[HN Gopher] A third place? I'm not sure I even have a second any...
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A third place? I'm not sure I even have a second anymore
Author : doodlesdev
Score : 87 points
Date : 2023-02-05 21:19 UTC (1 hours ago)
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| Barrin92 wrote:
| Once the company I worked for went remote shortly after the
| pandemic started I decided to switch jobs once the lockdowns were
| over and that's exactly what I did to a place that values in
| person attendance.
|
| Work is where people from different classes, backgrounds and
| walks of life come together to work on common projects.
| Socialization at work cannot be replaced by family activities or
| hobbies which are always parochial.
|
| People talk a lot about cultural issues and bubbles these days
| and in my opinion the withering away of a workplace social life
| has been one of the biggest drivers. Remote work accelerates that
| dynamic of pushing people into private, increasingly narrow
| groups.
| Swizec wrote:
| > There is little to no social aspect of my job anymore, just an
| endless stream of meetings people don't want to be in and Jira
| tickets to be worked on. The rare moments of socialization are
| fleeting and increasingly fewer as time goes on
|
| I've noticed this at work. Somewhere during the pandemic the
| attitude has creeped in that because we aren't in the office,
| there should be no down time ever. Meetings have to be quick and
| to the point, no chitchat, no social meetings either. What a
| waste of time. Work work focus!
|
| But on my team we deliberately make time for down time. We often
| wrap meetings early then just sort of hang. Or we spend the first
| 10min of standup shooting the shit. We're one of the few teams
| that still shows up for "friday hang time" every week. And we
| have a ridiculous amount of meetings, mostly ad-hoc, for a 4
| person team.
|
| People wonder why we're the most effective team and how we get so
| much done. I think that's why. We feel like a _team_ , not just a
| bunch of people working together.
| Arbortheus wrote:
| My team does exactly this too, especially during the pandemic
| when we couldn't socialise outside of work. We spend 10-15
| minutes before standup bantering and our team has come out
| stronger for it.
|
| Even though we'd lose that 15 minutes of productivity every
| day, our team is actually coherent while other teams are a
| mess. We get stuff done, we work together effectively, and we
| actually enjoy working together. It makes all the difference.
| jedberg wrote:
| I think the author is right. Looking back, much of my social
| interaction was spending time with coworkers that I liked, and
| the rest was time with friends from college. I didn't really have
| a "3rd place" and most of my social interaction was with work
| friends.
|
| But now I have a family, so I spend time with them, and with
| other people that have kids our age that live nearby and go to
| the same school, or go to the same art studio nearby. I no longer
| need social interaction from work to fill my life.
|
| But here is the real problem -- a lot of the people who can "fix"
| this are like me -- they already have their built in social
| networks and don't need these other places.
| shusaku wrote:
| I don't think we're passengers in this change, so to speak. Local
| governments can invest in third places: parks, community centers,
| county fairs?
| bhouston wrote:
| From home is amazing for those with a family. I no longer lose an
| hour to commute. I see my family more. I have third places (eg
| not work or home) that revolve around team sports for the kids.
| Some tech friends have made slack groups for a few topics and
| those often end up with meetings at bars or peoples homes. Honest
| it is great and I've never been more productive.
|
| I definitely do not need the semi fulfilling work environment
| which is a poor replacement for these much more meaningful
| connections. Honestly if you do long for work, I suggest trying
| to find peer groups instead. You can be more honest and you
| wouldn't lose friends to a layoff, etc.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| Reminds me of one of Bowling for Columbine's key points.
|
| A resilient society traditionally built in many layers of
| connection with different groupings.
|
| As we lose those cohesive forces and opportunities, is what's
| replacing them just 'different' or fundamentally more fragile?
| jazzyb wrote:
| I think you mean _Bowling Alone_.
| TT-392 wrote:
| I thought"first" "second" and "third" places were just civil
| engineering terms? Like, any bar is just a third place, I don't
| think all people have a "third place" even though they still
| visit third places like bars, restaurants, etc...
