Counterpoint: I've actually made some of my best work friends during the COVID working from home era.

A lot of that was due to good leadership. My PM and tech lead setup a Discord for non-work-related discussions and encouraged its use by posting in there regularly. So we were able to replicate, to some extent, the hallway jokes, conversations, and bonding experience. We also had some infrequent but still valuable face-to-face meetups when COVID was at its low points, which also helped with relationship-building. Importantly, most of our face-to-face meetups were social and not work-oriented, so they left a lot of room for developing friendships.

To date, it's been the closest group that I've worked with by far. Many of us still hang out regularly. In fact, I just had drinks with one former coworker and his girlfriend last night. And I enjoyed the company so much that I wound up coming back to it after a short break.

My point is that it's still possible to create meaningful human interactions via Zoom and other digital tools. You just have to be more creative and hopefully work in a environment that properly supports it.

it takes proactive effort, but you can create human interaction remotely. It starts from the top with leadership like any culture.

Disclaimer, I am not talking about forcing employees to sit on a zoom call with a glass of wine in their hands on a friday afternoon. That is the most tactless arrogant stupid shit I have seen in a long time.

I am talking about structured, planned, continuous mentoring and fun in the small moments.

Last Spring (21) when we thought the pandemic was subsiding, we started optional in-office days. I went in one day, stopped by the kitchen, and bumped into a peer I had not seen in a year. Not even on Zoom. Our teams had worked together on something a year or so prior, but the paths of our products diverged. We never had a reason to interact after.

And I'll tell you what -- it was _amazing_. A typical "5-second good morning" conversation turned into a 10-minute catch-up. Which turned into a 30-minute system design discussion. I loved it, we were both juiced. If you could guarantee that all in-person connections in an office would go like that, I would give up remote work in a heartbeat.

Unfortunately, that's not how it works. People get used to the grind, the commute, and their office environment. They don't (generally) bring that kind of impromptu excitement every day. Our interaction was a mix of curiosity, pandemic anxiety, and joy in our work. You can't snap your fingers and expect that to materialize every day.

The bean-counter in me can't justify the millions of dollars in the annual office spend to (hopefully) enable connections like that. Which is why I am fully on the quarterly-or-semi-annual-retreat train. Ditch the office, and point that money towards infrequent in-person events. Pay for people to come in from wherever they are (if they want to). I suspect that's a _much_ better ROI.

So you really think people can't bond online? There is literally people falling in love playing MMORPG's together. I have personally gained a few good friend from good old IRC chats.

You are allowed to bond and have fun on calls. Yes, you can't smell or touch people but that is not something you want in a business context anyway.

Last company I worked with was fully remote and we where super close to each other even though I have never met them in person. I never felt alone. Currently, I am super isolated. The issue is that my current company simply refuses to learn how to do remote properly, so it sucks.

I think it is often simply an ego thing of people who found socializing in the office easy and refuse to learn how to do it remote which has different rules and requires a different skill set.

Not saying that doesn't happen. I hear about it all the time. It just doesn't work that way for me. I learn, grow and bond more in person than I do online.

I hope the people who thrive with remote work do not lose it. But I also hope we don't forget the value of being together.