I'm starting to understand that many people never felt the sense of community, in the workplace or otherwise. Yes it's possible.

The trick is that it doesn't depend on the company, it depends on the people. Last time it happened to me, we pretty much all quit together because we were frustrated at the company but kept being friends afterwards.

Childless man here, I work mostly remotely.

I don't miss any sense of community.

Yes, but it's also the most logical place. What other activity do you dedicate so much time to? Maybe sleeping but it's hard to build a community around that.

Same, but I do have my own community away from work and have always prioritized my friends over co-workers.

romcom idea: childless man has crush on childed man. he's raring to come back to work to hang out with hot dad man, but the latter is forced to work remotely.

the whole plot swivels around how they get around the lack of opportunities to be together.

keep cooking

after studying mostly from home for 3 years, I'm very happy to be working on-site. feels a lot less lonely.

Oh, yes! I sure do miss that community made up of ass kissers and people who are just as miserable as I am! Or those 2-3 chill people with whom I meet for a chat weekly anyway, outside work hours because I sure as hell ain't in the mood for socialising while I'm wasting (at least) a third of my day and life doing busiwork for someone else!

It's not about remote vs office work, but working remotely all the time reminds particularly painfully about not having a SO or many friends. When working from office, covertly texting a good acquaintance 2-3 times a day kinda replaces that. When at home, you could do much more of that, or probably bunch together to work, but you don't. Just sit there, smell your socks, sip tea, get distracted for nothing good, and feel how your life passes into abyss. When in office, you at least have the stress of many loud people around to distract you from that.

i'm skeptical of any study that concludes anyone would rather deal with all the bullshit of working in the office rather than wfh

no one goes to work for the "community," which can also be gotten literally anywhere other than work

sounds like something corporate slavedriving senior executives decided they wanted a "study" on to prove people want to work in the office

I'm childless and all I can say is fuck community.

Not everyone hates life like you do. I hang out with co-workers all the time. Kept relationships will after I'm done.

According to my kids, candies are the most logical place to get most your nutritions from. Where else could you get so many calories?

If most of your time at work is spent socializing, couldn't you cut your work time and build your community elsewhere?

If most of your time at work you spent on honest hard-work working, how much community are you really building?

Cut you calories. Life doesn't happen at work.

It would be logical to work less and get our own community. A lot of people work hard all their lives and die soon after retirement. That's not logical.

Not everyone hates life like you do

They're not distinguishing "remote work" from "working from home" which are two entirely different things. There are whole communities of remote workers who meet and work together around the world. I guarantee you that remote working men who take advantage of these kinds of environments have a better sense of community than men who are forced to go sit in a cubicle with a group of people like the cast of The Office with less sense of humor.

I’m not going to deny that some people enjoy going to work and enjoy interacting with their coworkers, but this feels like it’s missing the forest for the trees. What about the affects commuting has on one’s civic engagement in their actual community?

“There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.”
https://archive.ph/2020.02.27-211238/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/there-and-back-again

That sounds amazing

They miss the sense of community because we no longer have 3rd places to hang out. For those unaware:

The Great Places Erased by Suburbia (the Third Place)
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=VvdQ381K5xg
https://youtu.be/VvdQ381K5xg

In office, I'm a chatty bitch. I have a habit of maybe over-socializing. For sure, my productivity goes down in the office. Oh, and people listen to me just as much WFH as they did in the office when it comes to work stuff.

At home, I can just turn on some music and focus on what I need to get done. I can work on my 20+ jira points I have every god damn sprint. Meetings (ad-hoc or planned) already cause delays for me and I'm already working to much (the highest so far, has been a 16-hour day).

I don't miss the 'sense of community' because there isn't one. Plus, most of my co-workers live in different states, and many in different countries. There's no in-person collaboration even if I'm in the office. It's still everything done over chat/video call.

My company, like so many others, went back on everything they said about WFH. They used to say how great it was because they could find talent from anywhere instead of being arbitrarily constrained by location. Like, obviously, the best talent doesn't just happen to live next to you. Then it moved to hybrid, for those all important in-person, face-to-face collabs and synergy and all the other bullshit LinkedIn BS you can spew. And now, they're doing RTO full on and even shaming those who work from home or would want to. Full-on bully tactics in meetings too. Even started shaming the upper mgmt, because their excuse was "well, other companies are doing it" so I hit back with the "if other companies were committing fraud, would we?" a spin on the "well if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you" I grew up hearing all the time. I actually brought that up in a corporate meeting, they never responded, so I'm taking that as a yes.... yes they would and will, so long as they figure they can get away with it (or the penalties don't outweigh the profits).

And then I find out Tim Walz (Minnesota Governor) is also for RTO... so I emailed his office, letting him know just how utterly disappointed in him I was, and to not expect my vote ever again.

Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox. I'm just truly passionate about this. WFH, I'm far less miserable on a day-to-day basis. Working in the office, I was in multiple car accidents going to and from work (none of which I caused). I've been in exactly 0 since WFH. No longer spending 1-2 hours a day just traveling, so I can work remotely, in an office. If I ever win the lotto, I'll be rich enough I could run for president and one of my pillars would be pushing businesses to utilize WFH if the position can do that. Fewer cars on roads, means less congestion for those who have to be onsite. There should be a noticeable decrease in vehicle-related accidents and fatalities.