| officialchicken wrote:
| Sounds like a lot of living to work, instead of working to live.
| Only you can set your goals and priorities.
| topkai22 wrote:
| About 8 years ago, I moved to a new city with my wife and went
| fully remote. It looked different for me- I was with a
| consultancy and started by out flying out to customer sites every
| other week, gradually fading to one a quarter or less before the
| pandemic.
|
| It took a long time to adapt- about 3 years before I feel like I
| really adapted, but I feel better about my social life now at any
| point before the transition.
|
| On work relationships- for me, one of the biggest learnings was
| that every interaction when you are remote is intentional. If you
| are going to get to know your coworkers, you have to make time
| for it. I have 1-1s with peers just to talk on a fairly regular
| basis, and for meetings of appropriate size (5 or less people) I
| find it perfectly acceptable to spend the first 5 minutes or more
| chitchatting. I've also worked on "scaling" these interactions by
| organizing presentations on peoples hobbies, which has been
| really fun and improved everyone's feeling of belonging.
|
| As a result of this I have a number of people I consider dear
| friends who I have never met in person.
|
| I do think organizations need to encourage in person get together
| a on a semi-annual or more basis. In my consulting days those get
| togethers created an enormous amount of bonding and trust in a
| very short time that increased communication for years
| afterwards.
|
| I actually found it harder to find a social life in my new city
| than I did to maintain or develop work relationships. I'd
| previously used my college network or social sports teams to find
| out of work friend groups and the new city didn't have either of
| those. In addition, I was a new father and we quickly had another
| child, which quickly limits your availability.
|
| What eventually worked for me was a combination of finding a true
| 3rd space (for me, a teach your kids to ski club), moving to a
| neighborhood with lots of similarly aged families, and meeting
| other parents through my kids school.
|
| So I really get the OPs feeling- that the 2nd space has
| collapsed, and that its tough build the 3rd, but with time,
| intention and repetition I really think it's possible to have it
| all.
| lolc wrote:
| I've never lived alone. We're almost twenty people in the
| community where I live now. So when I switched to working from
| home I lost colleagues, but gained interaction at home.
|
| The loss of contact slowly grew into a disconnect from the office
| over the years. I try to put in a day at the office every week
| now, to build up some rapport again.
|
| Wouldn't want to face living alone. That this is the new normal
| state really scares me. Rent a flat and be done, right? I don't
| have time to mind a nice house alone. But with others, it's fun!
| monero-xmr wrote:
| I feel bad for people who don't have friends, family, church, or
| any social activities at all outside of work. Was work
| socialization even that good? Meaningless banter about TV shows
| and restaurants we like. I still have these as a remote worker
| anyway, but they take a bit more effort.
|
| I don't like this concerted effort to make me feel bad about
| these hypothetical junior employees losing out on "mentoring" and
| lost "spontaneous innovations" that happen supposedly in offices.
| If you like that keep me out of it. The world has moved on and if
| you want to commute 2 hours a day be my guest, but don't make me
| do it.
| warner25 wrote:
| Yeah, I was thinking mostly the same about the other thread and
| top comment today[1] about people who want us back in the
| office. I have empathy for people who are feeling lonely, but I
| don't want to sacrifice my own family's quality of life to make
| those people feel better. Just like the rise in home prices has
| been a boon for people who already own homes, the shift towards
| work-from-home has been a boon for people who already have
| their "foot in the door" with a spouse and kids, career
| capital, etc. while I know being somewhat disastrous for people
| who aren't yet established.
|
| The idea of having more of a "third place" sounds good, but I
| think it will be more realistic for me once my kids grow up.
| It's very tough to commit to something like an adult sports
| club, hobby group, etc. with little kids who demand a _lot_ of
| hands-on attention, constantly get sick, and need early
| bedtimes or naps. Time is at such a premium, which is why
| working from home (or wherever else I want) is fantastic for me
| right now.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34668946
| andyfleming wrote:
| One can enjoy spending time with coworkers at work, see the
| value of being in person together, AND not want to commute. At
| the end of the day, we all may choose to work remotely over
| being in office, but that doesn't mean there aren't any trade-
| offs.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| Sorry but you can't opt out; you're either part of it and
| therefore part of the team, or you're not and first on the
| chopping block when tough decisions get made.
