It seems a lot of people absolutely despise the idea of spending any of their free time with their coworkers, even something as measly as a lunch break that you're basically stuck at work for anyways. I could understand it if your coworkers were particularly nasty to you or something like that, but it seems that a lot of people have fine relationships with their coworkers and still would rather sit in a car alone to eat lunch rather than having a conversation at a table or go home after work and watch TV rather than get a beer or coffee.
I can understand people want to hide or whatever, but why is that such a widespread phenomenon now? It wasn't always like that as I understand. From a lot of what I've read and heard, fairly intimate relationships between coworkers were much more common. It seems like if we're talking about the general breakdown of society or the decay of the labor movement, this is an obvious symptom that doesn't seem to have anyone's attention. So what gives?
Before the pandemic normalized working remotely, I used to daydream about walking off the roof of my awful cubicle farm. My only freedom during the day was eating lunch outside in the sunshine by myself. The thought of getting lunch with my coworkers (who would just want to sit inside and talk about work) was unbearable
I can understand why you as an individual might feel that way, and I assume there have always been people that were antisocial on their time off, but none of those things you describe are particularly new to being employed and yet many more people seem to behave that way than in the past. I want to know what is causing that.
Plumber we were subcontracted under was showing everyone pictures of him at the trucker convoy with a home made gallows for Trudeau. Even if we had something in common the fuck do i want to talk to that kind of person for? I'm going to be expected to know every minutiae about communism while he can go fuck woke Trudeau for making gas price
I think attitudes towards work are shifting and more people want to be firm with boundaries between work life and personal life, and they see their coworkers as part of "work life"
But what is driving that attitude shift? People wouldn't just spontaneously decide they felt that way for no reason.
Generational gap is part of it I'd reckon. I can just talk to my friends on my phone or watch something online, I don't have coworkers as my only option of lunch entertainment.
Company 'loyalty' is also less effective than jumping ship to a different employer every 2-3 years so intra-company networking is less useful.
I thought it might have something to do with the kids and their damned smartphones :grillman: That's a good point about job hopping too.
Back in the day workers had to stick together to get any of their interests met. Now, they can easily divide everyone because you promise one worker an extra sick day. Many people don’t play that game. Maybe they assume others still do. But regardless, most are just sick and tired of anything work related, good or bad.
can't socialize anywhere but work. coworkers don't want to socialize.
something something the modern condition
I don't really have that much in common with them. I'm used to socialization over the internet, where I can find communities centered around my interests and immediately be in a millieu of people who - in many cases - know not just what I know, but often significantly more.
I had to actually explain to a older coworker who Weird Al Yankovic is while we were talking music. The idea that someone with eminently more life experience than me could just have, like, no frame of reference to who Weird Al is irritated me in the exact same way politicians acting like Ninteen Eighty-Four is some deep cut and not high school reading did. Like, everyone knows about Ninteen Eighty-Four, right? Pretty much the first thing anyone would think of when they think dystopian fiction? The proverbial face of the genre?
Doesn't help that i'm too easily distracted by small talk in general.
I had to actually explain to a older coworker who Weird Al Yankovic is while we were talking music. The idea that someone with eminently more life experience than me could just have, like, no frame of reference to who Weird Al is irritated me in the exact same way politicians acting like Ninteen Eighty-Four is some deep cut and not high school reading did.
Well now I want to know what that guy did have familiarity with, if Weird Al was some kind of esoteric knowledge to him.
His brain has been exclusively playing the riff from Freebird for 50 years straight.
:geordi-no: "Weird" Al Yankovic
:geordi-yes: Ray Stevens (some songs are funny, some are very cringy and the last thing I heard about him he was a garden variety boomer chud so don't look him up)
Reminds me of stories of Americans who, six months into the pandemic, had somehow never heard of it and were confused about why everyone was lining up to get their noses swabbed.
We make fun of libs for reading the new york times and chuds for loving tucker, but huge numbers of americans get their news exclusively through facebook and local news broadcasts. Fox News would probably be an upgrade for these people.
The “hadn’t heard about Covid but knows what cancel culture is” guy from Trilbillies
I'm afraid I'll say some political opinion they don't like and they'll use it to try to get me fired
Even when I was a lib who had a good job (university ESL teaching overseas) I was terrified of saying the wrong thing and getting fired. I actually liked my coworkers but mostly avoided them. I only felt like I was free when I decided to quit, which seems to have been a mistake because I have not been able to find anything like that job since then.
