This is interesting because there can be a fine line between camaraderie and insularism. A feel-good atmosphere among workers is good, but if it doesn't include everyone, it can lead to favoritism towards those in the group relative to those outside, and that's not good. This can be especially important when people who aren't part of the org at all come into the equation (e.g., leading to the classic experience where a customer gets the feeling they're being a bother by expecting employees to help them rather than continue their private banter).
I think it's healthy to have these off-topic spaces, but also important to make sure that everyone in the org has some such space that meets their needs, and that everyone understands where the line is for when you have to put the fun aside and do what needs to be done.
A very common specialisation of this is drinking culture. Some guys just plain don't drink and definitely don't drink as much as the drinking culture would require, some women bluntly don't feel safe around a bunch of guys getting drunk. Managers who drink can lead to this weird thing where going out drinking feels mandatory. Shout out to my last manager who definitely did drink and didn't have a drinking culture.
> it shows an understanding that people need to unwind and interact, and work ultimately benefits. Funny how it’s such an alien concept the moment work moves online.
Offline people were in the same building under direct watch from the employer. We badged to enter and leave the building, employers surely felt fully in control.
Online that physical boundary disappearing, the pendulum swings the other way for companies that try to grasp the remaining bits of control.
That's one of the reason I prefer fully online shops, they'll usually have made peace with it and structured themselves in saner ways.
> That's one of the reason I prefer fully online shops, they'll usually have made peace with it and structured themselves in saner ways.
There's also a 'tipping point'. If you have 9 out of 10 people in the office, they're just going to be human and chat about stuff in the office and meet in person and the 1 person not there is best viewed as someone to farm piece work out to rather than part of the team. Which is fine in some cases but different than:
If 9 / 10 people are remote, then everyone is using the online tools and has to buy into them and they're all an integral part of the team.
It can be ok if everyone is clear, and accepts that you're not really an equal part of the team, but someone who gets tasks and does them relatively independently. That kind of thing can work ok for the right person at the right time.
The problem is if you're trying to maintain the fiction that the one remote person is just like everyone else.
I agree with that. They're effectively a consultant who pops in from time to time and may be on calls. Which can be fine but everyone needs to be clear that's effectively what the situation is whether it's explicitly acknowledged or not.
We were talking about standup last week, and someone commented that we sometimes get a bit off track / into the weeds.
My response was that I'd much prefer we did this (talk about the surprises we're facing, or some interesting thing we stumbled across) than have it degrade to a pointless "yesterday I did x, today I will do y" where there's very little substance being communicated that isn't already evident from the Jira board.
What would be the point when they don’t know the answer themselves? The real answer is likely that they have to schedule meetings to make it look like they’re doing something as project managers, and to feel emotionally “in control” of the projects. But that truth is likely hidden from themselves via a layer of delusion.
> You can create as many Slack channels as you want, but all that is worthless if you don’t build the culture where it’s okay to use them.
Well the problem with corporate offtopic spaces is obvious: It is (potential) surveillance. One of the essential properties of the coffee kitchen at the office is that only you and the person who was there know what you said.
People at work will occasionally like to talk about things their collegues or bosses don't need to hear. That doesn't even mean it needs to be badmouthing others. Let's say you're really into model trains, it is easier saying that in person to the one other guy who acts a bit nerdy, than to announce it online in front of potentially everybody.
I leave it to you how you think this could be fixed.
Yeah, in a break room, you can see who's there and who you're talking to. It's not just surveillance, when you post in "#random" with the whole company there you need to post things that that resonate with everyone.
It doesn't involve groups, but I think DMs/1-1 chats are probably a better analogue for water cooler chats and I'd be even more surprised to see a company without those.
Accepting the possibility of committing the old "solving social problems with technological solutions" fallacy:
I wonder if an offtopic channel without history (or only a very limited one) could help here. Something that prevents management from scrolling up to identify the people who post too much. In my company I wouldn't even expect that (surveillance) to happen or have consequences but I always have the possibility in the back of my mind.
The kind of management that would trawl through history to check if I'm being too negative is the kind of management that would never allow this history to vanish.
That doesn't help with the "Who's listening?" problem. In an office kitchen you know exactly who is listening and can tailor your comments appropriately. In an online chat, it's not clear who is lurking or who will log on in 5 minutes and read back.
