u/midorijade

So my company has had this big push to end remote work and get employees to come back to the office full time. Nobody is particularly happy about it.

The last couple of years the office has been fairly empty and quiet most days. So people that still worked in the office got used to the quiet and space. Now the office is filled with people and virtually every desk is taken. We also had an office redesign a couple of years ago and it's open concept. There are no cubes or dividers between desks.

It seems like the people that have worked remotely the last couple of years have forgotten basic office etiquette. Like taking calls on speaker phone in the middle of the open desk areas or talking loudly in general or coming up to people and just wanting to chat for a really long time. Or leaving messes in the breakroom. Or leaving sensitive documents out in the open when they're not at their desk. We've had people walk by and grab pens or post-its from people's desks when they're not there. That happens more on the people with desks on the end.

Sometimes it seems like a couple people think if they make enough of a nuisance of themselves they'll be allowed work remotely again. But there is a good bit of conflict and resentment building between the people who enjoyed the calm office and the people who have forgotten to ne good office neighbors.

Does anyone have any recommendations for an office etiquette training/class or resources to help people adjust to being in office again and being respectful of other people's space and time and shared office space? Or any advice about how you handled similar situations for RTW?

I'm at that point in my life where my friends have seriously dwindled. They live elsewhere or we're no longer friends because our priorities are different or we no longer have things in common or they've passed away. And it's been a real struggle to meet new people these days.

I'm single and child free and live in mid-sized city with a big tourism industry so there are a lot of transitory people. I'm having a really difficult time meeting new people as friends and/or dating. Way more than I did previously. People always reccommend joining a sports team, but I don’t particularly enjoy sports and am actually pretty clumsy. My knees are also not great these days. Others say go to board game nights. I've done that and it's tough to learn a new games that are often pretty complex and try to learn about the other people and make friends at the same time. I've realized I don't especially enjoy board games.

Plus it's seems very disingenuous to pretend to like something, just to meet people.

I do trivia once a week, but I'm just hanging out with my team, not really meeting new people unless a teammate brings someone. I go to see live music frequently, but it seems like people don't chat with people outside of their group like they used to. I sew but there doesn't seem to be any meetups about that other than quilting and I don't enjoy doing that.

To be honest, I don’t even know where or how to find meetups or events these days. Everything is so scattered across FB, Instagram, and all kinds of other random apps. It's a part time job just to comb through the various apps.

How is everyone else meeting people? Especially if they don't live in a big city and are non-sporty. I don’t know if it's just me but people seem way more insular and unsociable post pandemic. Some of my closest friends I met just chatting at a concert or bar and now many people act like you're nuts for chatting with strangers.