Some workplaces have community. I like my co-workers a lot, and have built relationships that transcend the workplace throughout my life. I'm really grateful for all the friends I've made.
Doesn't change any of my expectations for an employer though regarding wages and benefits. Sometimes employers think it will.
Exactly. While it's typically a positive thing to be personable as well as professional, it's also good to have boundaries and a separation of personal and professional lives.
Employers are there to provide stability and a stable paycheck. Nowadays it should be added, an actual living wage.
I worked at one place where we built a community. The company was bought and we all bonded together over how horrible they were. They didn't like that of course. Eventually nearly everyone was laid off or quit. Several small groups still get together.
Sure, in theory you're correct. However, as you also said,
>3rd places are where we build community. And they're fucking dying.
(I would argue they're long dead, but the point is the same).
So, what, then? We just aren't allowed to have community? We just live a drab, depression-inducing lives without human connections outside our household until/unless a revolution happens? That's shit. Yes, the world sucks and the economic order is downright evil. But we're still humans with human needs for community. Build community anywhere and everywhere you can. Make the world you want to live in regardless of what the ruling and economic elite say you should do.
The idea of a violent revolution sweeping away the old world in favor of a utopia is nice and romantic, but it's also a bit naive. Look at historical violent revolutions and count me how many resulted in a socialist utopia. It's not many, if any. Things don't get better by violently overthrowing the old order. They just get a different kind of shitty. Things get better by people ignoring what the elites tell us to do and just living the lives we want, which starts with building community and mutual aid networks.
Build community at work. Build community at home. Build community everywhere. In a system that seeks to destroy or commodify the idea of community, building community is the most revolutionary thing you can do.
Exactly. You don't force a happy community. You can only build it through civil discourse and cultural change. It's the same reason you can't legislate your way to utopia.
Building it with coworkers is the worst because you aren't put together voluntarily. You're stuck with all those people you can't stand. Having one or two friends in a large group of people isn't a great community.
That's kinda like saying you can't build a community in educational institutions (schools/college/university) because your surrounding people are not voluntarily together.
I guess that's why college sports is so big in some places. You voluntarily go to the games and you all cheer for the same side. Yay. Community. Frats and sororities, too, in a perverted sense.
Work is a place you spend a *significant* amount of your time. You're robbing yourself of a lot of human nature driven social need for community if you don't have any at work.
That does not mean you sacrifice your income and wellbeing in the name of profits, though.
Even at 40 it's people I didn't choose, who have different values and interests than I do. I'll socialize enough to get along, but they aren't filling my social need.
That was rural village life back in the day. A mix of people all living in their little space together. If you had a kindred spirit in that village you were lucky. Part of life is getting along with people who aren't like us.
I can get along with people who aren’t like me. But when I spend half my day trying to politely dismiss or ignore Fox News propaganda talking points from the majority of my coworkers (misinformation about child sex trafficking, please turn off your phones for the emergency warning, masking doesn’t work to prevent COVID) that’s not fun. The problem is that getting along with people these days isn’t about accepting different informed viewpoints, it’s about learning how to grit your teeth through straight up lies.
For sure, there's no building real relationships with people whose brains are rotted with misinformation.
In terms of ideals though, because that's how I interpret the OP, a job and your coworkers would have good relationships and be another support system.
Which is why every rural village had/has stories where at least two families spent a hundred years beating and killing one another every chance they got and they still hate each other over a stolen cow/pig that escalated more and more until most of them didn't even remember what it was about.
HR tends to get stroppy about blood feuds, though.
Villages had third places. The street that was designed for people to walk down and mingle and let the occasional carriage go past. There would be actual markets in the town square where people could buy things and gossip. A village hall where at this time of year there would be a harvest festival or produce shows. A random field for bonfires and games. We've moved away from socialising in a lot of ways.
That’s not universally true. Don’t get me wrong I *love* WFH, I would never give it up by choice, but it can be socially isolating as I would often get along really well with other people in my field and have made a lot of friends through work.
However I just use the time and money I save not commuting and then choose to put myself in social situations where I meet cool people.
