[mesaframe]

Man say whatever you want. I am feeling lonely working at home too. You can't focus on your family while working but colleagues aren't there too.

A lot of time I feel the need to talk about work but there is no one to talk to. It's hard to ping a colleague for some chit-chat.

[zamalek]

I hold an extreme view on the "work at home" situation: my working at home not only improves my life, but also the lives of those who work in jobs that causally require their presence (baristas, doctors, construction workers, etc.).

You're absolutely right, though: the office is a fantastic place to get a regular social fix. I absolutely understand where you're coming from, because social experiences are as important as food and water to humans, but here's the thing:

The concept of an office wasn't created to solve human socialization.

Why not try and solve the socialization problem, and ignore the notion of an office? Set up a lunch group with your street, see if you can create a coworking space in your apartment/condo building, rent a coworking space close to home, or something else. As a socialization solution, offices are a comfortable rut/local minimum.

You can absolutely have your e-commute, as well as your social experience. The problem is that we've been doing offices for so long, that we kinda forget that we need to rethink/replace what they were doing.

[saurik]

100%; and doing this correctly has the critical property of not causing your entire social circle to get destroyed because you decide you need to switch jobs for the good of your career.

[Consultant32452]

Please ping a colleague for chit-chat. You'll figure out pretty quickly who is interested in this. Just like face-to-face some people will want to talk and others won't.

I chat about kids, hobbies, side-projects, etc. with coworkers on a daily basis via Slack. I really stepped this up during the lockdowns specifically to help maintain sanity. One coworker was in Canada with her son while her husband was trapped in the US and they could not see each other due to travel restrictions. I checked in on her regularly and she seemed to really appreciate it.

This has lead to one former coworker and me starting our own small business and significantly increasing our income. As well as other friendships where we do things like vacation together even though we don't see each other on a regular basis.

[viraptor]

> It's hard to ping a colleague for some chit-chat.

Try it. Some may not be interested but others will be. With a dozen engineers at your work, at least one will feel in a similar way to you, so you can help each other.

Or look for a smaller coworking space in your area, even if it's for one day a week. They're fun social places. (At least the small local ones are - not the big vc funded work spaces)

[seanp2k2]

We’ve had decent success scheduling virtual team lunches and happy hours. We have a few opportunities per week on my team / org to just kinda hang out and not necessarily talk about work. Most people don’t show up regularly but we have a small regular group and the less-frequent visitors drop in every few sessions. I get that some people would rather just do the work, and it’s honestly optional, but some of us do enjoy it as a chance to connect.

[thefz]

Opposite view: I am not much a small talker and working from home leaves me with only functional communication with colleagues and a lot more free space for my mind to focus.

[MeinBlutIstBlau]

That being said, is much harder for lazy coworkers to pawn off work on you.