because hanging out with your co workers or boss still feels like work, and work sucks and is alienating
This was the exact thought I spent the last few minutes trying and failing to put into words.
Any time I’m around coworkers, I’m being judged. That’s how social interaction works. In this case, that judgment will affect whether or not I continue to have my job. I cannot relax and enjoy myself when my ability to buy food and pay rent is at stake.
This 💯
Not to misuse a term but it essentially feels like continued masking, it takes mental effort and is absolutely not relaxing.
My yearly work dinners with the company owners feel like a hostage event
Say the wrong thing, be unemployed for years. Sounds like a great time.
Probably through the trauma-bonding, I became good friends with many of my coworkers and we’d occasionally hang out, sans boss.
So it wound up hurting on a surprisingly emotional level when a round or two of burnout chased off so many work-friends I’d known for years. We’ve all been so busy at our respective jobs now, it kinda sucks.
the thing that made work enjoyable
consuming alcohol
Nah mate
I’m not about to work a entire shift then spend hours worth of my money on watered down drinks all the while trying not to overshare with people I tepidly tolerate.
I feel so seen.
Drinking with work people has never worked out for me and only served to make work more annoying. The closer to blue coller work and “unskilled” work you get the more enjoyable that was. The closer to white coller office work, the less enjoyable.
That’s just my experience though. Regardless, I don’t drink anymore anyway.
I think this is totally right. If you’re in a “white collar job” then the dynamic has the potential for backbiting and power games (so the drinking becomes networking, work, etc) versus being fully clocked out
People used to relish getting sloshed with their colleagues after work. What happened?
No they didn’t.
Bars are fucking expensive?
People have commitments and responsibilities in their personal life and can’t get drunk all the time?
People are driving and can’t get drunk?
Yet another fucking article that blames a younger generation for killing a “tradition” / “killing the vibe” on something was mostly bullshit to begin with.
Excuse me while I get my tiniest violin out.
How can people afford to drink in bars even semi-regularly? A happy hour pint is still $6 and most of the “happy hours” are only on during work hours or later in the evening
Yeah because 40 years ago if you went drinking with your idiot boss and pretended to laugh at his jokes about Italians there was a chance you’d get a promotion. Nowadays there’s no point in sucking up, no one’s getting anything out of it. Your job is precarious and your boss probably doesn’t even know who you are.
people aren’t going to bars because there’s a pandemic, right?
Drink at lunch.
Problem solved.
As a young person who likes drinking, drinking with people from work is not something I find appealing at all. Also, bars are expensive in general so I rarely find myself going out to drink anyways, rather grab a bunch of cheap shit from the liquor store and host or bring it to a friend’s house who is hosting.
Edit note: I also have never really felt the appeal of needing to make work friends or socialize hard with people from work. I don’t outright reject it and I like most people I work with but I was also able to maintain most of my friends from middle school, high school, and college while also having hobby-specific friends I’m more likely to hang out with due to overlapping interests most of my classmates in college didn’t become friends except from my language minor where the was a deep connected passion. I mostly found friends from that and luck with roommates during college and haven’t really needed to make new friends since my junior year of college.
but I was also able to maintain most of my friends from middle school, high school, and college while also having hobby-specific friend
what the fuck dark wizardry is this
They might still be in their 20s and everyone hasn’t moved away or had kids yet.
Different strokes. I’m pushing 40 and still have my core group of friends from elementary/high school and my group from undergrad. Most of us have kids too. Then again, I can count all of them with just two hands. We truly view each other as an extended family.
I do think some tend to have better odds with this over others. I do expect some of these connections to falter a bit once some of my friends have kids (I personally don’t want any) but some have managed 20 years already, and due to circumstances are likely to last longer so unless something truly tragic happens I expect them to.
Mid 20s so yes. Several have tried moving away but many move back due to a lot of people parents owning their houses and being given the option to move home for either free or much lower rent than living at home. Some have moved away but I live very (within 2 hours) close to two very large metropolitan areas so those that have moved away tend to migrate to those two places and it’s just an 1-2 hour drive. So we still see each other fairly often. I technically have moved away from my home town so I’m further out than most but it’s still a 30 minute drive.
I also have never really felt the appeal of needing to make work friends or socialize hard with people from work
this will lead to communism
I get you’re taking the piss, but isn’t work under the western neoliberal service economy especially isolating? Not many people are working closely with a consistent set of people who all live in the same local area. Not saying you shouldn’t socialize with people at work though, please do that. Fight the atomizing forces of capital.
Me saying I don’t feel the need to probably wasn’t how I meant to word it. If I was to use an analogy it’s like how sometimes you might not get the urge to eat but you haven’t eaten anything for a day so know you should. I don’t feel the hungry so mostly do so out of recognizing I should or out of service to others since I know not everyone has the same situational benefits I do.
Edit: I think my other reply to the comment above touches upon what you say here btw, outside of work meetings and occasionally going onsite to some company we have zero downtown to just interact unless it’s a slow day or us shitposting in a GC we have during tickets.
I mean most people at my job work from home and are busy taking user tickets (which need to be done within a time limit) from other companies because I do MSP work. Even if I wanted to socialize with my coworkers outside of shitposting (the posts never stop!) in the tech GC I couldn’t. I’m just not deeply upset and lonely from lack of socialization due to having my needs met elsewhere. Even if I wanted to socialize with them I couldn’t due to the structure of my work, I just don’t find the situation depressing because I have others I socialize with.
Depends very much on who and what kind of job. When I delivered pizzas, a pint with the other drivers was a nice unwind - complain about work, talk sports, eat some snacks.
I’ve also enjoyed colleague drink nights with my fellow teachers, though it’s a bit more subdued, especially when the boss joins in.
Depends very much on who and what kind of job. When I delivered pizzas, a pint with the other drivers was a nice unwind - complain about work, talk sports, eat some snacks.
Fair enough, I can see that. I would probably duck work and most school social events but did hang out with people from some classes otherwise due to having grown up in a fairly small town that is just outside two large metropolitan areas, I’ve been pretty lucky to never feel like I was lacking friends as no one really “moves away” and everyone I knew growing up tends to always be within 2 hours (usually closed to 1 hour-30 minutes) travel if we really want to hang out so I find myself very lazy with voluntary socializing. I’m also not into more mainstream hobbies so I’m typically just being a polite conversationalist with most people when socializing with new people unless I can pinpoint something of mutual interest.
Isnt drinking a lot less common among younger people in general? Seems like a good thing to me.
Yeah they mention that Gen Z drinks significantly less, you also have to assume people need to be financially stable to spend a couple hundred dollars a month at weekly bar nights.
I’m of two minds about this.
On the one hand, getting to know your coworkers personally outside of work is really important for organizing, and also (speaking from experience) very fulfilling (provided your coworkers aren’t all just total assholes)
On the other hand, it’s too bad alcohol culture is so entertwined with this, and I say this as an unrepentant booze hobbyist. Hopefully we can collectively find an after work and/or lunchtime social culture that allows space for people who don’t partake in alcohol
my office’s cooler people do a music thing now and then, along with some people who left that they were also cool with. it seems fun though I’ve avoided going for concerns over only having work friends
Because I’m too busy having a life outside of work to go to Work 2
