[Upgrayyed_U]

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.