childless men miss sense of community
Myself and everyone I know works remote. We’re all childless/childfree and not a single one of us miss any community, we all feel there are zero downsides to it. This just comes across like propaganda to stop people working remote and return to office.
I work remote (Going on 9 years now) and I miss a sense of community. Do I want to stop working remotely? Hell no, screw that. But two things can be true the same time, I can enjoy and encourage them at work, dnd I can also miss a sense of community.
I think it’s okay to hold this opinion because it’s individual to everyone.
This just comes across as propaganda
Being dismissive and pulling the rhetoric that this is propaganda is toxic as fuck.
The truth often is somewhere in the middle
I’m single and childless and I personally like being hybrid. Full work from home fucks my mental health up pretty bad. I’m definitely in the minority among my peers though. I also wouldn’t ever ask that anyone else be forced to come back to the office just because it isn’t for me.
I go in office when I want to, a few hours a day or a few times a week for a couple hours. But full work from home had me talking to myself… way too much.
I agree that forcing return to office is either stupid or harmful. But I do like the people I work with, and not seeing them anymore would be saddening
The solution is obvious though, simply allow choice
I have friends and live with friends and I still feel lonely when working remotely. I like hybrid the most because sometimes i need to just go into work and talk about the things im working on with people who actually understand (not work related talks just for fun)
So you like to go into work in order to waste time talking talking about non work related things? Make sense why you should stay remote.
Its not a waste of time, its very useful. I can see how a robot such as yourself wouldnt understand.
You can spend your 8 hours a day in a cubicle and I will spend it having fun and working along side people I genuinely like.
Yeah, every sense of community I’ve ever felt with a job was also ruined by that same job. I don’t remotely miss it, and I’m firmly child-free.
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Best thing about working from home is stepping away from my desk, popping upstairs, and tossing my little baby boy up in the air a few times while he giggles and smiles.
me with my dog
me with my snake
That‘s one way to call it.
This was me until I realized I didn’t have a child and that I lived in the first floor.
Where was I going? What giggled as I tossed it into the air?
Childless man here, I work mostly remotely.
I don’t miss any sense of community.
Same, but I do have my own community away from work and have always prioritized my friends over co-workers.
Let’s fix this headline:
Remote work benefits all in different ways.
The ability to work from home has given me innumerable benefits, but I must admit that as a very introverted guy who’s been going through some shit, and who’s go-to move during times of anxiety and depression is to distance themselves from everyone… yeah, sometimes I do miss my coworkers. A lot of them are pretty great people. Doesn’t mean I’d rather spend 3 hours a day sitting in traffic to see them, just means I low-key miss someone to bitch with.
In theory, we have the Third Space for that kind of socializing. Parks, plazas, union halls, club spaces and dance halls, churches, community centers, libraries…
In practice, they’ve been gradually privatized and monetized until everything is The Mall. If you don’t have $10 to spend for the hour, there’s nowhere you can legally so much as sit down. Hard to socialize on these terms.
My city decided to take its $7B budget and close a $330M shortfall by gutting parks, libraries, and other public amenities. Meanwhile, the police and fire departments are seeing a budget surge of over $100M.
I want to kick your city in the nuts. How could you gut parks and libraries.
John Witmire is a DINO by every definition of the word. He’s deep in bed with the police, he loves privatization of public services, and he makes common cause with the state’s Republican leadership on a regular basis. Nothing the man loves more than “balancing the budget” on the backs of public workers and low income residents.
But he’s been a Democrat since he took his State Senate seat and squatted in it back in 1983. So the party apparatus loyally and mechanically supported him all through the primary and general elections. The “It’s my turn” candidate is taking his turn.
Lol my old boss hated remote work because he had to spend time with his family.
“I gotta get to the office mates!”
Come on, work being the sole source of community is the problem here. What are we even talking about?
No one said “sole.” It’s about a sense of community between you and your coworkers, which is a very real and normal thing. It’s spelled out in the article very clearly:
losing that sense of workplace community had a greater impact on childless men
“Workplace community.”
I’m a dad working remote and I love the benefits but I ALSO miss the sense of community with my coworkers which I used to get from lunches together, sharing the train ride home, or just working side by side at our desks.
sense of community between you and your coworkers, which is a very real and normal thing
No it fucking ain’t.
Forcing people together doesn’t create community, it creates stress, and resentment, and burnout, and migraines.
“Workplace community.”
Biggest oxymoron I’ve ever seen since military intelligence.