(Welcome to the site btw!)
I got some kind of summer flu the other day. It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer.
Oh, well, I don't really mind, it is one of the few times I rest and don't keep chipping away at my todo-list.
It sucks too though, because I also had plans with friends and it's harder to make new plans since many of my friends are teachers and start working soon, around the 20th.
> It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer.
Despite the name you don’t get sick from cold weather but from viruses that make you sick. During cold season we stay indoors more which increases our likelihood of being exposed to other people that are sick.
It's a phrase coined by Shakespeare in his play Cymbeline. As far as I know, it never had a basis in science but was a common belief.
During the Cold War, with the possibility of fighting in the USSR, the US Army conducted experiments with soldiers doing extended bivouacs outside in cold weather to see whether there was increased likelihood of sickness. They couldn't find any evidence that it did.
Your immune system underperforms when the body temperature goes down. It is not contact with people, the weather affects your immune system too.
> During cold season we stay indoors more which increases our likelihood of being exposed to other people that are sick.
For most people this is not really true nowdays. We work in the same offices and use the same kind of transport when going to the office. We shop in the same stores.
The seasonal lifestyle change is fairly miniscule.
There's new research that infrared radiation (mostly experienced when it's sunny and you're outside) helps mitochondrial function and boosts the immune system.
So there's at least 4 mechanisms:
- warmer = less likely to catch a cold
- more time outside = more UV which kills pathogens
- more time outside = less time spent exchanging pathogens with other people
- more time outside = more infrared radiation which boosts the immune system
Not many people know this, only myself and a few of my clan, but reflected photons are actually no longer quantumly entwined with the sun, bouncing off of normal matter de-entangles them.
Thus they become robbed of their primary source of rejuvenating power!
We've been working on a device to try to force re-entanglement for centuries. Once done, we will be able to get the proper nutrition fed to us by the sun at all times.
Bob, our thirdmost clan member, has done some work with a non-portable device. He provides, for a small subscription fee, bottled water infused with re-tangled photons. We can ship this to you worldwide, but you need to act fast as they're trying to stop us, and ewW)@# <NOCARRIER>
I am no expert myself but it as far as I understand morning or late-afternoon sunlight’s red and near-infrared light boosts mitochondria and thus supports immunity.
> I asked one of my teammembers – what’s up with that? “Oh, you know, there’s a release coming up soon, nobody wants to give an impression that they’re dilly-dallying around instead of working.”
This is what I’d worry about too. Apart from this, I don’t know how the chats will be used, who else might have some kind of access to those (IT, HR), etc. The pervasive monitoring of all network traffic makes it all seem like always being under the view of a panopticon.
I love working remote and don’t really want to go to the office (a tiring commute is one of the reasons; not having as much flexibility is another). But I’d be wary of off topic channels on Slack or Teams or any company owned/managed platform.
Mostly good but the webcam part is way off the mark. Humans are hardwired to look at faces and interpret micro expressions to interpret situations. Author may laugh in text emojis only but not everyone does
That said enforced webcam on is obnoxious too. Best orgs in my experience are the middle ground places - lightly encouraged - so that one can decide meeting by meeting
I don’t see why my colleagues should be my friends. Then again I live in Germany and it seems to be very much not the culture to mix those two things here
I am German and this statement catches me by surprise. All of my friends from a lot of different fields would agree that workplace friends are a very important pillar of our lives.
I think there are many strategies to get your own needs met. Keeping friends and work separate doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy; it’s more about individual choice. My peers would not want to work in places without friendship.
"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, from the perspective of factory owner, it's best if strangers stay strangers. If they start getting buddy-buddy with each other not only you'll see workplace conflicts, but also they might organise and demand something.
If you paid attention to what I wrote you'd see a clear reason why having friends at work benefits you in capitalist globalist times, but I guess you're just antisocial, and you're trying to logic your way into that preference, instead of admitting that it's just a preference.
> someone who is not an enemy and who you can trust
Here's another:
> a person who you know well and who you like a lot
Don't you think it's beneficial to trust and like your colleagues? I personally find it helpful. Few of us do jobs of our dreams, so having friends at work is nice. You don't have to invite them to your birthday and family events to call them friends.