|
| Punch in/punch out mentality has its place, but if you don't
| have one of those jobs, the mismatch will eventually become
| unbearable for one side or the other.
|
| I think that's where all this is leading; WFH roles will be
| smaller in scope, lower in salary (not CoL but lower
| responsibility), and much more focused on churning out work
| decided by the folks in the office who work as a team to grow
| the company.
|
| Maybe you'll be happy with that role. Most won't.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| Actually I own the company and everyone is remote (hundreds
| of people). I have lost entry level hires because they didn't
| like remote only. Now we don't hire recent college grads
| anymore. I want everyone to work hard when they are working
| and enjoy their life when they aren't working.
| [deleted]
| dahart wrote:
| That's pretty interesting as the owner to switch to not
| hiring juniors after they expressed trouble with remote
| work. Is this sustainable?
|
| Wrt your top comment, it's probably worth acknowledging
| that work mentoring and water-cooler banter are two
| completely different work-social activities. People do need
| mentoring, even senior level hires, and without it, people
| are not going to succeed as often. How do you ensure
| mentoring is working with all-remote work? (I do think
| there are things you can do remotely, but as a senior
| developer, I have watched juniors struggling during the
| pandemic, and I don't have the choice to stop hiring
| juniors.)
| monero-xmr wrote:
| There's a bunch of reasons I don't want entry level
| people around, in general the drama is a lot higher and
| the dice rolling is more significant on whether they work
| out. We do 6 month internships and students either take a
| sabbatical or their college has co-op programs for longer
| interns, and if they are good and can work remote
| effectively, we will hire them once they graduate.
| Otherwise it's 2+ years experience and up only and we
| strongly prefer more experienced people. You need to be
| self-motivated as no one is watching you, and the people
| in their 30s+ are typically much better at this.
| SpeedilyDamage wrote:
| > We are fully remote
|
| > we can't train new devs
|
| Yeah, I think it's clear what's going on here to folks
| who aren't you.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| If their budget allows for it, there will always be
| enough seniors to hire that they don't have to eat the
| cost of training juniors who aren't compatible with their
| operating model. Let that be someone else's problem if
| you can (and then hire who've they've developed away with
| the offer of remote work).
|
| It has not been my experience that senior folks need
| mentoring, only culture and people ops guidance (as every
| org is different in that regard). Coaching (distinctly
| different than mentoring) can be done between peers
| remotely.
| dahart wrote:
| That's definitely true for one company, but of course
| can't work for all companies. And even so, mentoring is
| still an important task, not to mention many other
| aspects of work communication that aren't automatically
| enabled with Slack and email, so I'm genuinely curious
| how to make it as good remotely as it used to be in-
| person.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Sure. What I have seen work is the mentor sitting in on
| video or conf calls as a regular participant, taking
| notes, and then coaching room for improvement one on one
| with those being coached. Praise in public,
| constructively critique in private.
|
| Observe, communicate, improve, repeat.
| civilized wrote:
| The future is juniors learning how to work in structured
| office jobs, and if they become senior they are given more
| flexibility.
| jonas21 wrote:
| Have you ever considered that it's not some concerted effort to
| make _you_ feel bad, but that there might actually be a lot of
| people who could use the mentorship and social aspects of going
| into the office?
| orwin wrote:
| I just started a 95% remote job (basically a day every two
| weeks), and the mentorship/onboarding/integration is actually
| better remotely. When we are onsite, we discuss stuff, we
| discuss about previsou jobs and work a bit, but we cannot
| isolate, the open space is loud and it's tiring tbh.
|
| Remotely, i ask "hey, i'm doing task #WXY-99 on project A,
| who can explain the stuff to me", and i have a two-hour
| mentorship on the project specifics. And sometimes more. I
| was taught a lot of stuff.
