Office happy hours, client dinners and other after-hours work gatherings lose their luster as more people feel the pull of home
Patience for after-hours work socializing is wearing thin.
After an initial burst of postpandemic happy hours, rubber chicken dinners and mandatory office merriment, many employees are adopting a stricter 5:01-and-I’m-done attitude to their work schedules. More U.S. workers say they’re trying to draw thicker lines between work and the rest of life, and that often means clocking out and eschewing invites to socialize with co-workers. Corporate event planners say they’re already facing pushback for fall activities and any work-related functions that take place on weekends.
Honestly we need to move back towards making friends in our communities and not our workplace. I don’t know how it happened but the way we’ve managed to only have friends from work while not knowing the name of our neighbor should never have been the norm. Of course this works out perfect for the nolifers who always get the promotions, and the bosses who need their asses kissed to function.
Because “3rd places” have been hollowed out, especially non monetized ones, there’s fewer places to just meet people
Yeah, it’s overwhelmingly clear that too many people who can make decisions have this idea that “not revenue generating” = worthless.
But muh passive incooooommmeeee
With 3rd places needing to be profitable, it puts a really big stress on them getting throughput. So then that turns them into bars, restaurants, pool halls, or arcades. If they don’t they don’t make money and they can’t keep the space they are renting.
3rd places were always monetized.
Parks and community centers were valid non-monititzed 3rd places.
And whether or not you agree with them, places of worship were often an additional third place.
Parks and community spaces are presently non-monetized and usage has not changed, so it doesn’t really make sense to include them in this discussion.
Same with place of worship.
There are a lot of gated parks
We created a car-centric sprawled out world where you no longer engage with community members face to face, as much of your time outside of your house is simply walking to your car to drive to the nearest commercial center.
I’ve been talking with a friend about this after he pointed out the nuclear family really is fairly recent as a post WW2 thing. We’ve seen multigenerational households increase in the wake of the pandemic. Part of me thinks we’re going to see a movement back to that.
If people stay closer to home, that means friends from growing up are closer. They aren’t spread out across the whole country.
This is one of the most sadest and poignant things I’ve read in a long time. Spot on.