We’ve asked work to become our community and friends, so now people are scared shitless of new models

Work is not family, and has never been family, and should not be confused with family, but unfortunately it often is. Why is that? In the simplest possible terms, the social bonds of yesteryear have largely been eroded by Netflix and fence lines — trite argument, I know, but still a real one — and people don’t have a standard community as much anymore, what with the decline of religion, the decline of standard dating for online, people moving wherever for work, the different ages that people enter BabyLand, etc. Or, as Ed Z. puts it in this newsletter:

The crucial thing is that these articles are giving the office way more credit than it deserves, but they are also assuming that the office should be where we grow socially. Work has continued to encroach on our personal time through a default acceptance that our colleagues are always our friends, and our work is our life, and that if we fail to do something at work it’s a personal failing rather than a professional. If we let down the company, we let down the family — and if we leave the company, we’re abandoning them versus leaving a bad situation or going into a better one.

We are expected to be “loyal” to a company, but that loyalty usually doesn’t go both ways, and is mostly judged by how willing…