|
| But the management is the best management i had in my life
| (Ie very hands-off, but with strict work procedure i had to
| learn the first day), and they discovered the way to make me
| twice as productive: 5 hours of meeting maximum every week
| (as i'm new, i have 3 hours on average). The rest should be
| work or one to one.
|
| [edit]: And we do a lot of 1:1. Lot of reviews, pair
| programming, mentoring, discussing new feature, designing a
| DB... All that stuff that i used to do in "meetings" with 10
| people are done on 1:1. Its faster, its a lot less
| performative, thus more productive and make the interaction
| more "real".
| bb88 wrote:
| I don't buy it. I share a screen and mentor people over MS
| Teams in my company right now. The tools are out there.
|
| I think the social aspect of a soul sucking 2 hour commute
| every day is more harmful to an individual than any positive
| aspect of being around peers at work.
| civilized wrote:
| And it's not like WFH is the universally enforced norm, the
| way office work used to be. There are still tons of
| companies that make everyone go to the office. People who
| need that are free to work for those companies. Nobody else
| owes them anything.
|
| When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like
| oppression.
| grugagag wrote:
| Pay people for commute time (1 to 2 hours a day) and
| we'll talk about it again. For now forcing people into
| noisy environments seems to be in their disservice. As
| far as productivity goes, forcing people back into
| offices would probably make them less productive as well.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I used to think I would want to lose the commute. I mean I
| still do. But the loss of co-located colleagues is a real
| genuine barrier to effective productive working.
|
| So many issues that affect a "team" - misunderstandings that
| would have been a chair roll away are elevated to the status of
| conflict. Code has been written, lines have been drawn.
|
| And yet we pretend that it can all be dealt with by more
| "teamwork".
| freitzkriesler2 wrote:
| I haven't had this experience at all. My swes are based all
| around the world and I proudly manage them without having to
| do all of the annoying agile ceremonies. My philosophy is
| simple: keep the developers developing. If they aren't then
| you're wasting your money.
|
| I only break out the agile ceremonies for junior engineers
| who need the guidance and I do it all over video
| conferencing.
|
| But at the end of the day, our products get delivered,
| timelines met on or ahead of schedule, and typically on
| budget.
| bb88 wrote:
| For many people that commute is 4 hours a day depending upon
| traffic. And then small failures in highway system can cause
| large delays for innumerable people just trying to get to work.
|
| > Was work socialization even that good?
|
| Yes and no. I have friends I met from going into the office.
| But most were still "work" friends -- people I wouldn't have
| socialized with had it not been for working at the same
| company. But for me the inane inter cubicle chatter is gone,
| and I can focus on getting work done first.
| brundolf wrote:
| The key is realizing that you have agency over this stuff
|
| Look at the things you want or need to do day-to-day, and
| _create_ contexts around those where social fabric can form
|
| Instead of working from home, work from the same coffee shop a
| couple times a week. Make small talk with the people behind the
| counter and the other regulars, learn names
|
| Have remote coworkers who live in the same city as you? Suggest a
| regular trivia night at a bar. Or host a weekly D&D or board-
| games night at your apartment
|
| _Create_ parties, cook people dinner, suggest day-trips to do
| fun things
|
| _Reach out_ , organize, offer to host, make small talk with new
| people even if it's not especially interesting right off the bat.
| But get curious, ask about the details, pull on threads, and
| you'll get past the boilerplate pretty fast
|
| If you're literally starting from zero it can be hard - maybe you
| just have to seek out meetups or whatever as a starting point -
| but you have the ability to create change. A social fabric is a
| thing you cultivate, not something that just happens to you like
| the weather. Took me many years to learn that, but it's true
|
| I don't mean to make it sound easy- for some of us, keeping a
| healthy social life is as hard as keeping a healthy diet or
| exercise routine is for others. But you _do_ have agency over it
| aeturnum wrote:
| I do think we are in a moment of social upheaval and splintering
| (which started long before the pandemic). It's always been a bit
| of a fiction to say that there was anything in the US that people
| from all classes and backgrounds shared - but the divergences
| have only grown sharper and we have not even begun to grapple
| with it. If anything, I feel like it's common to reject the
| conversation entirely as representing an effort at some kind of
| political signal (which it certainly is sometimes!).
