I have a slightly different take about this than other folks. Perhaps it's because I'm older and when I entered the workforce, there were very few jobs that could be remote, and even fewer that actually were.
I've worked in-office for most of my career (much of that was as a consultant hired for specific projects, and many clients want to see you working), but pre-pandemic I was full-time remote for more than five years, which was mostly positive, but with a few caveats.
One of the biggest caveats was that it was more difficult to build strong teams, as your colleagues were just voices (this is before ubiquitous video meetings) on the phone and text in chat and/or emails.
But that isn't limited to work environments either. More and more of our lives are spent online, with less and less human interaction. I suppose that might be a plus for the misanthropes among us, but it seems like that's fracturing our social cohesion (I'm in the US, my experience may not be valid elsewhere).
Please note that I am emphatically not prescribing full-time return to the office. Not even close. WFH allowed me to be more productive and not waste 700 hours or so a year sitting on a train commuting. I shudder to think about how much I hated driving to/from client sites as a consultant as that's even worse than riding the train.
No, I don't believe that your employer/co-workers are "family" (well, unless they actually are but that's not usually the case in larger organizations), but humans are social creatures and really do need real, physical human interaction (I'm not talking about sex which is important, but irrelevant in this context) to maintain a healthy outlook on other humans and society in general.
An outlier (at least I hope it is) being the recent spate of people being shot just for attempting contact (knocking on a stranger's door) with other humans.
What makes folks so suspicious and willing to harm their neighbors? I think it's a lack of regular human contact and the constant drumbeat of evil deeds from the news media (how does the old saw go? "If it bleeds, it leads."). And with the ability to get news from anywhere in the world in near real-time, we constantly hear about the worst of us, but rarely about the mundane, pleasant interactions that people have every day.
Perhaps I'm way off base with this take, but it seems to me that fostering human interaction with physical proximity with one's larger society promotes social cohesion.
That's not to say such interactions must be in the workplace, but for many folks (given car/suburban culture), it might the only time they might interact with other humans who aren't family or close friends.
Which brings to mind Asimov's dichotomy (as he combined his 'Robot' and 'Foundation' universes), especially in Foundation and Earth[0], where the "Spacers" are so anti-social that they loathe any physical, human interaction whatsoever, whereas the "Settlers" were comfortable being around other humans. I'm not saying that this is what's happening, just that there are some interesting parallels.
I don't pretend to have all (or even some/any) the answers, but interacting with actual human beings usually enhances my view of humanity/society/local community, while online interactions mostly degrade that view.[1]
[1] Please note that I'm not being categorical here. There absolutely are unpleasant/evil/nasty people in the world who should be avoided. But at least in my experience, most humans are honest, decent people just trying to live a decent life.
I think I agree with what you said. That being said, for me when it comes to balance work (as in “working for company X for Z money/year) vs non-work, I put all the weight in non-work. That means:
- in-person is better for collaboration than Zoom? Of course, but if I have to commute 30 min each way to see you, then Zoom it is
- being around other office people at lunch time is cool sometimes? Yeah, but if I have to rent an expensive and small apartment in the city to being able to be at the office at lunch time, then Zoom it is
>That being said, for me when it comes to balance work (as in “working for company X for Z money/year) vs non-work, I put all the weight in non-work.
Absolutely. Although many folks don't have much physical interaction with other humans outside of their jobs. In that case, cutting out those interactions without some sort of alternative for human interaction is detrimental to most humans' mental health IMHO.
Since we're online here, there's a much larger proportion of neuro-atypical, introverted and/or misanthropic people than in the population at large, so I think the discussion is a bit skewed.
Which is why I posted what I did.
All that said, I don't disagree with your assessment at all. It's just important to have those interactions somewhere.
More directly addressing the topic in TFA, when I was pretty junior, personal interactions with more senior folks was crucial for me to understand the culture and political landscape of a large organization, even as a technical resource. And those lessons/mentoring have served me well in my career.
For me, those interactions happened over cigarettes (this was 30 years ago) and at the bar after work, but the result was the same as "water cooler" interactions.
As a more senior resource, those interactions weren't as useful, but I can certainly see where juniors could benefit greatly from a more senior person taking them under their wing.
I've worked in-office for most of my career (much of that was as a consultant hired for specific projects, and many clients want to see you working), but pre-pandemic I was full-time remote for more than five years, which was mostly positive, but with a few caveats.
One of the biggest caveats was that it was more difficult to build strong teams, as your colleagues were just voices (this is before ubiquitous video meetings) on the phone and text in chat and/or emails.
But that isn't limited to work environments either. More and more of our lives are spent online, with less and less human interaction. I suppose that might be a plus for the misanthropes among us, but it seems like that's fracturing our social cohesion (I'm in the US, my experience may not be valid elsewhere).
Please note that I am emphatically not prescribing full-time return to the office. Not even close. WFH allowed me to be more productive and not waste 700 hours or so a year sitting on a train commuting. I shudder to think about how much I hated driving to/from client sites as a consultant as that's even worse than riding the train.
No, I don't believe that your employer/co-workers are "family" (well, unless they actually are but that's not usually the case in larger organizations), but humans are social creatures and really do need real, physical human interaction (I'm not talking about sex which is important, but irrelevant in this context) to maintain a healthy outlook on other humans and society in general.
An outlier (at least I hope it is) being the recent spate of people being shot just for attempting contact (knocking on a stranger's door) with other humans.
What makes folks so suspicious and willing to harm their neighbors? I think it's a lack of regular human contact and the constant drumbeat of evil deeds from the news media (how does the old saw go? "If it bleeds, it leads."). And with the ability to get news from anywhere in the world in near real-time, we constantly hear about the worst of us, but rarely about the mundane, pleasant interactions that people have every day.
Perhaps I'm way off base with this take, but it seems to me that fostering human interaction with physical proximity with one's larger society promotes social cohesion.
That's not to say such interactions must be in the workplace, but for many folks (given car/suburban culture), it might the only time they might interact with other humans who aren't family or close friends.
Which brings to mind Asimov's dichotomy (as he combined his 'Robot' and 'Foundation' universes), especially in Foundation and Earth[0], where the "Spacers" are so anti-social that they loathe any physical, human interaction whatsoever, whereas the "Settlers" were comfortable being around other humans. I'm not saying that this is what's happening, just that there are some interesting parallels.
I don't pretend to have all (or even some/any) the answers, but interacting with actual human beings usually enhances my view of humanity/society/local community, while online interactions mostly degrade that view.[1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_and_Earth
[1] Please note that I'm not being categorical here. There absolutely are unpleasant/evil/nasty people in the world who should be avoided. But at least in my experience, most humans are honest, decent people just trying to live a decent life.
Edit: clarified prose. Fixed typo.