5:01 and Done: No One Wants to Schmooze After Work

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.

Copythis,

I stay as long as possible because I don’t want to go home to my abusive wife.

Sometimes I can’t sleep on Sundays because I’m so excited to go to work the next day.

Grumpy,

This and this other comment are stark opposites of life.

Copythis,

I need help.

crimsdings,

Ah yes I can decide between spending time with my wife and children or hanging out with coworker talking about work I’ve just been in for 8 hours. What a hard choice

Grumpy,

This and this other comment are stark opposites of life.

crimsdings,

Poor guy - I only work for the money - if I’d have enough money I would only spend time with my wife ane children and family and friends.

Copythis, (edited )

I absolutely love spending time with my kids, don’t get me wrong.

They’re seeing the abuse and it’s terrifying. Luckily she sleeps in until about 2pm on weekends, so I use those mornings (including this morning) to take them to the park and spend time with them.

I’ve been trying to leave but she keeps threatening to take them away. I don’t know what to do. I’m going to call a divorce lawyer on Monday.

I do absolutely everything for my kids. I cook dinner every night, I bathe them every night, I get them ready and take them to school every morning. I am a man so I’m terrified the court will rule in her favor and she’ll take them away.

At night I’m reminded of how horrible of a person and father I am. I’m so tired of it.

Edit: I also absolutely love my job. I work on photocopiers. I feel like I help the community and make people happy. My job almost feels like a hobby to me. I am high functioning autistic and my obsession is anything mechanical, so it’s the perfect job for me.

crimsdings,

Mate you need evidence - collect a lot of evidence. Video and audio recording - messages - witnesses - everything you can get.

Hope you make it!

Furbag,

On one hand, I’m a bit bummed out that my generally positive workplace culture has all but completely evaporated in the wake of the pandemic and nobody wants to even come in to the office anymore, let alone mingle or hang out after work. I genuinely enjoyed the company of a few of my co-workers and even though I was definitely a 5:01-and-done kind of guy, I would still make an effort to be friends with the ones that I liked outside of a professional setting.

On the other hand, I absolutely cannot blame anybody for not wanting to put in the social effort. For a long time I was a “fuck it, it’s quittin’ time, I’m out of here!” person and I would blow out of the office after flatly rejecting my co-workers requests to hang after work because I just didn’t like to socialize that much back then, and I would resent people who were pushy about going out for drinks or staying out really late at night. Despite the fact that I do enjoy doing those things now that I’m older, I don’t want to be “that guy” to anyone else, and I refrain from judging anybody for declining to socialize after work. Maybe they are introverted and shy? Maybe they don’t want to catch COVID? Maybe they have a kid to go home to? Maybe they just don’t like my company and they want to go home and read a book or something? Whatever it is, it’s none of my business, so more power to those people.

Copernican,

I kind of have similar vibes. I joined a company months after acquisition with a long 2 year migration to joining the mothership standards. During that time beers were opened at 4pm on Thursdays for team knowledge share sessions that carried over into happy hours that had a company tab for the first round. In this environment ive made lifelong friends, served as groomsmen and pallbearers for colleagues that I befriended, but also accelerated my career by making professional relationships with folks beyond the sphere of my immediate work duty relationships.I do think there was a “terroir” of conditions that made it work. I don’t think it can easily be replicated. But it kind of bums me out that the current work culture described in the post basically blocks this from ever happening again. I don’t think I’ll be able to informally provide the mentorship and guidance that I so greatly benefited from when I was young and new to the now new generation, or cultivate friendships like I used to.

Raxiel,

My company is similar (although there’s still people trying to organise things) but while things changed over the pandemic, they were already planning on full hot desking and reduced floor space (lucky for them they’d just implemented the infrastructure for large scale WFH as the lockdown began). The sense of a “Team” has completely gone, the majority of people I work with are based in other parts of the country or even overseas, going to a social event at my local office would just be mingling with people I don’t know, don’t work with, and only have the name at the top of our paychecks in common. So I don’t bother, and they wonder why.

Dkarma,

No one has time. I got shit to do, errands to run. Kids to pick up 39 min ago.

terminhell,

Hang with people I barely know on a personal level after work? Why would I do that? I’ve got another full-time job waiting for me: Life/parent. I barely have time for my own family, let alone a work ‘family’.

Not_Alec_Baldwin,

… In a (generally) mildly toxic environment where I feel judged and under appreciated?

Count me out.

Workplaces used to be a lot more casual.

freebread,

“Work family?” You mean like the Manson Family?

sheogorath,

It can be beneficial to keep a good relationship with your coworkers. I’ve had more than a few opportunities come my way because I have a network of friends that I made at work.

Fraylor,

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.

Natanael,

Because “3rd places” have been hollowed out, especially non monetized ones, there’s fewer places to just meet people

Fraylor,

Yeah, it’s overwhelmingly clear that too many people who can make decisions have this idea that “not revenue generating” = worthless.

