feel like it actually had a much bigger impact than I realised and a big part of that is the isolation/bad patterns it's easy to slip into with WFH.
You're basically on the verge of saying I should be forced to go to church as I don't do what's in my best interests. Lol. Sounds like an individuals own problem, not a work must interfere in my personal life problem.
No, I'm discussing a massive change in how society operates and whether that is ultimately good or bad. As I said at the start of my comment, everybody is different. Working from home is great for some people, and horrible for others.
>> Sounds like an individual problem
Yes, but there are lots of things that are 'individual problems' for which society operates in a certain way to ensure it functions as well as possible as a whole. It's an interesting discussion.
Mmm. I think he was saying he thought WFH was a great idea and it turned out that it had negative repercussions he hadn't anticipated. No need to strawman him.
I happen to have experienced the exact same thing. Switched to 100% WFH during COVID and never came off it. I fortunately have a family, but the reality is that family requires a lot of chronological investment (homework, dinners, bonding, etc). Previously working in an office was able to fulfill my extra-familial social needs as a human, but without an office it's much harder to make that happen.
I am obviously very glad that I have a family (and was especially glad during COVID), but I do think that family + WFH leaves very little time for traditional social activities.
Sure I am lonely, but going to an office isn't it. We need more third places that aren't work and home. In Nashville, the options are bars (which if you don't drink that's a bummer) and that's about it. Coffee shops are all closing up at 6pm and same with places like bookshops and other places where hobbies can grow like outdoor equipment shops, bike shops, and other things.
Going back to the office is not the cure. Going back to the office is a great way to have conflicts of interest show up and sexual harassment claims made.
Gen Z is lonely because many businesses don't give a flying fuck about the people they pay and instead demand insane hours and crazy workloads to leave zero time for personal relationships to happen outside of the office.
What they're probably trying to imply is that trying to cure loneliness by seeking out romantic relationships is strictly verboten in an office environment.
These ideas are even more unpalatable when rephrased into “I have to come back to the office so that I can be someone’s social chew toy.”
It’s like making me come back to the office because you realized that you made better calorie decisions when we went to lunch at Panera together.
I can appreciate how some people have better outcomes in the office but it doesn’t make sense to drag other people back because they are helpful NPCs to some end beyond the work.
I have been WFH since the start of the pandemic, and then later joined a fully remote company that had no offices whatsoever.
Like most people here, I don't miss commuting in the cold or the rain. However, what I do miss is having a human connection with the people I work with. I have found remote to be much more transactional, and consequently isolating.
I am not sure if remote work is for me. I have made many friends from my previous jobs who I still see, despite us all moving on from the companies where we met. I fear I won't have that here, and honestly it's something that I miss deeply.
Seems like people are either fully remote or they are mandated to come into the office x times a week. There's not much of "We have a small office if you want to come in, otherwise feel free to work remote and plan all meetings to allow others to join remotely." Which it think is the right balance.
I feel there is definitely room for an improvement in work Teams calls culture (replace with your own video call solution).
Calls should be less formal, less restrictive (unless it's a formal meeting) basically a call can be left on in the background as you go on with your life.
Readit News
As if the office grind and general work culture itself isn't one of the big factors why people are lonelier than in the past, to the point of a "loneliness epidemic" (surgeon general's words), and have been such years before Covid and WFH policies...
I’m not saying that mandatory in office is a good thing, but I am saying I think all of you insisting there’s 0 benefit to a regular in-person cadence are either antisocial or heavily biased. It isn’t always “the man” just trying to get his way.
Even more so for new college grads who may have moved for a job and don’t have a strong local social circle.
Source: I am not in a position to care if other people are in an office or not, I’ve just worked everything from sitting at a desk 9 hours a day to no local office at all.
I'm seeing a absurd amount of Arguments as Soldiers[1] in this space. No one wants to have a conversation. It's always straight into conflict, underlying intentions, etc. No regards for truth seeking.
[1] - https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/arguments-as-soldiers
Is there any benefit in mandating that all employees must come into the office X days per week? No.
For some people work life provides a solid identity.
I say "some people" because someone's propensity to strawman.
Today some health professionals recognize loneliness as a comorbidity.
More awareness of X does not mean there is more of X.
Those people need to fix their home life then - not to take refuge to work in denial of their domestic issues. Work is almost optional. Home life is mandatory.
Easier said than done? Sure. But anything else is a sugarpill when you have a serious disease.
[edited after reading]: okay, well nothing new there. Unrelated studies, implied as relevant; studies they claim show connections (maybe? it's vaguely worded) but don't provide links to; quotes from gen-z that don't necessarily mean what it's implied they are saying; the same old drum-banging about having 'mentors' around you to chat with, or having coworkers to go out to lunch with, just proving that those companies aren't doing remote work correctly. Nothing new here worth diving into, at all!
