Over 54 percent of surveyed Paradox employees stated that an unpopular return-to-office policy at the Crusader Kings III and Stellaris developer may make them leave the company.
As someone who works in an office and isn’t in charge of anyone, I’ll say that I strongly disagree with the idea that there are no legitimate reasons to prefer being in office.
I get cabin fever pretty badly if I don’t have a reason to get out. Finding motivation to do that can be difficult when I don’t actually have somewhere to be. I also do enjoy chatting to my coworkers. As an adult fostering friendships outside of work and family is incredibly difficult, and I imagine you know that?
Regardless I’d still work from home if permitted, due to COVID, but the idea that wanting to have a second location that you regularly spend time in is “dumb” is wrong I think.
To reiterate, I absolutely prefer work from home at this point, even though it’s undeniably worse for my mental well-being, due to the threat in office work poses to my physical well-being, but it’s absolutely a tradeoff.
Also, I just want to say I hope RTO kills Paradox because I’m still bitter that they killed off the Chronicles of Darkness TTRPGs.
I like the social interaction, find meetings to be quicker irl, but absolutely loathe commuting and having my time wasted. I get enough social interaction from the gym and friends that I don’t need work to provide that, but I absolutely understand how people feel that way.
Yeah commuting does suck, I also miss having more free time at home because sometimes it’s slow at work and instead of just browsing hexbear I can do housework when I’m at home and then I don’t have to do that during personal hours.
Personally, even outside of work, the friends that I’m most likely to interact with, not counting family members, are people I met through work.
My work isn’t hard but I have to pay attention to way too many different programs to make taking my laptop on its own to a third location viable as an every day thing.
Plus coffee shops aren’t free and parks expose you to the weather. I’m not sure what etc even would be here.
And neither of those locations actually position you to socialize with peers.
Also I in my role, while I’m not dealing with anyone’s SSN or anything I frequently enough with people’s personal data that it would be inappropriate to let just whoever at the coffee shop view over my shoulder.
I hear you and get that there’s no perfect solution. I just don’t want to be forced back to the office. If you want to go, fine, but if I’m working at the same place as you I am not coming in. You can catch me on Zoom or Teams during core hours.
But also a lot of these problems are solvable.
I don’t believe you should try to make friends at work. They are good-weather friends and rarely more than that. It’s more likely that they will find a way to screw you over or rat you out to a boss so they can step over you and move up in the org. I’ve had enough co-workers do passive-aggressive BS to me to be wary of that.
Instead of looking for socializing at work look for a third space elsewhere. Game stores, libraries, community events… left organizing? A MTG Commander deck or RPG book is a good way to add lots of social nights out to the calendar.
There are screen protectors for laptops that cover what you are doing unless you are looking straight at the screen.
Obviously don’t go out when its raining, but on a nice clear day? Get out there and get some vitamin D. Touch grass. See some nature. I guarantee when you are old you’ll appreciate those moments of peace more than whatever TPS report you wrote for a paycheck.
I don’t really want to do a line by line conversation but I don’t really feel like my comment is being read in good faith here. It feels like you’re ascribing stances to me that I didn’t take including ones that I explicitly rejected in my original comment because I know that what I’m saying is somewhat heterodox on this site and I wanted to ensure that I didn’t get misread.
As someone who works in an office and isn’t in charge of anyone, I’ll say that I strongly disagree with the idea that there are no legitimate reasons to prefer being in office.
I get cabin fever pretty badly if I don’t have a reason to get out. Finding motivation to do that can be difficult when I don’t actually have somewhere to be. I also do enjoy chatting to my coworkers. As an adult fostering friendships outside of work and family is incredibly difficult, and I imagine you know that?
Regardless I’d still work from home if permitted, due to COVID, but the idea that wanting to have a second location that you regularly spend time in is “dumb” is wrong I think.
To reiterate, I absolutely prefer work from home at this point, even though it’s undeniably worse for my mental well-being, due to the threat in office work poses to my physical well-being, but it’s absolutely a tradeoff.
Also, I just want to say I hope RTO kills Paradox because I’m still bitter that they killed off the Chronicles of Darkness TTRPGs.
This is close to how I feel.
I like the social interaction, find meetings to be quicker irl, but absolutely loathe commuting and having my time wasted. I get enough social interaction from the gym and friends that I don’t need work to provide that, but I absolutely understand how people feel that way.
Yeah commuting does suck, I also miss having more free time at home because sometimes it’s slow at work and instead of just browsing hexbear I can do housework when I’m at home and then I don’t have to do that during personal hours.
Personally, even outside of work, the friends that I’m most likely to interact with, not counting family members, are people I met through work.
You don’t need to be in an office to work away from home. Coffee shops, parks, etc. are good spots to bring a laptop.
My work isn’t hard but I have to pay attention to way too many different programs to make taking my laptop on its own to a third location viable as an every day thing.
Plus coffee shops aren’t free and parks expose you to the weather. I’m not sure what etc even would be here.
And neither of those locations actually position you to socialize with peers.
Also I in my role, while I’m not dealing with anyone’s SSN or anything I frequently enough with people’s personal data that it would be inappropriate to let just whoever at the coffee shop view over my shoulder.
Home or the office are the only real options.
I hear you and get that there’s no perfect solution. I just don’t want to be forced back to the office. If you want to go, fine, but if I’m working at the same place as you I am not coming in. You can catch me on Zoom or Teams during core hours.
But also a lot of these problems are solvable.
I don’t believe you should try to make friends at work. They are good-weather friends and rarely more than that. It’s more likely that they will find a way to screw you over or rat you out to a boss so they can step over you and move up in the org. I’ve had enough co-workers do passive-aggressive BS to me to be wary of that.
Instead of looking for socializing at work look for a third space elsewhere. Game stores, libraries, community events… left organizing? A MTG Commander deck or RPG book is a good way to add lots of social nights out to the calendar.
There are screen protectors for laptops that cover what you are doing unless you are looking straight at the screen.
Obviously don’t go out when its raining, but on a nice clear day? Get out there and get some vitamin D. Touch grass. See some nature. I guarantee when you are old you’ll appreciate those moments of peace more than whatever TPS report you wrote for a paycheck.
I don’t really want to do a line by line conversation but I don’t really feel like my comment is being read in good faith here. It feels like you’re ascribing stances to me that I didn’t take including ones that I explicitly rejected in my original comment because I know that what I’m saying is somewhat heterodox on this site and I wanted to ensure that I didn’t get misread.
Got it. I was trying to offer some helpful advice and not say anything bad faith. Sorry, will disengage.