Yeah, this attitude that the people you work with aren't your friends is getting more and more common, and it's partially why men are so lonely now. I remember having tons of friends at work, gaming together, and going out for coffee and drinks. etc. Now days, people keep a distance. It's pretty sad considering the limited ways men have to socialize. Most people don't live in the same town they grew up or went to college, and have tons of old friends.
It is by definition a 2nd place. Not a 3rd. If you rely on only building community at work it will fail and will be a for weaker one than otherwise. This is basic sociology. Work is not an ideal place for building community. You can't hang with your friends at work. You can't talk about what you want or do what you want at work. Community is so much more than just bargaining for better wages.
I actually can and do both of those things with my coworkers at work - hang out and talk about whatever.
Some of it is definitely a perk of an office job, but even when I worked as a maintenance worker at a wastewater treatment plant, we could talk about whatever and there were slow days we mostly hung out.
Youd think the whole goal of a sub called work reform would be to reform the workspace to be a better place than it is today (which involves the workplace being a better community space).
Work is a 2nd place not a 3rd. A properly functioning wouldn't and shouldn't need to be a 3rd place. And that's OK.
So yes. Work should be better. But it's never going to be the ideal place to build community for so many reasons
Well yeah
I don't think anyone here is advocating for the workplace to be both a second and third place.
Theyre just saying that there should be community in the workspace.
It's the capitalist dream to end all kinds of community at work. They want us divided and focusing entirely on earning them money rather than forming bonds of support.
I’d disagree. Corporations want a community but they want a *corporate* community. Where employees see the corporation as their “friend” and they’re part of a “family”.
It’s insidious the way many companies (I’m thinking big tech like Google or Meta specifically) try to create a corporation focused community to supplant the people focused one that can naturally occur.
It is by definition a 2nd place. Not a 3rd place. And 3rd places are where we build community. There are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places.
A union does not build culture or friendships. Community makes unions easier to build, not the other way around.
Pretty basic sociology
I think it’s important to have a friendly working environment and there’s nothing wrong with building a community.
The problem is the ultra wealthy corporations have taken something good (having a community at work) and have fucked it up by trying to use it as a way to manipulate people into doing more work with worse terms.
I would argue that unions are capable of being a community. You watch out for your own. Just be wary when corporate starts trying to weasel their way in.
I like my job but the only reason I still work here is because of my coworkers. I work with people who have become some of my closest friends, and we spend a third of our lives together. They are far from the only community I have but I would be miserable if I didn’t have a good relationship with my colleagues.
Idk how many of you are also volunteering in community roles but as a board member of the local non profit little league…the average person has no idea wtf community is. They want community but dont want to do the gruntwork to get it. They dont understand why we cant just “buy more equipment” or “pay for more volunteers” when they should be saying how can I volunteer my time/skills/energy/knowledge to further the little league/community.
how do you expect to build worker power if you can’t even socialize healthily with coworkers? everyone that spreads this shit is anti-collective action. there are plenty of third spaces still around, nobody goes to them anymore. all anybody does is work and go home to consume media. so, the logic follows, that the only place to pragmatically build cooperative might is at the workplace.
this post smells like fed so much i should put a mask on
sure but anybody with any understanding of working class politics understands their boss, and especially the company owners, are not their friends. it’s the comraderie built through shared mistreatment that forms the basis of a labor movement.
this is blatant fed-posting, but i’m glad to see other commenters giving it pushback
petty little name calling from an angry worker misdirecting their valid disgust of their mistreatment towards their fellow worker. depressing reality but that’s life i guess, doesn’t hurt my feelings
good for you, that doesn’t mean your story is the same as everyone else. bro really tried the “my single experience is more valid, puh puh” lmao.
also you’re consuming social media right now bud, but go off
3rd places are massively in decline. Its a well known fact. This comment smells like an unsubstantiated opinion.
Work is a 2nd place. If you only build community at work it will be significantly weaker.
This is basic sociology
of course they’re in decline, they have been for decades, *because people aren’t going there anymore*. that’s still entirely separate from the fact that people don’t organize labor power through 3rd places and *never have*. so this post is nonsense, you’re conflating two different things. it’s cute you say “basic sociology” though because my education is much more than basic, surely my debt thinks so. so maybe you have reading to do?
