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I Would Rather Not Go, Back to the Office

Started by turnstyle, February 24, 2021, 02:18:31 PM

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It really annoys me when people shun the loneliness aspect and suggest that any friends made in the office are more akin to 'acquaintances' rather than genuine mates so it doesn't matter.

When you move to a new city (as I did when I arrived in London) and don't know anyone at all other than some nobhead housemates you're stuck with in a flatshare then work is really the main and only place to get a foothold in things and go for a pint or chat and laugh with people, and to begin to have a network of friends of friends and people you know in a new place. Otherwise it's going out and trying to make friends yourself (works for some, not everyone) or joining clubs related to your interests (which isn't always possible depending on where your passions lie).

Without that it can be really difficult, and really lonely being at home all the time without people to talk to in-person and give you a spark of energy and vitality that you don't tend to get from chatting to people on whatsapp. I know lots of people who are going back for one or two days initially for this reason having also been in the same boat as IsavedLatin and being all about that WFH4LIFE, similar to how people who retire often end up volunteering at places.

Working from home gives you the freedom to be monitored less and control what you do while you're at home but also means that if you actually want to have lunch with someone rather than having 8+ solitary hours you now have to drive/bus/train to the same location as a friend and end up either shoving lunch into a tiny timeframe so you can go back and finish your work or end up having epic lunches that will end up getting you a bigger bollocking than you'd get in an office.


bgmnts

You dont have to move to a new city though.

Milo

There's quite an imbalanced thing going on where the only opportunity for human interaction is while you're selling your labour.

SpiderChrist

I miss going to the Devonshire Arms after work, but there's no way I'm getting on a crowded train to Cambridge with a load of maskless bastards every morning, just so I can sit in a pub with another lot of maskless bastards.

Quote from: bgmnts on January 23, 2022, 06:47:38 PMYou dont have to move to a new city though.

You don't have to, but if you live somewhere shit with no opportunities to pursue your passion and nothing to do then it can feel like you're trapped sometimes.

Quote from: Milo on January 23, 2022, 07:38:45 PMThere's quite an imbalanced thing going on where the only opportunity for human interaction is while you're selling your labour.

Definitely, it's that 8 hour chunk in the middle of most office-based jobs that is the killer. There's lots to be said for WFH meaning people are shopping in their local community and getting to know people there but it's still hard to actually shift that to meaningful social interaction with people within that time.

Even if all bosses suddenly gave people flexible hours you might think "great, I can go for a stroll to an art gallery or to the cinema with a mate during the day as we're in control of organising our time now" but I have a feeling that in practice it would lead to "sorry mate, I've got loads I NEED to finish today but can go for a pint tonight when I'm done".

The enforced 8 hour window is shit and depressing at the best of times but at least ensures that for many people they have evenings guaranteed to be free to socialise, and so with that being tricky to ever shift and everyone working from home it will mean that there is a lot less tangible interaction for the largest part of most people's day, a blessing to some but a struggle to others.

flotemysost

Quote from: IsavedLatin on January 23, 2022, 06:22:07 PMI'm also quite aware, perhaps even paranoid, about perception at the moment. As @flotemysost says, different people have different working styles and favour different environments -- but not every employer is going to respect that, or at the very least, may struggle to support a huge multiplicity of working styles. Will those not wanting to return to the office become (consciously or unconsciously) thought of as refuseniks, not team players, oddballs?

This is a really understandable concern. Pre-covid, my manager already worked from home some days due to parenting commitments, and they would frequently get left off meeting invitations or email chains those days, because people simply assumed they weren't working (even though they were probably actually putting in more time than when in the office those days, thanks to no commute, no time spent chatting in the kitchen with colleagues, etc.).

Obviously widespread wfh has changed that perception, but I worry too that there'll be a gradual shift back towards that kind of exclusive presenteeism - there's been a lot of talk about how we've all been missing out on "those spontaneous conversations you have when you pass someone's desk" and "the value of face-to-face meetings, without having to worry about technical glitches and delays" which is all well and good, but there's a risk of shutting out colleagues from important conversations and decisions simply because they've opted to wfh most of the time.

While I reckon having all our meetings online for a while meant that lots of people often ended up getting invited to meetings they didn't really need to be in, and basically wasting a lot of time (just because it's easy to add infinite attendees to a virtual invitation without having to worry about whether there's enough chairs in the meeting room), on the flipside I do think people will end up getting inadvertently cut off from conversations they do need to be a part of. My office is at least set up with meeting room software which makes hybrid meetings easier, so that's something, though I'm still figuring it out. Everyone who remotely joined a recent departmental meeting was greeted with a wide-lens close-up of my arse, as I was doubled over trying to grapple with the controls, not realising I'd started the video.

Hope next week goes OK for you anyway, @IsavedLatin.


Quote from: thelittlemango on January 23, 2022, 06:36:47 PMIt really annoys me when people shun the loneliness aspect and suggest that any friends made in the office are more akin to 'acquaintances' rather than genuine mates so it doesn't matter.