Artaca,

But muh passive incooooommmeeee

MJBrune,

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.

SCB,

3rd places were always monetized.

Phegan,

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.

SCB,

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.

Natanael,

There are a lot of gated parks

Fapper_McFapper,

This is one of the most sadest and poignant things I’ve read in a long time. Spot on.

assassin_aragorn,

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.

Phegan,

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.

lingh0e,

I am happy with my job. I am paid a fair wage for the work I do. I am given a ton of leeway with arriving late/leaving early to accommodate my kids and their various goings on. All in all, it’s a great arrangement.

I am still out the door at the very minute my shift ends. Not a second later.

TransplantedSconie,

Yep!

I also drive a little bit faster headed home lol

Towards the “mines”? Not so much.

Blackmist,

Nobody wants to spend time with the kind of people who don’t want to go home after work.

We all know the type with their overly loud laughing at the bosses jokes.

fuckwit_mcbumcrumble,

Depends on the work environment. Where I work I’m more than happy to hang out with my co workers after work, but that’s because management doesn’t shove a stick up everyone’s ass, nor do we hire that type of people.

CarlsIII,

I never get invited anyway.

HulkSmashBurgers,

Are they gonna pay me for the time I spend at these "social events? No? Eat a bag o’ dicks then.

jj4211,

Always hated this expectation.

Particularly outrageous scenario 20 years ago, I was just getting started and was basically a limited hour part time employee making a bit more than minimum wage, but the office culture was dominated by people well into six figure salary. So they would act all shocked when us lowly folks would tend to decline when they said everyone needed to go to a $100 a plate for an after-work dinner (of course the company wouldn’t pay for any of this, but who doesn’t have the spare money to piss away $100 for a plate of food with colleagues every couple of weeks?)

SCB,

When this was me, I’d always respond with, “I’m in if you’re buying. Otherwise, it’s not for me.”

Every now and then I scored a free meal and a networking opp.

reverendsteveii,

I clock out at 5 because I’ve gotta get to my other job.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Honestly I never did this in the past 20 years of work. Maybe a few office parties outside of work hours. But the whole “Have your boss or subordinate over for dinner” BS was never my thing.

TBH I truly think it was a boomer invention that died in the 80s, because nobody I know ever did anything like this willingly.

KevonLooney,

This is about happy hours and networking events. Lots of people did that.

Potatos_are_not_friends,

Ah that’s fair.

Yeah had a few of those. They were always carefully written as “optional” but it was definitely a Convo piece of you didn’t show up.

I typically showed face for an hour or two, had one beer, sucked up and left. Which is what I’m assuming everyone else did too

averagedrunk,

I fought my boss over one of those voluntary gatherings. I had shit to do. He said it’s optional but if I want to get ahead I should go.

I did not get ahead.

seeCseas,

But the whole “Have your boss or subordinate over for dinner” BS was never my thing.

TBH I truly think it was a boomer invention that died in the 80s, because nobody I know ever did anything like this willingly.

That was for a different time and era when company loyalty was a thing. When you intended to work for a company for decades, forming relationships with your boss actually meant something.

Nowadays employees are just disposable assets, so why bother forming deep bonds with your coworkers?

Mirshe,

And back when your boss might actually also be the owner of the company - especially through the 50s and 60s, the person you worked for in the factory very likely could OWN that factory, and so having a decent relationship with them made it easier to approach them with modifications that might make a worker’s day easier, without the hostility of a strike.

Now, since every company is basically owned by some conglomerate, looking to sell to some conglomerate, or is about to get swallowed by some conglomerate, things like “labor relations” are dead. You can’t talk directly to your boss about maybe making sure the factory line has proper guards in place, because the guy who he has to talk to in order to make that decision is having brunch in Paris or meeting with some world leader today. Even if they could, the company bean counters already ran a cost-benefit analysis that showed that the loss of limbs and the payouts and fines they’d deal with for having no guards in place would only be 34% of the profit they’d make from increased production capability or whatever.

SCB,

The day I was hired at my current job, my boss’s boss “made” me promise I’d work there for a decade lol

Not every job sees you as disposable. Leave those jobs until you find one that appreciates you. I’ve found 2 (out of my last 4) in a decade, but they’re out there.

from_the_black_lagoon,

My work does a decent job of doing the event during working hours or at the very least starting within work hours. So a work event starts at 3PM, people can bail at 5PM or stay longer if they want.

eran_morad,

Fuck work. They gotta bribe me to be there, I’m putting in minimal time and effort. Fuck all that bullshit.

andy_wijaya_med,
@andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world avatar

It really depends on the work you’re doing I guess. Can you imagine if a neurosurgeon who gonna operate on you (hypothetically) think like that?

Malfeasant,

I’d rather be cut into by a neurosurgeon who does it because he’s paid than one who does it because it’s fun…

andy_wijaya_med,
@andy_wijaya_med@lemmy.world avatar

By putting minimal time and effort? Good luck coming out of the surgery intact…

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