[coldpie]

People have been making friends at work since work has existed. It's a place you spend 40 hours a week, very likely with people with similar interests and life experiences. That's a great environment to make friends in and many, many, many people make real friendships through work. It's fine if it doesn't work for you, but telling others it's wrong or bad or unusual to make friends at work is absolute brainworms stuff.

[geraldwhen]

HR makes it clear we’re not to hire anyone with similar interests and life experiences.

At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.

[coldpie]

> HR makes it clear we’re not to hire anyone with similar interests and life experiences.

Huh? If you're in the same industry for a long time, you by definition have history in common, and it's pretty likely you've got similar interests if you both ended up at the same place. I don't see how HR could or would want to have an affect on that.

> At any rate, my reply is under the context of wanting to go to the office for the social interactions. I am not here to socially amuse or validate anyone. Those seeking social fulfillment at the office are exhausting, and they create active stress for those of us with lives outside work who know that work is a thing you do to get paid.

Indeed, this is a great example of why forced-RTO is a terrible policy for everyone, including folks who like coming in to the office!

[fmajid]

You have a very restrictive and limiting view of what constitutes social interactions.