[learc83]

I don't think that's true at all. I've worked remotely for years and my coworkers and I get along great. We are just as close as work friends I've physically worked with.

My fiancee is an MD, so she has tons of very close friends all over the country from college, med school, residency, and fellowship that she only interacts with remotely. She's just as close with many of them as she is with friends who live in town.

Neither of us are autistic or on the spectrum.

[arkades]

> My fiancee is an MD, so she has tons of very close friends all over the country from college, med school, residency, and fellowship that she only interacts with remotely.

So she remains close with people she underwent difficult, life-changing, character-forming periods with, who at the time, she was with for quite a few hours a day?

I mean, med school and fellowship people stay with you forever, even if you don't particularly like them. And residency? You're blood-bound, like it or not.

[learc83]

The argument is that without regular in person contact people will forget you exist as a human, this wasn't a more nuanced argument that physical proximity is one factor of many.

> if you're not physically present near them, they will forget that you really exist as a human and a social peer.

[arkades]

Tell me honestly: do you really interpret OP as stating that, if you're not physically around someone, they (restating a little bit to make clear how much this is unlikely to have been meant literally) will not remember that you are a real person that exists? That they will come to think of you as an imaginary thing?

Maybe just give them the benefit of the doubt and engage with what they were actually trying to say. If they meant something more extreme, they'll have every chance to double down on it, but no conversation is enriched by shooting down the least charitable interpretation of what folks are saying. Especially when "least charitable interpretation" means "I will take all hyperbolic and/or figurative language and read it literally." It's boring to read language written like legalese, and it's boring to see people getting criticised for not writing in legalese.

[learc83]

Tell me honestly: do really think that I thought the OP's argument was that people will literally think of you as imaginary.

Of course I don't.

What you've done is to take the least charitable interpretation of my argument by believing that I was using the OP's language of "real human" literally.

The OP's argument is that "if you're not physically present near them, they will forget that you really exist as a human and a social peer."

My interpretation of that is that they won't see you as a real person with whom they can have a real relationship with, and that you can't you can't maintain a social peer relationship without physical contact.

To best way to describe what I, (and I'm 99% sure the OP) mean when they say real person: You read in the newspaper that a man was shot. You know he exists and you may know something about him, but he doesn't feel like a real person to you. His death doesn't cause you grief the same way the death of a friend or neighbor would.

[joncrane]

I think there's a lot of nuance.

I am more toward your situation (grew up in multiple countries and, as things evolve over time, my closest friend group is a group of guys who used to skateboard together on the streets of San Jose Costa Rica) and remain excellent friends with many people from my past, and some I have not seen in person in many years. Maybe I'm fooling myself.

However, I feel like most people aren't like that, and if I care about advancing my career, I have to think more like OP and less like you and me.

[nogabebop23]

How can this be? The bandwidth and sheer volume of face-to-face time co-located people share just dwarfs the potential of remote. Are you saying that you still do fine remotely or that remote works better than colocated?

I'd also bet your MD does most of her doctoring that depends on deep trust and emotional connection in-person; remote just fails at this in comparison

[learc83]

>I'd also bet your MD does most of her doctoring that depends on deep trust and emotional connection in-person; remote just fails at this in comparison

She does, but it probably has less to do with needing an emotional connection than b/c she needs to physically do procedures.

>Are you saying that you still do fine remotely or that remote works better than colocated?

I'm have closer friends at my current workplace than I did at my last physical workplace. However, there are too many variables for me to say whether remote is actually better in that regard.

I doubt it is, but my anecdote was a counterpoint to the argument that humans require physical contact to maintain relationships. Not an argument that physical contact can in some cases be beneficial.

[monadic2]

> The bandwidth and sheer volume of face-to-face time co-located people share just dwarfs the potential of remote.

How do you figure?

Anyway you’re pumping out HTML, not making works of art. Most days don’t require an emotional connection to get anything done, and it just takes a little more effort on both to talk on video and get that connection. Anyway, it’s much easier and healthier to view coworkers like future friends than current friends, especially your manager.

You better double my pay to waste my time in person.

[thaumasiotes]

> Anyway you’re pumping out HTML, not making works of art.

I'm pretty sure most artists do their work remotely, not in the office of whoever's buying the artwork.

[AsyncAwait]

I personally appreciate the people I work with remotely now more than when I was in the office as I don't need to engage in needless chit chat and so every meeting is much more productive.