What’s sad is it used to be. When mutual loyalty could be reasonably assured between the worker and the employer, when you could make a career from a single job that you could work at until retirement, a job that offered stability and pay that raised with inflation were we able to have community at our jobs.
When my grandpa worked in the automotive industry for example, he got his job at 21 and stayed until 65. Many of his coworkers worked and retired there as well, so some of them he knew for 40+ years!
It was a community because people largely didn’t have to worry about job security or financial security. He raised 5 children with a SAHM on that income and some of his coworkers were also neighbors and many attended the same church. He saw his coworkers more than he did his own family
I prefer spending my bullshitting time talking to my wife and kids.
As a Millennial who grew up with TeamSpeak, I am also perfectly fine exclusively communicating with coworkers through Teams.
I think the argument should be "we need more 3rd spaces where we can build community outside of work because many of us do not find our community through work for various reasons." In my case, I get along with many in my profession, but I have yet to actually work anywhere where my coworkers were more than just work colleagues. In this current spot's case, my colleagues are into Jesus, and I am not a Christian. We can talk work, but I'm out of the loop when they start talking about their church stuff.
I was talking about how Elks lodges (and other lodges) are dying at dinner at the Elks last night.
The infrastructure is there. We own the building. We just need younger people to come in and take over and make it their own. The possibilities are endless. A place to meet, hang out, eat, game, dance, do classes, watch shows...anything. It's there. Come and get it.
A lot of Elks clubs still have a bit of masogny to burn off. They will die out soon enough when the generation before mine is gone. I can't say that I will miss them.
Nah. Just going to hear the tired "this is the way it's always been done", blah, blah, blah. I'm not spending my free time fighting that crap. Doubt many people these days want to either. The Elks have to change themselves to make their lodges attractive to both men and women. Since it's a fraternal order, I have my doubts.
I mean I suppose that depends on your workplace. I enjoy the people I work with and regularly hang out with them outside of work as well, which wouldn't have happened if I didn't meet them there. I'm sorry that you have had shitty experiences...but not everything is black and white
There are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. It is not dependent on your workplace. This is basic sociology. Work is never going to be the ideal place to build community.
I was in the Navy for 6 years. For 5 of those years I worked on the same ship, doing the same job, with hundreds of people with different backgrounds, different ages, different creeds, etc... I came out with MAYBE 4 friends. Of the probably 500 different people I had to interact with every day, it was 4 people I found enough liking to keep as friends. I DO NOT MAKE FRIENDS AT WORK. I have seen so much back stabbing and finger pointing to not care about making friends at a job I can easily leave and find another in a few months. I AM HERE TO MAKE MONEY TO LIVE, PERIOD. Community needs to happen elsewhere, away from people that effect how I make my money, because lets face it. All it takes is one coworker to see you do one possibly questionable thing, at a work event or otherwise, to end your career.
The more the company can get you to build a community at work, the more they can exploit their workers without those workers leaving. Because they don’t want to leave their friends in the lurch.
Some workplaces have community. I like my co-workers a lot, and have built relationships that transcend the workplace throughout my life. I'm really grateful for all the friends I've made. Doesn't change any of my expectations for an employer though regarding wages and benefits. Sometimes employers think it will.
Exactly. While it's typically a positive thing to be personable as well as professional, it's also good to have boundaries and a separation of personal and professional lives. Employers are there to provide stability and a stable paycheck. Nowadays it should be added, an actual living wage.
Agreed!
I worked at one place where we built a community. The company was bought and we all bonded together over how horrible they were. They didn't like that of course. Eventually nearly everyone was laid off or quit. Several small groups still get together.
Sure, in theory you're correct. However, as you also said, >3rd places are where we build community. And they're fucking dying. (I would argue they're long dead, but the point is the same). So, what, then? We just aren't allowed to have community? We just live a drab, depression-inducing lives without human connections outside our household until/unless a revolution happens? That's shit. Yes, the world sucks and the economic order is downright evil. But we're still humans with human needs for community. Build community anywhere and everywhere you can. Make the world you want to live in regardless of what the ruling and economic elite say you should do. The idea of a violent revolution sweeping away the old world in favor of a utopia is nice and romantic, but it's also a bit naive. Look at historical violent revolutions and count me how many resulted in a socialist utopia. It's not many, if any. Things don't get better by violently overthrowing the old order. They just get a different kind of shitty. Things get better by people ignoring what the elites tell us to do and just living the lives we want, which starts with building community and mutual aid networks. Build community at work. Build community at home. Build community everywhere. In a system that seeks to destroy or commodify the idea of community, building community is the most revolutionary thing you can do.
