5:01 and Done: No One Wants to Schmooze After Work

When forced to be in an office all day, you spend more time with coworkers than you do your own blood. Then on your days off, you gotta life and a family and a house & cars to upkeep. You think that Home Depot run's just doing it itself?

I don't have children, and I'll be dead honest, I have no idea how you who do get through it. Traffic, work, idiots sprinkled throughout, traffic, home, and then you have to be available to your family. Fucking Legends all of you, even the shitty parents.

"Drinks afterwork Friday!?" Fuck you Marge, I'm going home.

good. nobody is getting promoted or extra benefits this year anyway.

Companies when trying to get workers to bond: "We're a family, we take care of each other!"

Companies when workers ask for cost-of-living increases: "No, not like that"

Also wages are shit compared to inflation. I don't know how anyone can afford to eat out and have drinks unless they are killing it.

Eh I don’t mind a schmooze.

More than once a month? No. Weekends? No. Mandatory? Hell no, but I think that a bit of camaraderie goes a long, long way when dealing with iffy clients or just generally.

I don’t think work is “family” but it should definitely be a team. That’s just good for everyone. Raising a pint every so often definitely helps that along.

So let me get this right….

It’s newsworthy that people don’t want to hang around their office and/or coworkers after work? People who get ally have seen the last few years shred their savings, who face continuous increases in the cost of living, and in America, no meaningful social protections, and very little vacation or freedom with their time and agency….don’t want to spend more time at their office?

Shocking, I say! Harrumph harrumph I’ve dropped my manacle, I’m so angry.

God I hate these events. My company took a stance where it gives every team $100 per head that expire at the end of every second quarter and life couldn’t be better. We’re a small team of 5 people so we just use the money to occasionally feast or buy every team member a PS5 in order and we couldn’t be happier that our HR isn’t forcing us to attend company events.

If you’re in position of power please promote something similar, your employees will thank you

Honestly we need to move back towards making friends in our communities and not our workplace. I don't know how it happened but the way we've managed to only have friends from work while not knowing the name of our neighbor should never have been the norm. Of course this works out perfect for the nolifers who always get the promotions, and the bosses who need their asses kissed to function.

Always hated this expectation.

Particularly outrageous scenario 20 years ago, I was just getting started and was basically a limited hour part time employee making a bit more than minimum wage, but the office culture was dominated by people well into six figure salary. So they would act all shocked when us lowly folks would tend to decline when they said everyone needed to go to a $100 a plate for an after-work dinner (of course the company wouldn't pay for any of this, but who doesn't have the spare money to piss away $100 for a plate of food with colleagues every couple of weeks?)

ITT: I don't want to ever socialize with my co-workers Also: How do you make friends as an adult?

Look I'm not a huge fan of forced socialization myself. I HATE small talk. I'm looking for the door before I have the first drink in my hand at "networking events". But I also know one of the biggest opportunities I have to meet new people as an adult is at at work. So I choose the situation carefully to make sure it's one I'm comfortable with and I give it a go. I've made a few lasting friends, people I play soccer with, people I invite over my house, people who my other friends got tight with, and over all growing my social group. A number of them don't even work for the same company anymore, or in my immediate office at least.

I'm not saying to do anything you don't want to do, and forced fun can suck, but if you DO want to meet people in life and make friends, don't force-limit your opportunities to interact with new people. Pick, or even suggest!, the situation that works for you.

Honestly I never did this in the past 20 years of work. Maybe a few office parties outside of work hours. But the whole "Have your boss or subordinate over for dinner" BS was never my thing.

TBH I truly think it was a boomer invention that died in the 80s, because nobody I know ever did anything like this willingly.

My work does a decent job of doing the event during working hours or at the very least starting within work hours. So a work event starts at 3PM, people can bail at 5PM or stay longer if they want.

Fuck work. They gotta bribe me to be there, I’m putting in minimal time and effort. Fuck all that bullshit.

I don't really even want to talk to my co-workers during work hours. It's not that I dislike them, it's just that I don't care. I'm not interested in making friends, I am there to get paid. Just let me get my shit over with and let me go home. Thankfully, my work allows me to wear noise-cancelling earbuds the entire time I'm in the office unless someone can't contact me over Slack for some reason.

Mandatory office happy hours or team dinners should be paid time. If not, events should be held during work day hours.

