To feel sad that the world of work as we knew it has gone forever?

[Youngatheart00]

My work confirmed today we are moving to 100% remote working and will only get together a few times a year for team meetings. I find this so sad. I loved my working life - I know realise so much of that was down to the people. Now all I do all day is stare at screens and give myself a migraine.

They are justifying it by saying ‘most people’ want this despite me never seeing any such survey. It’s a blatant cost cutting exercise.

Anyone else fed up and lonely?

@gannett
What a strange comment about dull social lives.

When I was in my 20s office life was a big part of my social life, it’s how I met my husband. I met one of my best friends in a coffee shop queue. Had my working life been spent in my suburb my life would have been much less rich and interesting. I would hope that my DC have a ‘big’ rather than a ‘small’ life and I think spending your whole career in your home makes your life smaller

In middle age it makes less of a difference but no office life is a huge loss for young people

I do get though that for some people that limited life experience is what they prefer and are comfortable with

I'm baffled that so many people seem to depend on their workplace to build up a social life. It must be quite a boring social life. I've enjoyed drinks with colleagues on occasion, of course, but I can't imagine a life where those were the best parties on offer. Socialising with colleagues was always a bit fake to me, you have to be mindful of being professional and that mask doesn't slip. With actual friends I could actually cut loose, be myself, be intimate, be hedonistic.
Most people make friends at work, gannet
Your post suggests that you weren't included, not that the friendships / socialising weren't actually happening for your colleagues.
Shame for you.

A pp asked why some us “chose” an office job in the first place if we didn’t want to sit in an office.

Well 20 years ago when I “chose” my career, once you were qualified you got your own private office in the various buildings they owned. Then a few years in they decided to knock down all the walls and make it open plan Everywhere. Ever since then I’ve hated it but most offices are like that now.

I’d actually not mind being back in an office if I had my own room to work in. That to me was the “best of both worlds”. Colleagues around if you needed or wanted them, but privacy and quiet when it was needed. My preference for wfh is a direct result of open plan.

to all of those saying you can just have a more exciting social life once the lockdown is lifted - how? My working hours are still the same but they are bookended with picking up kids. Ordinarily, I would have been able to socialize with my colleagues, some of whom are friends and others are acquaintances. My job is in London - so most of them are scattered across the South East and no chance to meet them for lunch during the day. So whilst I would love to have a more exciting social life - I am just not sure how thats going to happen.

So effectively, I've only seen my kids/DH during the week for a year now. Granted I can travel to see some of these friends on the weekend - but again they are all scattered across the Suuth East etc.

The only people that I know locally are a few mums - which is fine, but it's also a bit weird getting all of my social interaction from people that frankly I have little in common with. So personally I really miss random social interactions throughout the day. I also miss seeing people in my industry. I've trained for years to get to where I am and I actually like discussing what we do. I will be WFH at least until October but I am also seriously considering quiting. I'd need to change industry as we were already WFH for five months a year which I found really hard work but it will be even more so now.

@Meruem that was me - that’s fair enough, I hadn’t considered that moving from working alone in a single office as your preferred work environment to working at alone at home wouldn’t be such a big difference. I’ve always been in fairly open plan offices so never found that difficult.

you are describing more the lockdown status, which is depressing at best, more than the chance of WFH and having a life out of the office.
No I'm not, even if I was doing tonnes of stuff outside the office my working hours would still just be sitting on my own at home talking to people on zoom.

No because people have always had the choice to avoid office work
That’s not really true. If you want or need a job then you have to be in the workplace. Your only “choice” was to not have a job. Or in my case, work a minimum number of hours to get enough money to scrape by, and just cope with those hours as best you can.

@Meruem

A pp asked why some us “chose” an office job in the first place if we didn’t want to sit in an office.

Well 20 years ago when I “chose” my career, once you were qualified you got your own private office in the various buildings they owned. Then a few years in they decided to knock down all the walls and make it open plan Everywhere. Ever since then I’ve hated it but most offices are like that now.