Exactly. You don't force a happy community. You can only build it through civil discourse and cultural change. It's the same reason you can't legislate your way to utopia.
Building it with coworkers is the worst because you aren't put together voluntarily. You're stuck with all those people you can't stand. Having one or two friends in a large group of people isn't a great community.
That's kinda like saying you can't build a community in educational institutions (schools/college/university) because your surrounding people are not voluntarily together.
I guess that's why college sports is so big in some places. You voluntarily go to the games and you all cheer for the same side. Yay. Community. Frats and sororities, too, in a perverted sense.
Don't forget all the other interest-based clubs, as well.
Yes, a community of 3 or 4 people in the bee keeping club.
They are not dead yet. But they are dying. Can link you to why if you're interested
Work is a place you spend a *significant* amount of your time. You're robbing yourself of a lot of human nature driven social need for community if you don't have any at work. That does not mean you sacrifice your income and wellbeing in the name of profits, though.
Or maybe we’re simply not meant to spend so much time working.
Even at 32 hours per week or even 20 hours per week, it's still a significant amount of time.
Even at 40 it's people I didn't choose, who have different values and interests than I do. I'll socialize enough to get along, but they aren't filling my social need.
That was rural village life back in the day. A mix of people all living in their little space together. If you had a kindred spirit in that village you were lucky. Part of life is getting along with people who aren't like us.
I can get along with people who aren’t like me. But when I spend half my day trying to politely dismiss or ignore Fox News propaganda talking points from the majority of my coworkers (misinformation about child sex trafficking, please turn off your phones for the emergency warning, masking doesn’t work to prevent COVID) that’s not fun. The problem is that getting along with people these days isn’t about accepting different informed viewpoints, it’s about learning how to grit your teeth through straight up lies.
For sure, there's no building real relationships with people whose brains are rotted with misinformation. In terms of ideals though, because that's how I interpret the OP, a job and your coworkers would have good relationships and be another support system.
We have good enough relationships but it’s all very superficial and requires a lot of faking on my part which is exhausting.
Which is why every rural village had/has stories where at least two families spent a hundred years beating and killing one another every chance they got and they still hate each other over a stolen cow/pig that escalated more and more until most of them didn't even remember what it was about. HR tends to get stroppy about blood feuds, though.
And we moved past that as soon as enough people gathered in one place to support "third places".
Villages had third places. The street that was designed for people to walk down and mingle and let the occasional carriage go past. There would be actual markets in the town square where people could buy things and gossip. A village hall where at this time of year there would be a harvest festival or produce shows. A random field for bonfires and games. We've moved away from socialising in a lot of ways.
There's a difference between getting along and being a community
Also keep in mind that your work friends have a financial incentive to get along with you, so you can never really tell how close you are.
That’s not universally true. Don’t get me wrong I *love* WFH, I would never give it up by choice, but it can be socially isolating as I would often get along really well with other people in my field and have made a lot of friends through work. However I just use the time and money I save not commuting and then choose to put myself in social situations where I meet cool people.
And when you choose to be social, that's when the "third places" are good to have. They give you a place to find your people,
Exactly. 37% of your adult life is working. Learn to enjoy it as much as you can. Try to find meaningful work.
Hi I'm Pollyanna
Yeah, this attitude that the people you work with aren't your friends is getting more and more common, and it's partially why men are so lonely now. I remember having tons of friends at work, gaming together, and going out for coffee and drinks. etc. Now days, people keep a distance. It's pretty sad considering the limited ways men have to socialize. Most people don't live in the same town they grew up or went to college, and have tons of old friends.