This. Its not really friendship (although sometimes it does turn into that too!) but a human connections. Understanding that the people that you’re working with are humans with hobbies, families and other interests makes it much more enjoyable to work with them. This is especially true for highly creative fields like Software Design. You’re also likely to create connections with people you may not work closely with (eg from Sales, from another team etc) that can lead to a better understanding of different perspectives of the company/product.
I used to work at a startup. Whenever I was bored I'd write short essays about random bullshit. Everyone enjoyed reading them. Then I moved to corporate. I immediately learned that corporate tries to, above everything else, minimize conflict. This means that anyone seen as conflict initiator will be punished heavily. This means that if my essay could be considered even remotely offensive to any of thousands employees, it will be, and I'll have problems. I learned to keep my mouth shut.
This is interesting because there can be a fine line between camaraderie and insularism. A feel-good atmosphere among workers is good, but if it doesn't include everyone, it can lead to favoritism towards those in the group relative to those outside, and that's not good. This can be especially important when people who aren't part of the org at all come into the equation (e.g., leading to the classic experience where a customer gets the feeling they're being a bother by expecting employees to help them rather than continue their private banter).
I think it's healthy to have these off-topic spaces, but also important to make sure that everyone in the org has some such space that meets their needs, and that everyone understands where the line is for when you have to put the fun aside and do what needs to be done.
A very common specialisation of this is drinking culture. Some guys just plain don't drink and definitely don't drink as much as the drinking culture would require, some women bluntly don't feel safe around a bunch of guys getting drunk. Managers who drink can lead to this weird thing where going out drinking feels mandatory. Shout out to my last manager who definitely did drink and didn't have a drinking culture.
[dead]
> it shows an understanding that people need to unwind and interact, and work ultimately benefits. Funny how it’s such an alien concept the moment work moves online.
Offline people were in the same building under direct watch from the employer. We badged to enter and leave the building, employers surely felt fully in control.
Online that physical boundary disappearing, the pendulum swings the other way for companies that try to grasp the remaining bits of control.
That's one of the reason I prefer fully online shops, they'll usually have made peace with it and structured themselves in saner ways.
> That's one of the reason I prefer fully online shops, they'll usually have made peace with it and structured themselves in saner ways.
There's also a 'tipping point'. If you have 9 out of 10 people in the office, they're just going to be human and chat about stuff in the office and meet in person and the 1 person not there is best viewed as someone to farm piece work out to rather than part of the team. Which is fine in some cases but different than:
If 9 / 10 people are remote, then everyone is using the online tools and has to buy into them and they're all an integral part of the team.
Yeah, I'm not sure 100% remote all the time is ideal but if you're the 1 in 10 person who is remote, that's probably not a good space to be in.
It can be ok if everyone is clear, and accepts that you're not really an equal part of the team, but someone who gets tasks and does them relatively independently. That kind of thing can work ok for the right person at the right time.
The problem is if you're trying to maintain the fiction that the one remote person is just like everyone else.
I agree with that. They're effectively a consultant who pops in from time to time and may be on calls. Which can be fine but everyone needs to be clear that's effectively what the situation is whether it's explicitly acknowledged or not.
So long as the in office folks are split between different offices in groupings of 1-2 you're fine
Then everyone is effectively remote which doesn't invalidate the point.
At Google, sometimes my manager and most of the team were at another office so we did a lot of video calls anyway.
We were talking about standup last week, and someone commented that we sometimes get a bit off track / into the weeds.
My response was that I'd much prefer we did this (talk about the surprises we're facing, or some interesting thing we stumbled across) than have it degrade to a pointless "yesterday I did x, today I will do y" where there's very little substance being communicated that isn't already evident from the Jira board.
Now just tell me why my company only demands the latter, despite the fact that I update my tickets the same way
Ask internally
What would be the point when they don’t know the answer themselves? The real answer is likely that they have to schedule meetings to make it look like they’re doing something as project managers, and to feel emotionally “in control” of the projects. But that truth is likely hidden from themselves via a layer of delusion.
> Take all the human element away from work and work degrades.
I used to not believe this before, but after COVID, I saw that this is how it is, at least for my personality
> You can create as many Slack channels as you want, but all that is worthless if you don’t build the culture where it’s okay to use them.
Well the problem with corporate offtopic spaces is obvious: It is (potential) surveillance. One of the essential properties of the coffee kitchen at the office is that only you and the person who was there know what you said.