I’d actually not mind being back in an office if I had my own room to work in. That to me was the “best of both worlds”. Colleagues around if you needed or wanted them, but privacy and quiet when it was needed. My preference for wfh is a direct result of open plan.

I'm the other way round, I've only ever worked in open plan or shared offices and think I'd hate being in my own office for the same reasons I hated working at home, I much prefer being amongst other people. I appreciate that others feel differently though.

Honestly I feel sad for people where work is their social life. How about make some friends based on common interests during your leisure time?!

Honestly, I feel sad for people who think you shouldn't make friends with your workmates.

I really dislike sneery comments like this. I don't have any group hobbies, apart from a Zoom book group and Zoom pilates classes where I live, and I actually have far more in common with the people I work with than the people in these two groups.

Some posters must live where they grew up and have stayed friends with people from school, or they stayed in their university town with the students they made friends with, or they made friends with people from church or they made friends at toddler group or school mums or they moved to a completely new town, don't have group hobbies and made friends through work.

I am kind of getting the impression that some posters go to work expecting to dislike their work colleagues. And I'm sure this negativity must come across so it becomes a forgone conclusion.

I have groups from different areas in life, and some of them happen to be people I became friends with at work. It doesn't have to be mutually exclusive.

When I was in my 20s office life was a big part of my social life, it’s how I met my husband. I met one of my best friends in a coffee shop queue. Had my working life been spent in my suburb my life would have been much less rich and interesting. I would hope that my DC have a ‘big’ rather than a ‘small’ life and I think spending your whole career in your home makes your life smaller

Far from it. I made friends through arts scenes, party scenes, activism and exercise groups. I had the time and energy to do all those things precisely because I kept my work at home and didn't have to cram everything in around it.

Your post suggests that you weren't included, not that the friendships / socialising weren't actually happening for your colleagues.
Shame for you.

Oh please. I only worked in an office for a few years and almost everyone there was forgettable, in that I literally can't remember their names a decade on.

Which is fine! I'm sure I was forgettable too. But I want to be intimate about my personal life and shit I'm going through with my friends. I also wanted to get off my tits in clubs with my friends in my 20s. I can't fathom crossing either of those lines with my colleagues.

The type of work probably makes things different.

We were all mostly young in 20s and early 30s and it was pretty social.

I’m older now but last job I had I wouldn’t say friends necessarily but we had a laugh at times and got on well - not everyone but a few of us.

We also came from somewhere else to work on London. All that stuff is like for younger people.

I’m more interested in a mix if I go back at some point.

@InCinemasWednesday

you are describing more the lockdown status, which is depressing at best, more than the chance of WFH and having a life out of the office. No I'm not, even if I was doing tonnes of stuff outside the office my working hours would still just be sitting on my own at home talking to people on zoom.

but can't you see how not doing "tonnes of stuff outside office hours" affects your working hours?

It's not the same to spend a few working hours at home and to HAVE to spend your entire life home because of a lockdown.

I miss going in but I can also see the positive and negative aspects.

For me I'm not travelling internationally every month now, it was between 25 and 30% travel (I can not see it being that much again in future even when we do travel)
I like the travel aspect because it's a different dynamic and I see my colleagues in person. I really miss it but know it wasn't sustainable but I would prefer it was more 10-15% going forward.

I live equidistant between our two UK factories and would spend 4 days a week in one or the other one when not travelling.
In a regional role I'm always remote to the sites I'm not at. It helps my role physically being there at times.

I've been in 10-15 individual days over the last year. That isn't enough to be fully effective.

I find remote working great for some tasks but awful and ineffective for others.

I miss chatting and joking with colleagues, I miss intelligent adult conversation (I'm separated and going through divorce)
This might not have been so noticeable if I could have face to face interaction with my friends.

I'd like 1 or 2 days in and the rest at home going forward, however I genuinely see this being 10-15% 'in' too.

