Technology

Fathers versus childless men, rather than husbands vs unmarried men. Telling.

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

As a childless asocial workaholic with some degree of toxicity that LinkedIn bastard probably dream of, my performance heavily depended on the importance of the task. WFH let me be more passionate about some projects and papers that I used all benefits of cutting commute, was way less distracted and motivated. But bullshit paperwork, letters, chats and reports lagged even further behind than they did in the office, right up to the deadline. Sometimes because I did the work itself instead and no one looked over my shoulder.

For me RTOing into a nearly-empty building in the off-season when most take vacations was the most dumb idea, and since it was a typical rule-for-thee, I had almost none supervison, was arriving late, leaving early and put a shit ton of hours into various MMOs. The complete opposite to what I did in a brief moments of quarantine. Look, jerks, you paid me to level my chars, that's what you wanted?

I think like in a trust-based environment clocking in is unnecessary and various bosses over time did get it, I payed back by reporting stuff myself so they were sure I'm on it at any given time. Like we are actually a team of some sort, they do their stuff, I do mine, we pass things to each other etc. The others were completely disconnected from empoyees and to compensate their inability to trust, got high on controlling shit, were sending down teamworking events, talking about being a family or other sectarian career manager bullshit, relied on and encouraged snitching on each other. These were the positions I nailed down to me clocking out and stop giving a fuck, before eventually leaving.

And for coworkers: they either do their work, or leave it to others, and I rarely GAF about other characteristics. The high stress environment of labor is not where I prefer to socialise, nor I'm in the mood to. I crave work-related communications that makes all objectives clear and obvious, work-related stories I can learn from, you know, the stuff I came here for, and not a social club with gossips, drama and all that. If I'm given 2hrs+ from not riding to your building, I can have two socializations and a half if I want to. The exhaustion it causes not helps but prevents me from going out with friends, and I'm double pissed that some bosses make an act like that's better for their workers while not giving them any agency and doing it solely for themselves.

Rant: over.

I would love to work remote, but the nature of my job kinda conflicts with that (field service engineer).

That said, I actually like my coworkers quite a lot (there's only 4 of us). This is the first place I've worked where I genuinely feel like we all care about each other's well-being. I was in the hospital for a few days back in March and they texted periodically just to check how I was doing. Wishing each other happy father's day/birthday/anniversary/etc, congratulating baby births, invited to kids' birthday parties, and other things of that nature. Not just surface-level stuff, either. I would hang out with these guys.

It's not about remote vs office work, but working remotely all the time reminds particularly painfully about not having a SO or many friends. When working from office, covertly texting a good acquaintance 2-3 times a day kinda replaces that. When at home, you could do much more of that, or probably bunch together to work, but you don't. Just sit there, smell your socks, sip tea, get distracted for nothing good, and feel how your life passes into abyss. When in office, you at least have the stress of many loud people around to distract you from that.