[bonoboTP]

There will always be people who are willing to put in the time and grind a few years in their 20s to achieve a better life for themselves and their future family, even if you would prioritize other things. It's ge theory and you don't have power over them in such laptop jobs. Your best available tool is to shame them and make striving and overtime be shunned. Many cultures have this, it's like tall poppy syndrome, but more general. But in individualistic cultures like the US, they won't care about your opinion. They are on a path whether you like it or not. If you want to have Germany-level work-life balance, you'll have to make do with Germany-level salaries, but I assume you sill want US style 6 figures just with 9-to-5...

[watwut]

Someone playing ping pong, VR or going to gym in work is not "putting in the time and grind". They are engaging in hobbies. If they use that time to pretend they work a lot, they are just normally slacking.

About the most absurd thing is twisting the people who socialize in office building for fun into grinding hard workers.

[bonoboTP]

I didn't realize that was what you're thinking about. Well yeah, those guys invest in social connections at work, while you are not. Alliances, trust and human relationships will always matter, no matter how much people complain about this online. It will always be a benefit to be liked and known personally.

[watwut]

People sometimes throw this one out as if having real friends, contact with kids, relationships or hobbies outside of work was something only asocial people engage with. Only people who dont understand relationships are somehow capable of having them. When I put it like this, suddenly it sounds absurd, but that is literally your argument.

So, I have enough experience to go meh on this rationalization too. Nah, you can have trust, alliances and human relationships without moving all the hobby and relax time to work. Not just "can" in an abstract theoretical term, but they simply happen.

You can design the workplace so that the above is impossible, but that is the deliberate choice. The idea that you need to spend 12 hours a day in the workplace to be liked is a product of kind of management trying to create a cultish culture. Sometimes because they are lonely, sometimes because the frauds they want to happen are easier that way. But, it is not something that becomes a necessity in healthy workplace with various people. And people who are capable to keep relationships dont need that to have them.

And conversely, people with issue in the relationship department need them as a clutch, but then pretend it is necessary for work.

[bonoboTP]

Yes, you need a happy medium. I know complainers who do zero socialization, never stay for social events even once per month, never join a Friday beer (sure, you can drink alcohol free) etc then complain they are overlooked. Humans are humans. Work and life is an artificial separation from the last few decades. It was never a concept before.

I'm not talking about doing all your hobbies in the office and staying 4 hours more than your official hours just shmoozing every day.

Working effectively with people requires some level of personal connection, whether that's shared lunches, chatting over coffee etc. Some just want to plug their earbud in and clock out at 5, and insist to only spend time by typing code in the IDE. I'm saying that this won't work, no matter how they complain online. Humans are social, you have to deal with it.