ALSO miss the sense of community with my coworkers which I used to get from lunches together, sharing the train ride home, or just working side by side at our desks
Oh, you’re one of those fucking extroverts.
I can’t begin to imagine the extent to which your poor coworkers must have despised you while you constantly bothered them while they tried to work, or have a quick decompressing lunch, or disconnect after a long day of work during the train ride home, the poor bastards. As if work wasn’t bad enough by itself.
No it fucking ain’t.
Well, that settles it. Who can argue with this kind of airtight logic?
Your post is unnecessarily hostile and offers nothing, son. I’ve worked at the same place for 8 years now, probably longer than you’ve been out of diapers, and yes, working alongside people does form a bond. If you’ve ever had to cooperate with someone, trust someone, get through difficulties with someone, you’d know all this. But from the way you enjoy flinging obscenities at strangers I doubt you have much experience forming bonds with people, period.
Oh, you’re one of those fucking extroverts.
And here’s the part where I just laugh in your face.
hmm, so having or not having kids have impact on your sence of workplace community during remote work?
Does it add up to you?
Try reformulating your question in English and I’ll see if I can answer you.
I like to think I would less judgmental about people attepting to communicate with me in the only language I know. Maybe approach like that is the reason work is the only place where people spent time with you ;)
Your comment was unintelligible, sorry. I can hear you whining now, very clearly, and trying to insult me personally. So I guess you can communicate successfully when you try.
I’m glad you understood me know, thank you. I adapted your approach to learning languages - speaking slow and laudly. It worked like a charm.
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.
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.
I know this a gross oversimplification, but:
“Remote working benefit those with a reason to stay home, but doesn’t for those who don’t have a reason to stay home” seems to be the general idea of the headline.
edit: I think this is the study they’re talking about, please double check the source before quoting: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36718392/
This was also my experience during the main sweep of the pandemic. It was so great getting to cut the commute and be home. Something I have luckily managed to largely continue. Prior to the pandemic my kid was in daycare pretty much 7:30-5:30 so it was really nice to not have to do that, plus during our lockdown we used to go for a family walk at lunchtime.
While some of the single guys I worked with hated staying home and were straight back in the office the moment they were allowed.
Yeah I went 3 months without having a single face to face conversation with someone, it was pretty shit even with online gaming and discord.
That sounds amazing
Pretty much. It’s feels like someone complaining that they won the lottery.
Not everyones ideal life is to at all times be alone.
Good, then go socialize.
The issue is that people that want socialization complain that those who enjoy solitude don’t want to socialize with them, so those that prefer solitude should be forced into the office instead.
It’s a really odd thing. Stop relying on work to satisfy your socialization needs. Try a hobby instead. Anything should do - Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k, Tabletop RPG, sports, dance classes, anything.
So they ruin it for everyone else.
I actually don’t like my coworkers very much I definitely wouldn’t hang out with them so not having to be near them all day is a benefit.
It’s not even that they are bad people, it’s just that they are people who I wouldn’t choose to hang out with.
I work in a bar, and I love seeing most of my coworkers. I obviously can’t speak on the WFH aspect, as it’d be impossible for me, but enjoying the company of the people you work with isn’t a foreign concept, especially in the service industry
Another person already said it, but the issue is the lack of third spaces. You don’t need to physically go to an office to get a sense of community. Working remotely makes it easier to get a sense of community if there are third spaces because you’re not stuck in a building for 8 hours. If your only source of community is your workplace, then you have other problems.
To me this highlights that many single men have problems with loneliness.
Remote work is a step in the right direction at least. In my case, I’m generally just too exhausted to bother going anywhere other than home and work, which definitely limits any socializing. Work culture isn’t entirely to blame of course, but it sure isn’t helping.
Being childfree is its own reward.
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/VvdQ381K5xgTake the same approach as home schooling. Community comes from engaging in other activities.
My oldest has no children and works fully remote.
When the pandemic started, his company decided to have everyone work from home. They very quickly discovered that they were just as productive, and the owner decided it made sense to dump their office space.
A group of employees decided to go on vacation together, while still working. Since they are all remote, they didn’t actually have to work from home. They got an Airbnb with good Internet, worked during the day, and saw the sites and had fun together after work.
If you’re remote and you miss that sense of community, reach out to your coworkers and ask them if they want to hang out after work. It’s possible they don’t and you’ll be disappointed. It’s also possible that they feel the same way but didn’t know they could do something about it.
Either you’ll be the hero that saved everyone from their solitary existence, or you’ll have to accept that they don’t want to hang out with you.