I think there are several reasons:
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Coworkers remind people of their shitty job. They are stressed and need time away from socializing for hours on end.
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The coworkers have nothing in common with them or have political beliefs that clash
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The modern workplace encourages a competitive relationship between coworkers, meaning that coworkers actively sabotage one another while pretending to be friendly
Seriously, in one job, a coworker whom I thought was my friend found out I'm triggered by sexual assault, so they started telling me about sexual assault stories every day until I was a nervous wreck and it impacted my work. Then I overheard them rat me out to the boss for vaguely suggesting unionization with someone else who wasn't being paid properly.
:jesus-christ: i know HR isn't your friend, but I would've reported the SA talk. The fact you were triggered by it and your coworker knew makes it much worse, but that's something that doesn't belong at work either way.
I think your list is spot on also, generally the things that make me uneasy about work friendships (and I'm actually pretty social at work).
Seriously, in one job, a coworker whom I thought was my friend found out I’m triggered by sexual assault, so they started telling me about sexual assault stories every day until I was a nervous wreck and it impacted my work. Then I overheard them rat me out to the boss for vaguely suggesting unionization with someone else who wasn’t being paid properly.
:stalin-gun-1::stalin-gun-2:
Jesus fuck that's evil
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As a habitual lunch car sitter, I do it because I need time to decompress. My job is stressful. If I'm around coworkers, we just talk about work. Also, my coworkers go out to eat for lunch daily which costs money and is a huge calorie intake I'd prefer to avoid. Not to mention losing half my lunch to driving back and forth to wherever the place would be. Plus I just saw them for 4 hours and I'll see them for another 4 hours once my lunch is over. It's more time per day than I'm awake with my significant other.
- Your contract is shorter term and can be canceled anytime, so why bother getting to know people there?
- Specialization and atomization more generally means people have less in common and become less relatable.
Well for point 1 the answer is that hanging out with people and building connections, even if temporary can be fun and healthy
I'm very shy to begin with and the deviltry involved around work makes me much more introverted
Because I have bills to pay and if I got friendly with my coworkers I'd try to sloppily unionize them, and get fired. Also, I don't plan on being around here long. 2021 at the latest
Yeah I plan to be gone by 2021, too. Hope is a son of a bitch sometimes.
My coworkers like to make "identify as a helicopter" jokes, so I don't want to talk to them any more than I have to
Worked with some petty motherfuckers who used some shit from outside of work to get me fired. I just don't mix work and friendships anymore.
The fact that office work often actively encourages internal competition, and also forces us into mandatory "fun" social activities really poisons a lot of potential office friendships. That and work environments are generally very unpleasant, while also offering little benefit for staying longterm, so people switch jobs frequently now. I usually make friends on my team, but I can understand not wanting to since it's a friendship that might soon end when one or both parties move on, and a long drive is added to ant meetup.
Well my coworkers are all reactionaries, and that's just the subtle ambient casual stuff I pick up on. Like ambient transphobia, complaints about immigrants, random weird statements like Biden is gonna outlaw the pledge of allegiance. One of them is deeply into Q and keeps getting reprimanded for bringing a gun into a workplace that handles explosives.
I've hung out with these people on a very limited basis, mostly stuff that had a very clear direction and was in public. Like we've had an informal company softball game, and I've been invited out to eat a few times. I would never, ever hang out with these people in private at their house or something. Or anything where alcohol is involved. Ever. I know exactly what would happen. Slurs would come out. They'd get drunk. They'd start spewing vile fascist shit because they're white people from the south who live in suburbs and I know what they're like. They think I'm one of them because I'm white and I say Biden's an idiot who should get killed. I'll tell them openly I'm a communist if they ask, because I don't lie about that or hide it, but it's never come up directly.
In general, I dunno.
For me specifically, I've had two jobs and something like a 12 hour workday for something like 15 years now. If I'm constantly asked to go out after work by normal people with normal lives, I constantly have to say "Thanks, but I can't" and then I come off like an asshole. So I've learned to keep my distance.
Though this has gotten easier as I've gone from being 5 years older than coworkers to 20 years older than coworkers so there is less and less expectation that I will have anything to offer socially that isn't directly work related so :shrug-outta-hecks:
