[martin_henk]

WFH only is low quality experience for me. No close bonding. Just zoom calls. Hybrid/Flex is the way to go I think. No need to be in the office 100%, but show up if you can.

[tivert]

> WFH only is low quality experience for me. No close bonding. Just zoom calls. Hybrid/Flex is the way to go I think. No need to be in the office 100%, but show up if you can.

I think Hybrid/Flex is the way to go, rather than pure WFH, because of the social connections, BUT it's also utterly pointless with distributed teams.

I'm on a distributed team. I have to fucking go into the office to fucking zoom from there. Plus it's a hoteling setup, so it's even hard to know who's around and my workspace is always a little off.

[JBlue42]

We have the same. I'm not sure if it's something built into humans but it turns out very much like the lunchroom at school, where the same people gravitate to the same areas/desks. I've probably sat in one of the same four desks for the past year and know all the people around me.

Also share in your experience that I'm going into Zoom with my team on a different coast, or other teams across the world. I'm the only one at my hq. I was thinking about this the other day and it's actually kinda nice - the people around me are on different teams so I get to talk to them about their work and I don't have deal with my team complaining endlessly about our problems! :)

[globular-toast]

Before COVID I worked for a big multinational that got rid of all meeting rooms because they realised people could just have meetings at their desks. It was all open plan "hot desking". You'd literally have people transporting their sack of meat upwards of 50 miles each day just to sit at a desk on Skype all day talking to people on the other side the room. I found it particularly amusing when two people on the same call would be sitting right next to each other but talking through the screen.

There might be real reasons to be physically present at some places, but I think it's important to remember many places are like the above and the reasons for coming in are complete bullshit. For most people in an office coming in is mainly because they don't have an office at home. That's not a problem for most geeks who generally have a far better setup at home.

[the_gorilla]

I can't imagine having to get close bonding from the office. One of the benefits of WFH is that you spend less time around people who happen to get paid at the same job as you, less time commuting, and more time with people you choose to be around.

[cflewis]

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.

[aulin]

The days I'm forced at the office I need to wake up two hours earlier, get home at least one hour later, usually two because for some reason I always end up doing overtime at the office. When I get home I still have chores to do which I usually do in the pauses when WFH. Little energy I have left I spend with the wife.

People bond at the office because they have no personal time and energy left to bond outside.

[scarface_74]

So for context so I don’t get accused of being antisocial, my job for three and half years until last year was (at least post Covid) flying across the country talking to directors and CxOs and ground level employees working in the consulting department (full time) for the $BigTech company based in Seattle.

Before that, I spent years talking to the “business” as an in house architect for two companies.

My coworkers are not my family nor are they people I need to “bond” with. We work well together, I do a lot of mentoring and teaching, etc.

I’ve had 9 and hopefully soon 10 jobs in almost 30 years.

Whatever bad things I can say about Amazon (and I have a shit ton of bad things to say about Amazon), they did teach me how to work in a mostly remote culture. The department I worked in was remote before Covid and is still exempt from the RTO requirements. I’m no longer working there

Currently I keep in touch with 3 people I’ve ever worked with and one of those three is my wife.

I don’t want to live in a high cost city and in fact I moved to Florida partially because it was a state tax free state and low cost of living.

[s1artibartfast]

The money question is did you work in person with your wife, and do you think you would have started the relationship if you were remote coworkers?

Maybe I'm small minded, but I struggle to imagine people starting office romances from remote relations.

[paulcole]

> My coworkers are not my family nor are they people I need to “bond” with. We work well together, I do a lot of mentoring and teaching, etc.

What you’re describing is literally bonding.

[MisterBastahrd]

I'm not a child. I don't go into the workplace looking for bonding. You know what bonding gets you when you get laid off? A cone of silence because you're immediately forgotten. If you are attempting to create a social life through your work environment, you're doing it wrong. This isn't to say you can't have friends at work, or create professional networks, but you should never pretend that your co-workers will automatically be your friends or want to be your friends, especially in competitive environments. It isn't good for you and it isn't good for them.

[s1artibartfast]

My experience is the opposite. I bond with coworkers and get frequent job offers, career tips, and solid life advice.

We go hang out, go camping together, and watch each others kids,

It would be moronic to think coworkers will "automatically" be friends, but I have found work to be a great place to hunt for friends.

Also, it helps to have friends in a competitive environment. It can be very good for you and good for them. You just have to collaborate to boost competitive advantage against everyone else. Friends that will talk you up to leadership (with justification) is basically a workplace hack. Not to mention being friends with your boss or boss's boss. Extremely good for you.

[zero-sharp]

I've had it both ways. As soon I leave, I don't hear from those people ever again. On the other hand, I've also made good friends that have lasted for years beyond the employment.

The tone of your post doesn't really help. You're not a child so you don't go looking for bonding in the workplace? Haha okay Mr Adult. Jesus Christ. Forming relationships is such a basic human thing.

[jay-barronville]

I’m with you on this.

As much as I love the many benefits of working from home—especially as a dad—I find the work experience to be hit or miss, often feeling low-quality.

You used to be able to have real connections with colleagues, but now almost everything feels superficial at best, whether through Zoom calls or disconnected Slack messages.

One thing I especially miss is whiteboarding sessions with a couple of smart colleagues as we work on a difficult problem; you simply can’t replicate that feeling digitally.

[kkfx]

Personally I found just issues with people not understanding WFH, those with no home office room, those who work on a laptop, always at the same desk of course and so on. There are MANY, but that's not a WFH problem, is simply a problem of training people to something they do not already know even if they practiced it for some years.

The only who really do not work well from home anyway are those with "home issues" (familiar, of mere available space etc) and well, using the office as a way to leave their personal issue aside is not a good thing, nor the purpose of work.

Beside that I think it's totally absurd in 2024 wasting enormous resources to build big buildings used for less than 12h/day, to commute between them in order to consume services (from transportation to ready made food), get exposed to physical ads (shop windows, mega-screens and so on), participating in rituals pushing people to consume fast fashion and fast tech, augmenting the enormous pile of polluting rubbish we produce just to save the giants of capitalism who can't live without the big city Barnum circus... People just need to learn and stop consider the home the place to sleep, a whole home used for just few activities, whole buildings used for just few hours, only to keep people pastured in old rituals is really untenable.

[bitwize]

Bonding too closely with your coworkers will only make it easier for them to find a spot to drive the knife into.

I have a meetup I attend weekly to bond over tech stuff with more friend type people. Coworkers are coworkers. Nothing against them but they're not my buddies.

[ywvcbk]

Having no other option besides willingly working in such an extremely toxic environment seems like the bigger issue, though.

Although I’m kind of curious. Presumably those other people you interact with also have jobs? Would you still feel the same way about your coworkers if you worked with them instead?

[7speter]

Tell this to Kirk, Spock, and McCoy

[Agingcoder]

It looks like you’re working in a very toxic environment if you consider all your coworkers like that - you might want to leave.

I’ll add that being disappointed with people is something that will happen outside of work as well : failed romantic relationships, family, etc.

Whenever you get close to people, there’s a risk something can go bad.

[s1artibartfast]

There is nothing wrong with bonding with your coworkers and enjoying your work.

Why would anyone want to work a job with people they dont enjoy? Thats miserable.

[lazide]

You might as well tell poor people to ‘stop being poor and get rich, so sad’.

Sure, but how?