People at work will occasionally like to talk about things their collegues or bosses don't need to hear. That doesn't even mean it needs to be badmouthing others. Let's say you're really into model trains, it is easier saying that in person to the one other guy who acts a bit nerdy, than to announce it online in front of potentially everybody.
I leave it to you how you think this could be fixed.
Yeah, in a break room, you can see who's there and who you're talking to. It's not just surveillance, when you post in "#random" with the whole company there you need to post things that that resonate with everyone.
It doesn't involve groups, but I think DMs/1-1 chats are probably a better analogue for water cooler chats and I'd be even more surprised to see a company without those.
Accepting the possibility of committing the old "solving social problems with technological solutions" fallacy: I wonder if an offtopic channel without history (or only a very limited one) could help here. Something that prevents management from scrolling up to identify the people who post too much. In my company I wouldn't even expect that (surveillance) to happen or have consequences but I always have the possibility in the back of my mind.
The kind of management that would trawl through history to check if I'm being too negative is the kind of management that would never allow this history to vanish.
That doesn't help with the "Who's listening?" problem. In an office kitchen you know exactly who is listening and can tailor your comments appropriately. In an online chat, it's not clear who is lurking or who will log on in 5 minutes and read back. (Welcome to the site btw!)
I got some kind of summer flu the other day. It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer.
Oh, well, I don't really mind, it is one of the few times I rest and don't keep chipping away at my todo-list.
It sucks too though, because I also had plans with friends and it's harder to make new plans since many of my friends are teachers and start working soon, around the 20th.
> It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer.
Despite the name you don’t get sick from cold weather but from viruses that make you sick. During cold season we stay indoors more which increases our likelihood of being exposed to other people that are sick.
It's a phrase coined by Shakespeare in his play Cymbeline. As far as I know, it never had a basis in science but was a common belief.
During the Cold War, with the possibility of fighting in the USSR, the US Army conducted experiments with soldiers doing extended bivouacs outside in cold weather to see whether there was increased likelihood of sickness. They couldn't find any evidence that it did.
Plus one of the joys of teaching is the September two day cold. You suddenly encounter all of those nice new variants of the common cold virus.
I mention this as the grandparent comment talks about friends in teaching.
Well, I also got mine from someone working at summer camp :)
Your immune system underperforms when the body temperature goes down. It is not contact with people, the weather affects your immune system too.
> During cold season we stay indoors more which increases our likelihood of being exposed to other people that are sick.
For most people this is not really true nowdays. We work in the same offices and use the same kind of transport when going to the office. We shop in the same stores.
The seasonal lifestyle change is fairly miniscule.
> It is not contact with people, the weather affects your immune system too.
Did you mean not _just_ contact with people? Many folks who isolated during covid saw a reduction in illnesses regardless of season.
Yeah, I meant just.
There's new research that infrared radiation (mostly experienced when it's sunny and you're outside) helps mitochondrial function and boosts the immune system.
So there's at least 4 mechanisms:
- warmer = less likely to catch a cold
- more time outside = more UV which kills pathogens
- more time outside = less time spent exchanging pathogens with other people
- more time outside = more infrared radiation which boosts the immune system
Hmm, that's interesting, I thought the causality is that when you're cold your body is busy generating heat so is worse at fighting of infections.
I think it’s more just that you’re inside a lot with other people, easing transmission.
that and less humidity in the indoor air, sedentary work doesn't help either, less blood-flow and it's harder for lymphocytes to fight off infections
Is this comment related to the article? Is this comment an off topic comment, to realize the goal of the article of having off topic conversations?
Yes, I thought it would be slightly cute to just comment something OT.
Especially since I'm home with the flu ;)
This might help. Or it might not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius
Calling their IRC-but-we-own-everything setup Slack has always amused and infuriated me in equal measure.
It doesn't help. I don't see how that's related to either the article or the comment.
Except of course that this Wikipedia article is off topic from other discussion, and thus fits with the article's theme of off topic discussion.
This is very good, did you know about it already of just searched for slack on wikipedia?
Nice little rabbit hole to keep me occupied for a few days, thx <3
Sad to hear but curious to know: before you got the flu, did you expose yourself to sunlight?
There are more and more studies showing how light helps our immune system.
Yes, outside everyday, summer is my season.
Although I prefer not being in direct sunlight I'm still in sunlight every day.
