It's not a matter of popularity. Some people need the interaction. Others like me hate it.
This is why making it flexible is so great. You could be in the office with other people who enjoy it, while people like me don't have to.
Even before the pandemic I would often hang at the office until 10pm because I could only get work done after the others left. I would get so stressed from all the distractions around me.
Sure, but sitting next to someone and being able to ask them questions is easy, quick, and natural. And often helps build relationships.
As is sitting in an area and seeing who everyone goes to ask questions, and even overhearing the discussions.
So someone can learn how to phrase questions, what are useful types of questions to ask, what types of questions get someone told to ‘do their own research’ vs gets in-depth help, etc.
For a junior, that is very valuable because they often literally don’t even know where to start.
For someone with more experience, they often either already know all these things, or know how to find them out pretty quickly even without the help of watching what is happening, yeah?
That’s a fault of the existing teammates. I always prioritize 1:1 with new members in my team or my sister teams and make myself available for any onboarding or technical questions.
Yeah I'm just totally not a team player anyway. I would avoid such interactions in the office too, by picking another floor. I'm not a mother hen. Other people are and they like to be that, so it's much better that they do it. They also do this over Teams by the way.
I always maneuver myself into such a place that I have something to work on for myself.
The issue is that folks like newbies on the team end up left out, and when everyone is off doing their own thing there is often no actual team - which shows up in a lot of non-obvious ways.