|
| Personally I suspect that no one has answers and what we are left
| with is trying to talk about how we feel and see how others feel
| - a social activity that I've found US culture to be particularly
| bad at. People want bold, holistic theses about what "should" be
| - not uncertain vulnerable discussions about where we are. I
| hope, for all our sakes, that we can find a healthier way to talk
| about and envision new kinds of community.
|
| Edit: fixed some spelling errors.
| Alacart wrote:
| I've worked from home most of my 13 year career, first as a
| contractor for various clients, later as a full time employee. I
| definitely noticed an effect about 2 weeks after I started
| working from home. I was a bit more socially awkward, more
| anxious about social interactions. The benefits of working from
| home are huge, I don't know if I'd be willing to give them up,
| but I've worried about how it's affecting my personality for my
| entire career.
|
| So many of my hobbies are related to computers or the internet. I
| moved away from the place I grew up, and all of that has combined
| to make it hard to meet anyone at all to make new friends with in
| the real world. I'm married now and have 2 young kids, with even
| less ability to easily leave the house on my own. I can too
| easily see a future where I'm 60 with basically no real
| connection outside of my immediate family, something that I worry
| about for everyone if we don't figure out some better ways to be
| social in the real world again.
|
| I'm not sure what the point of this reply is, this topic just
| struck a chord with me.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Sure I have a job, but I 've been remote since January of
| 2019. There is little to no social aspect of my job anymore
| [...]_
|
| More companies are mandating return-to-office so hopefully this
| person will be able to find a company culture that matches their
| desire for social interaction at work. Switching jobs because the
| culture has changed is hard, but it will be well worth the
| hopefully positive uplift in mental well being for them.
|
| The inverse is also true where if companies are mandating RTO
| then those who prefer WFH-heavier arrangements should _also_
| considering changing jobs; likely those that already have second
| places of their own.
| autarch wrote:
| I've been working remotely since 2002. Fortunately I've been
| married that whole time, so I see my wife a lot, which is great.
|
| At my previous job I was a manager so I talked to other people _a
| lot_ at work, what with all the meetings, 1:1's, etc. When I
| started my new job as an IC I realized that I didn't interact
| with my coworkers nearly as much.
|
| So I scheduled a monthly 30 minute 1:1 with each of my teammates
| that specifically has no agenda and is there to talk about
| whatever. Sometimes we talk about tech stuff or work stuff, and
| sometimes we just talk about random things like travel plans or
| events we've been to, etc.
|
| Obviously, this is a lot less social interaction than I would
| have if we were all in the same office, but I do think it's
| helpful to remind all of us that the person on the webcam is
| another human, and I enjoy these 1:1's.
| jedberg wrote:
| > and I enjoy these 1:1's.
|
| Just make sure the person on the other end does too, and isn't
| doing it out of some sense of obligation to show up to meetings
| they were invited to. Watch out for signs of them being
| uncomfortable, like trying to always bring the conversation
| back to work stuff.
|
| Some people don't want to talk about their personal life with
| co-workers, they just feel obligated to fill the time with it.
| autarch wrote:
| I asked each person via DM advance if they were okay with me
| scheduling these meetings, and people sometimes reschedule or
| cancel if they're busy that month.
|
| I also try not to pry into their personal life too much if
| they're not volunteering that information. Like I said,
| sometimes we just talk about things we've been working on or
| general tech chat.
| jemmyw wrote:
| I personally find scheduled meetings really annoying. I'm
| just not a schedule kind of person. Imo you've done a good
| thing but I'd hate it. However, a small tweak would make me
| like it: schedule it in your calendar to ask me, then ask
| me when your see me online. It would feel adhoc to me and
| scheduled to you.
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