So that's 70-80% of work at home. And 50% of that is on conference calls. I do find that mentally exhausting. The other thing from working in an international company and being at home meetings are slowly creeping in out with the usual working hours more and more.

On the positive side:

My company has space restraints... my desk was in an open plan office and it was a bit squashed in. I have my whole office space to myself a d can do my conference calls with a speaker instead of a headset 😁

I have driven 7000 miles in the last year in comparison to 15000 the previous year. Better for the environment and my pocket.
Less air travel better for environment and my health.

I save best part of two hours commute per day (which has been taken up elsewhere. Due to squeezing in home schooling - I'm often logged on with frequent schooling breaks from 7am until 6pm and often beyond. Finally logged off at 10.30pm last night)

I needed to buy a house last year anyway, so after 9 months of working in my living room I realised a separate work space was essential, I was lucky to find a perfect sized house in my desired location in my budget that had a prebuilt, lined, lit, heated, networked 'summer house' office. I paid a few K over the home report value but I don't know intend to leave for many many years and what I paid would certainly cost me that much to build what I got ready installed so for me it was worth it.

I see my kids more

So for me it's not an either or situation it's going to have to be blended somehow.
I'm lucky in that I have some autonomy as to how I blend this.

I wouldn't like if if I didn't have a choice.

On and yes, I've met previous partners at work. This is going to be less and less likely going forward

Can be nice... that should say

I also wonder is this due to lower income for businesses or more just cost cutting and higher margins?

Say for op, is the company feeling a downturn

Honestly, I feel sad for people who think you shouldn't make friends with your workmates.

it's not that you shouldn't, it's more that it's work first, and you are not there to make friends. I have made a couple of very good friends, but not in the same department.

The points about jealousy and change of dynamic when you get promoted stand, and how the various status affect a relationship.

To the point that I have a private facebook, and one under my real name. I don't add any work colleague to my private facebook. I have added a few people , friends, since either them or me moved job.

I have friends from childhood, from uni, from travel, from NCT group, from school through my friends, from my hobbies, from sport, from my DH. Work is the last place where I would concentrate for my social life.

Im amazed people are 'friends' with work colleagues, most of us just tolerate others? I cant bear the whole drinks after work, team building or fake pretend social events, give me working from home and the odd business meeting any day.

I don't understand the responses re hyperbole and drama... where was the hyperbole and drama in the OP?
FWIW I agree but also enjoy working from home so making the best of the situation.

“Honestly I feel sad for people where work is their social life. How about make some friends based on common interests during your leisure time?!”

Because there’s a pandemic. Where are you managing to socialise?

@Flowers24

Im amazed people are 'friends' with work colleagues, most of us just tolerate others? I cant bear the whole drinks after work, team building or fake pretend social events, give me working from home and the odd business meeting any day.

I like the people I work with.

I really think people who enjoy working from home should accept that some people enjoy working in the office without berating them. And same, people who enjoy working in the office should accept that some people enjoy working from home without berating them. What should come out of lockdown is it should now be widely accepted that people who do choose to work from home aren't somehow shirkers and it should be a more widely accepted working practice. Probably it would be optimal for workplaces to accept a bit of a hybrid set up with some people working from office and some people working from home. I think young people would prob on the whole prefer working from office as they do tend to be sociable but they aren't some sort of homogenous group. There will def be some who prefer to work from home too!!

@Flowers24

Im amazed people are 'friends' with work colleagues, most of us just tolerate others? I cant bear the whole drinks after work, team building or fake pretend social events, give me working from home and the odd business meeting any day.

I definitely have had hood times at work due to getting on with the people there.

I just cast my mind back and remembered it had been more than just work stuff, ie invitation to big parties etc

Not everyone but some

I agree @achainisonlyasstrong

Im amazed people are 'friends' with work colleagues, most of us just tolerate others?

Why is it so hard to believe that some people like their work colleagues? The lack of imagination on this thread is quite something.