I WFH, every year one of the goals that the rest of the team decides is that it’s “so great” to see each other in person. The past few years haven’t worked out but one did. I spent hours in a couple of airports, the huge expense for the company, I spent days away from my family, and for what? So you could look me in my same face you would see if we turned cameras on every once in a while? My husband says I’m being weird, but I legitimately want to know, what is the benefit? I hate being there and have to play nice so you can…look me even closer in the face?
You’re correct in that it’s a higher quality of getting to know people in person.
However, I don’t want to get to know anyone at my work because I hate the place and I can’t create a honest relationship with my coworkers because of that, if I’d be honest I’d likely be reported or whatever.
I want to spend more time with people I do care about, not more time with people I don’t care at all about.
Sliding off topic here, but I would seriously suggest you change jobs. Spending half of your waking time in an environment you hate is one way to die early. Life’s way too short for that!
I hate every job I’ve had so far and I don’t think that is going to change. Thanks for trying though.
have you had a job with a strong union or even outright as a co-operative? i figure the fundamental problem is that normal jobs are inherently exploitative and if you don’t have that bit it might become actually enjoyable
In the end, every job that is not a co-op is inherently exploitative, since if it doesn’t return profit to employ someone, employment will not happen.
But really the problem is that I have a very low resiliency, I’m mentally weak and can’t work as much as many other people or in the usual way with semi-fixed hours etc. So I can only get bad jobs, because the good jobs are very competitive and I lose to other applicants.
Why wouldn’t you be able to create relationships with your colleagues just because you hate your workplace? The worst places I’ve worked at, have had the absolute strongest relationships between the people working there. Because it’s basically been a necessity to survive the workday.
Your colleagues might hate it as much as you do. That can be something to find comfort in. And you’ll obviously never care about someone you don’t know. Perhaps you might actually start caring about a colleague or two, if you do get to know them.