When you move to a new city (as I did when I arrived in London) and don't know anyone at all other than some nobhead housemates you're stuck with in a flatshare then work is really the main and only place to get a foothold in things and go for a pint or chat and laugh with people, and to begin to have a network of friends of friends and people you know in a new place. Otherwise it's going out and trying to make friends yourself (works for some, not everyone) or joining clubs related to your interests (which isn't always possible depending on where your passions lie).

Without that it can be really difficult, and really lonely being at home all the time without people to talk to in-person and give you a spark of energy and vitality that you don't tend to get from chatting to people on whatsapp. I know lots of people who are going back for one or two days initially for this reason having also been in the same boat as IsavedLatin and being all about that WFH4LIFE, similar to how people who retire often end up volunteering at places.

Hard relate to this. I'm very lucky to have some really close friends as colleagues, and losing out on that daily in-person interaction, after work pub trips etc. overnight hit me pretty badly. I think alongside the loss of other things in lockdown, it sort of felt like part of my identity had gone missing, as dramatic as that sounds - as you say, being in a flatshare can be incredibly lonely, especially back when there was pressure to constantly be doing FUN SOCIABLE THINGS AT HOME but in reality you might well have been sick of the sight of your flatmates, especially if you weren't especially close to begin with, and longing for some familiar, in-person company.

I remember seeing a few comments (not here!) along the lines of "you must be a boring person if most of your friends are from work" and that really grated (though I've got plenty of non-work friends). Appreciate I'm very lucky to have met some great people through my job, but also in my case, they're people I've spent a lot of time with, during my twenties and early thirties, who have a shared interest in the industry we work in (again, appreciate this is a privilege and won't be the case for many people) - it would be more sad/weird if I wasn't friends with anyone from work, surely. Also as @thelittlemango says, it can just be really hard to make new friends in your spare time, especially if you're new to an area.

The Culture Bunker

Got told today that I'd be expected to be in the office "a lot more" from now on. Given I've been going in three days a week, I'm assuming it's being "suggested" that I'm there all the time from now on.

Pretty much right away started looking for other jobs and am glad I have a four day weekend coming up to apply for one I did find.

Pinball

I'm WFH for all/most of the week from now on. I will only work for companies on that basis, and absolutely love WFH. As for mates, local mates are better! And cities are shit. Fuck cities and their overcrowded, expensive, hyper-competitive, polluted shittiness. Hopefully the commercial corporate landlords will go bust and fuck off, though I doubt it. But here's hoping.

flotemysost

^ each to their own. For me, most of my work mates are local mates, I love living in a city (though I can't disagree that it's horrifically expensive and polluted) and yeah, private and commercial landlords urgently need to have far less power.

Bit of a tangent, and not to detract at all from the blatant and myriad benefits of allowing people to work remotely indefinitely, which I very strongly support - but it feels like a bit of a chicken-egg situation with some of these issues. Like, it's obviously great that remote working has allowed loads of people to move to areas where they can afford more space, can afford to become homeowners etc. for example - but that's really down to, as you say, landlords having way too much power and rent/property prices in cities being ridiculous.

I guess sometimes when I say I've missed going to the office, I feel like I'm being a shill for these cunts, but it's not that at all - I just miss the company and the social buzz and the change of scenery - but at the same time I also think the housing situation is disgustingly unjust and needs overhauling, I don't think it SHOULD be this expensive to live in a city (or commute into one, for that matter). But I've got little faith these things are gonna change any time soon, so wfh is obviously a worthy cause to be batting for (and of course, there's a huge amount of benefits to wfh other than housing-related ones).

Anyway. Good on you for finding a working pattern that you're happy with and standing your ground! Hope it stays that way for you.

jamiefairlie

Quote from: Pinball on January 25, 2022, 12:50:41 AMI'm WFH for all/most of the week from now on. I will only work for companies on that basis, and absolutely love WFH. As for mates, local mates are better! And cities are shit. Fuck cities and their overcrowded, expensive, hyper-competitive, polluted shittiness. Hopefully the commercial corporate landlords will go bust and fuck off, though I doubt it. But here's hoping.

That's me too. It's going to take real action from employees to kill this Victorian Factories hangover once and for all.

Fambo Number Mive

Graham Brady apparently claims in the Daily Mail that civil servants demanding to work from home are ruining the country. I think he will find the government are the ones ruining the country.

purlieu

As someone who has, due to illness, spent the vast bulk of the last 13 years at home not seeing people, the idea of working from home fills me with genuine terror. I'm a generally very social person, and am certain that isolation has contributed massively to my now myriad mental health issues. Even if the people I work with aren't proper friends - and they never really have been, in my past - the aspect of seeing and speaking to different people throughout the day is really important to me, as is getting out of my house. I really, really hate video calls too. Generally, getting up and dressed, walking to work with my headphones on, getting to my place and working through a day's set tasks around other people and then heading home has always been a very healthy routine for me. I'm tentatively looking at returning to work this year and all the work from home stuff is really quite scary now because without that routine I don't think my mental health is going to hold up enough to actually keep me in work. Half my CV is in retail management which I can go back to, but there are no career prospects there because my next promotion would be to store manager, and effectively working 60 hours a week for 25k just to be continually bollocked by area management is not on my life goal list so I've been considering looking at returning to office stuff again. So I'm a bit torn now.