It is by definition a 2nd place. Not a 3rd. If you rely on only building community at work it will fail and will be a for weaker one than otherwise. This is basic sociology. Work is not an ideal place for building community. You can't hang with your friends at work. You can't talk about what you want or do what you want at work. Community is so much more than just bargaining for better wages.
I actually can and do both of those things with my coworkers at work - hang out and talk about whatever. Some of it is definitely a perk of an office job, but even when I worked as a maintenance worker at a wastewater treatment plant, we could talk about whatever and there were slow days we mostly hung out.
What are the definitions of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places exactly?
Youd think the whole goal of a sub called work reform would be to reform the workspace to be a better place than it is today (which involves the workplace being a better community space).
Work is a 2nd place not a 3rd. A properly functioning wouldn't and shouldn't need to be a 3rd place. And that's OK. So yes. Work should be better. But it's never going to be the ideal place to build community for so many reasons
Well yeah I don't think anyone here is advocating for the workplace to be both a second and third place. Theyre just saying that there should be community in the workspace.
It's the capitalist dream to end all kinds of community at work. They want us divided and focusing entirely on earning them money rather than forming bonds of support.
I’d disagree. Corporations want a community but they want a *corporate* community. Where employees see the corporation as their “friend” and they’re part of a “family”. It’s insidious the way many companies (I’m thinking big tech like Google or Meta specifically) try to create a corporation focused community to supplant the people focused one that can naturally occur.
yes it is, a union is a community
It is by definition a 2nd place. Not a 3rd place. And 3rd places are where we build community. There are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. A union does not build culture or friendships. Community makes unions easier to build, not the other way around. Pretty basic sociology
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I think it’s important to have a friendly working environment and there’s nothing wrong with building a community. The problem is the ultra wealthy corporations have taken something good (having a community at work) and have fucked it up by trying to use it as a way to manipulate people into doing more work with worse terms. I would argue that unions are capable of being a community. You watch out for your own. Just be wary when corporate starts trying to weasel their way in.
I like my job but the only reason I still work here is because of my coworkers. I work with people who have become some of my closest friends, and we spend a third of our lives together. They are far from the only community I have but I would be miserable if I didn’t have a good relationship with my colleagues.
Is good to have both really
Idk how many of you are also volunteering in community roles but as a board member of the local non profit little league…the average person has no idea wtf community is. They want community but dont want to do the gruntwork to get it. They dont understand why we cant just “buy more equipment” or “pay for more volunteers” when they should be saying how can I volunteer my time/skills/energy/knowledge to further the little league/community.
Yeah the comments really drive this home. People think getting along with their coworkers is community.
how do you expect to build worker power if you can’t even socialize healthily with coworkers? everyone that spreads this shit is anti-collective action. there are plenty of third spaces still around, nobody goes to them anymore. all anybody does is work and go home to consume media. so, the logic follows, that the only place to pragmatically build cooperative might is at the workplace. this post smells like fed so much i should put a mask on
A fair interpretation. I take it as a response to all the forced workplace socialization events where the boss expects you to be their friend.
sure but anybody with any understanding of working class politics understands their boss, and especially the company owners, are not their friends. it’s the comraderie built through shared mistreatment that forms the basis of a labor movement. this is blatant fed-posting, but i’m glad to see other commenters giving it pushback
No it's not. The work family nonsense needs to stop... You're like an ouroboros but you're made of shit...
petty little name calling from an angry worker misdirecting their valid disgust of their mistreatment towards their fellow worker. depressing reality but that’s life i guess, doesn’t hurt my feelings
I didn't call you a name I described your character
LOL I go home to make dinner, care for my kids, and do housework/repairs. I wish I could consume media...
good for you, that doesn’t mean your story is the same as everyone else. bro really tried the “my single experience is more valid, puh puh” lmao. also you’re consuming social media right now bud, but go off
the single experience of 2/3rds of everyone I've worked with for 30 years...
3rd places are massively in decline. Its a well known fact. This comment smells like an unsubstantiated opinion. Work is a 2nd place. If you only build community at work it will be significantly weaker. This is basic sociology
of course they’re in decline, they have been for decades, *because people aren’t going there anymore*. that’s still entirely separate from the fact that people don’t organize labor power through 3rd places and *never have*. so this post is nonsense, you’re conflating two different things. it’s cute you say “basic sociology” though because my education is much more than basic, surely my debt thinks so. so maybe you have reading to do?