Remember “quiet quitting”? BI articles overwhelmingly had the tone that these lazy workers were gutting businesses.
I think they just write articles to coddle middle management.
"Biden admin launches $45 billion dollar push to transform empty office space into housing"
If you are lonely, go see your friends or go out. You know, the things you can’t do when you commute 2 hours a day.
This is an important part. The commute represents an obscenely large amount of our lives in time alone - forget sanity - that we give to employers for free. Is it because that's what we're willing to give for a job? Fucking no, of course not: It's because, historically, there was simply no other choice for most jobs, so it just became another part of the bargaining (I'm willing to sacrifice a bigger chunk than you, so I do better in the job market). Removing that has immeasurably improved the wellbeing and quality of life of everybody I know. Even a single hour round-trip (chair-to-chair) every day is a burden when you consider how our society has become so optimized in filling every available hour of the normal citizen's day.
Without that 4-5 hour wasted block of time, I now see my kid/family more, have time for hobbies, socialize with friends and people I actually like (rather than the at-work "performative socialization" with co-workers). Night and day difference.
I don't think I know a single person that has any interest in continuing to work from home. But around here the commute is a 20 minute train ride, and homes are small.
Any chance you're in the USA, in a big house, in the suburbs?
It is important not to idealise the perfect timing, what it should be if there were no cars on the roads, no traffic jams or the train comes exactly on time. Take a chronometer and measure it every day and you will be surprised by reality. I did it lots of times.
I have been living in big cities around the world and almost everybody spent an hour or so going to work.
I had a small apartments but was living alone and did as much remote work as I could.
But I’d say maybe only a quater or less of people I know would be positive about a return to office. (Me excluded, surprisingly)
It’s a pretty low percentage of people because it’s low flexibility for pretty much no benefits unless you’re a special kind of weirdo (myself)
I live a 6 min walk to my office, and like the amenities + chatting.
I know a grand total of zero people, among friends and extended acquaintances, that showed any preference to work from the office when given a choice, irrespective of the commute time.
Make of that what you will.
That's not even a commute across whole city, only across about half of it. And majority of the people had the same times. Lucky ones maybe had 30-40 mins.
I remember a few years ago the concept of a 'third place' was a big thing. You have home, work, and a third place (e.g. church, a sports you play with, gym). Now, a lot of people don't even have a second place. WFH has definitely impacted my mental health and my relationship. Obviously it doesn't _have to_ but if you don't have the built-in motivation to get out and do things often enough, you will spend far too much time at home, around the same person, driving yourselves crazy.
Some people need to be 'forced' to do things or they will let life slowly pass them by. When I had to go to the office I got outside, fresh air, walking, talking with colleagues (even if the interactions weren't very deep) and there was a much greater chance I would do something social after work (with friends, not colleagues). Just being part of the hustle and bustle of the city is something I miss greatly. Like I say, obviously you can do all this and WFH, but personally, I find it very difficult.
At the time I thought Covid + WFH didn't impact me all that much. I didn't feel particularly concerned about it although followed the laws/guidance closely. Looking back as we close in on four years since it started, I feel like it actually had a much bigger impact than I realised and a big part of that is the isolation/bad patterns it's easy to slip into with WFH.
>> Sounds like an individual problem
Yes, but there are lots of things that are 'individual problems' for which society operates in a certain way to ensure it functions as well as possible as a whole. It's an interesting discussion.
I happen to have experienced the exact same thing. Switched to 100% WFH during COVID and never came off it. I fortunately have a family, but the reality is that family requires a lot of chronological investment (homework, dinners, bonding, etc). Previously working in an office was able to fulfill my extra-familial social needs as a human, but without an office it's much harder to make that happen.
I am obviously very glad that I have a family (and was especially glad during COVID), but I do think that family + WFH leaves very little time for traditional social activities.
Gen Z is lonely because many businesses don't give a flying fuck about the people they pay and instead demand insane hours and crazy workloads to leave zero time for personal relationships to happen outside of the office.
What kinds of offices have you been working in that this is a common occurrence?
It’s like making me come back to the office because you realized that you made better calorie decisions when we went to lunch at Panera together.
I can appreciate how some people have better outcomes in the office but it doesn’t make sense to drag other people back because they are helpful NPCs to some end beyond the work.
I have been WFH since the start of the pandemic, and then later joined a fully remote company that had no offices whatsoever.
Like most people here, I don't miss commuting in the cold or the rain. However, what I do miss is having a human connection with the people I work with. I have found remote to be much more transactional, and consequently isolating.
I am not sure if remote work is for me. I have made many friends from my previous jobs who I still see, despite us all moving on from the companies where we met. I fear I won't have that here, and honestly it's something that I miss deeply.
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