Interesting how sunlight is helpful, do you know/think it is the light in itself, vitamin D, both or something else?
My mistake, which in hindsight is obvious: I spent 3 days with a person at the end of their flu :)
Still worth!
Not many people know this, only myself and a few of my clan, but reflected photons are actually no longer quantumly entwined with the sun, bouncing off of normal matter de-entangles them.
Thus they become robbed of their primary source of rejuvenating power!
We've been working on a device to try to force re-entanglement for centuries. Once done, we will be able to get the proper nutrition fed to us by the sun at all times.
Bob, our thirdmost clan member, has done some work with a non-portable device. He provides, for a small subscription fee, bottled water infused with re-tangled photons. We can ship this to you worldwide, but you need to act fast as they're trying to stop us, and ewW)@# <NOCARRIER>
Futurama Fry: take-my-money.gif
stop entangling peoples brains
Where do I order?!?!?
I am no expert myself but it as far as I understand morning or late-afternoon sunlight’s red and near-infrared light boosts mitochondria and thus supports immunity.
Wow, that's really interesting, thx!
my mitochondria don't agree with your mitochondria
> I asked one of my teammembers – what’s up with that? “Oh, you know, there’s a release coming up soon, nobody wants to give an impression that they’re dilly-dallying around instead of working.”
This is what I’d worry about too. Apart from this, I don’t know how the chats will be used, who else might have some kind of access to those (IT, HR), etc. The pervasive monitoring of all network traffic makes it all seem like always being under the view of a panopticon.
I love working remote and don’t really want to go to the office (a tiring commute is one of the reasons; not having as much flexibility is another). But I’d be wary of off topic channels on Slack or Teams or any company owned/managed platform.
Might depend on the size of the company. At some point it morphs from tribe to nanny state. So off topic dies.
Mostly good but the webcam part is way off the mark. Humans are hardwired to look at faces and interpret micro expressions to interpret situations. Author may laugh in text emojis only but not everyone does
That said enforced webcam on is obnoxious too. Best orgs in my experience are the middle ground places - lightly encouraged - so that one can decide meeting by meeting
I don’t see why my colleagues should be my friends. Then again I live in Germany and it seems to be very much not the culture to mix those two things here
I am German and this statement catches me by surprise. All of my friends from a lot of different fields would agree that workplace friends are a very important pillar of our lives.
I think there are many strategies to get your own needs met. Keeping friends and work separate doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy; it’s more about individual choice. My peers would not want to work in places without friendship.
I haven't encountered a workplace where that would be tolerated
"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, from the perspective of factory owner, it's best if strangers stay strangers. If they start getting buddy-buddy with each other not only you'll see workplace conflicts, but also they might organise and demand something.
Okay well I live in capitalist times and not in a small village. I don't really care about the reason. I don't want to make friends at work
If you paid attention to what I wrote you'd see a clear reason why having friends at work benefits you in capitalist globalist times, but I guess you're just antisocial, and you're trying to logic your way into that preference, instead of admitting that it's just a preference.
False + projection
"Friend" has multiple definitions, including:
> someone who is not an enemy and who you can trust
Here's another:
> a person who you know well and who you like a lot
Don't you think it's beneficial to trust and like your colleagues? I personally find it helpful. Few of us do jobs of our dreams, so having friends at work is nice. You don't have to invite them to your birthday and family events to call them friends.
They don't need to be friends, but acknowledging the inter-human relationship is often appreciated.
This. Its not really friendship (although sometimes it does turn into that too!) but a human connections. Understanding that the people that you’re working with are humans with hobbies, families and other interests makes it much more enjoyable to work with them. This is especially true for highly creative fields like Software Design. You’re also likely to create connections with people you may not work closely with (eg from Sales, from another team etc) that can lead to a better understanding of different perspectives of the company/product.
I'd like to get along with the people I spend 8 hours a day with, personally.
You can get along with strangers. The alternative to friend is not enemy
I used to work at a startup. Whenever I was bored I'd write short essays about random bullshit. Everyone enjoyed reading them. Then I moved to corporate. I immediately learned that corporate tries to, above everything else, minimize conflict. This means that anyone seen as conflict initiator will be punished heavily. This means that if my essay could be considered even remotely offensive to any of thousands employees, it will be, and I'll have problems. I learned to keep my mouth shut.