16:53 rounds up to 17:00.

I hate bars, like really really hate them. I don't understand how to behave there. Everyone else seems to innately know how to be appropriately inappropriate, just the right level of rowdy. I like lounges, and the occasional club. But I never got the hang of bar social etiquette. So I CERTAINLY don't want to add the extra layer of complexity by putting my colleagues and bosses right the fuck there next to me. It's just awful for me and I know I'm not the only one. Especially since I cut out 99% of my drinking. Fuck that, I just want to go home.

Ah yes I can decide between spending time with my wife and children or hanging out with coworker talking about work I've just been in for 8 hours. What a hard choice

I am happy with my job. I am paid a fair wage for the work I do. I am given a ton of leeway with arriving late/leaving early to accommodate my kids and their various goings on. All in all, it's a great arrangement.

I am still out the door at the very minute my shift ends. Not a second later.

Lustre, not luster. But I digress, I wish I had a better social connection with office colleagues, but yeah, everyone has to travel long distances to get home and they all have families and other responsibilities, it's impossible to socialise unfortunately.

Even when it is possible, usually colleagues are a disparate bunch with wildly different interests and personalities, and probably wouldn't make great friends anyway, as nice and professional as they all are at the office.

It's very depressing and lonely, but yeah. It seems like the older you get, the more impossible it is to make a friend.

You doing 1 minute overtime? Why?

Nobody likes forced fun.

These events are a way for the employer to get free labour out of their employees as you'll most likely be talking about your similar interest which is work.

Nobody wants to spend time with the kind of people who don't want to go home after work.

We all know the type with their overly loud laughing at the bosses jokes.

My workplace has a no alcohol policy so there is no such thing as after work beers

I like my coworkers but work already doesn't leave me enough time at home for projects and hobbies and relaxing. No way I am spending extra time away after work.

I like how everyone they interview for this is someone no one really wants to hang out with. They sound nice but come on. If a fat dude who wears an LSU jersey to work every Friday is ever like, “I’m gonna be cooking some shit up in the park next Wednesday after work. Got a keg. Come on by on your way home.” we’d all go get a plate.

Hang with people I barely know on a personal level after work? Why would I do that? I've got another full-time job waiting for me: Life/parent. I barely have time for my own family, let alone a work 'family'.

On one hand, I'm a bit bummed out that my generally positive workplace culture has all but completely evaporated in the wake of the pandemic and nobody wants to even come in to the office anymore, let alone mingle or hang out after work. I genuinely enjoyed the company of a few of my co-workers and even though I was definitely a 5:01-and-done kind of guy, I would still make an effort to be friends with the ones that I liked outside of a professional setting.

On the other hand, I absolutely cannot blame anybody for not wanting to put in the social effort. For a long time I was a "fuck it, it's quittin' time, I'm out of here!" person and I would blow out of the office after flatly rejecting my co-workers requests to hang after work because I just didn't like to socialize that much back then, and I would resent people who were pushy about going out for drinks or staying out really late at night. Despite the fact that I do enjoy doing those things now that I'm older, I don't want to be "that guy" to anyone else, and I refrain from judging anybody for declining to socialize after work. Maybe they are introverted and shy? Maybe they don't want to catch COVID? Maybe they have a kid to go home to? Maybe they just don't like my company and they want to go home and read a book or something? Whatever it is, it's none of my business, so more power to those people.

The only people staying after work for any reason, be it social or overtime, are the parents avoiding their kids. They make everyone else look bad, but it's them who should be shamed.

I clock out at 5 because I've gotta get to my other job.

No one has time. I got shit to do, errands to run. Kids to pick up 39 min ago.

Are they gonna pay me for the time I spend at these "social events? No? Eat a bag o' dicks then.

I stay as long as possible because I don't want to go home to my abusive wife.

Sometimes I can't sleep on Sundays because I'm so excited to go to work the next day.

I wouldn't even consider a job that expects me do this shit.

Maybe if work is buying me drinks but otherwise, no thanks to awkward interactions with coworkers after hours.

I never get invited anyway.

Ah that's fair.

Yeah had a few of those. They were always carefully written as "optional" but it was definitely a Convo piece of you didn't show up.

I typically showed face for an hour or two, had one beer, sucked up and left. Which is what I'm assuming everyone else did too