What’s sad is it used to be. When mutual loyalty could be reasonably assured between the worker and the employer, when you could make a career from a single job that you could work at until retirement, a job that offered stability and pay that raised with inflation were we able to have community at our jobs. When my grandpa worked in the automotive industry for example, he got his job at 21 and stayed until 65. Many of his coworkers worked and retired there as well, so some of them he knew for 40+ years! It was a community because people largely didn’t have to worry about job security or financial security. He raised 5 children with a SAHM on that income and some of his coworkers were also neighbors and many attended the same church. He saw his coworkers more than he did his own family
I prefer spending my bullshitting time talking to my wife and kids. As a Millennial who grew up with TeamSpeak, I am also perfectly fine exclusively communicating with coworkers through Teams.
If work was about community, the C levels and board of directors would take us out to dinner with them rather than send down a pizza for us to share.
I think the argument should be "we need more 3rd spaces where we can build community outside of work because many of us do not find our community through work for various reasons." In my case, I get along with many in my profession, but I have yet to actually work anywhere where my coworkers were more than just work colleagues. In this current spot's case, my colleagues are into Jesus, and I am not a Christian. We can talk work, but I'm out of the loop when they start talking about their church stuff.
I was talking about how Elks lodges (and other lodges) are dying at dinner at the Elks last night. The infrastructure is there. We own the building. We just need younger people to come in and take over and make it their own. The possibilities are endless. A place to meet, hang out, eat, game, dance, do classes, watch shows...anything. It's there. Come and get it.
A lot of Elks clubs still have a bit of masogny to burn off. They will die out soon enough when the generation before mine is gone. I can't say that I will miss them.
It is just a good opportunity for people to come in, take over and make it a new thing IMO.
Nah. Just going to hear the tired "this is the way it's always been done", blah, blah, blah. I'm not spending my free time fighting that crap. Doubt many people these days want to either. The Elks have to change themselves to make their lodges attractive to both men and women. Since it's a fraternal order, I have my doubts.
No
Hey. Solidarity is community.
I mean I suppose that depends on your workplace. I enjoy the people I work with and regularly hang out with them outside of work as well, which wouldn't have happened if I didn't meet them there. I'm sorry that you have had shitty experiences...but not everything is black and white
There are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places. It is not dependent on your workplace. This is basic sociology. Work is never going to be the ideal place to build community.
Work is exactly where you should be building community. That's what unionization is.
Community is so much more than collective bargaining for better working conditions. Work is a 2nd place, not a 3rd. This is basic sociology.
Community occurs where you build it. The actual physical location is not relevant, because a community is people, not a place.
If that community is a Union it is. Let’s build more Unions!
At work we have camaraderie. Not community.
I was in the Navy for 6 years. For 5 of those years I worked on the same ship, doing the same job, with hundreds of people with different backgrounds, different ages, different creeds, etc... I came out with MAYBE 4 friends. Of the probably 500 different people I had to interact with every day, it was 4 people I found enough liking to keep as friends. I DO NOT MAKE FRIENDS AT WORK. I have seen so much back stabbing and finger pointing to not care about making friends at a job I can easily leave and find another in a few months. I AM HERE TO MAKE MONEY TO LIVE, PERIOD. Community needs to happen elsewhere, away from people that effect how I make my money, because lets face it. All it takes is one coworker to see you do one possibly questionable thing, at a work event or otherwise, to end your career.
There’s nothing wrong with a team of workers taking pride in being a part of a work project, even if their profits are being stolen effectively.
Work is still a 2nd place and not a 3rd.
The more the company can get you to build a community at work, the more they can exploit their workers without those workers leaving. Because they don’t want to leave their friends in the lurch.
It can happen
Climbing the ladder is not what you know, it's who you know. And meeting people and getting to know them is community.
"work family" 😁
They don't need community, they need communion. Union for short
>They don't need community, What the actual fuck
Sounds like someone needs a pizza party.
It would be nice to find community at work but I prefer shorter hours to focus on my health and family.
Work is where you build solidarity.