As long as I still have a quiet, private office and don't spend an hour+ per day in traffic and am not expected to give up evenings for "not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics" office happy hours, I don't care where I work.
Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.
In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner/late meal. It gave me a chance to say "thanks" and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.
I can't do that anymore! I've don't virtual HH, but it isn't the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to "bond with your team" and "say thanks in a meaningful way" - cost be damned.
As a side note, politics suck. I really like WFH. Working long hours is bad - bonding is good.
> I would reward them with HH and dinner/late meal.
Maybe your team would appreciate a $200 gift card instead of HH + dinner/late meal, especially when some people don't drink or prefer healthy meals instead of steakhouses.
Not everyone of course, and one should be attentive to and accommodating of teammates that feel that way. But surely “let’s knock off at three today and go down the pub, thanks for all the hard work” is a positive for most people?
"Thanks for all the hard work, let's knock off at three today" Is a positive.
"Let's go down to the pub" is still capitalizing on my time. It's still work, just the location has changed. And in the past it has often started at 3 and then kept going and going until way later than if I'd just worked out my day.
There is always some idealism around it like "oh if you don't drink you don't have to, just come hang out for a bit" or "you don't have to stay late you can leave early" but in practice people aren't actually that understanding. You try to head home and it's all "you're not having a good time?" Or "you're not a team player"
I can't believe that's real life for some people. I would never drink with someone who has "team player" in their dictionary unironically. That being said, the vast majority of my coworkers, all of them actually, are not robots like that. If they were, I would find a new job fast. If you are in a place like this currently, there are greener pastures my friend. Seek them out. Find people who don't care that you go home to beat traffic instead of hitting up the bar. They exist.
An argument could be made that non-pub goers are still excluded from some kind of reward or compensation. If the buyer was spending their own personal money that might be one thing, but more often than not the funds come out of company expenses.
In consulting companies I've worked for (and I'm inclined at least in part to agree) it would be argued that it is not necessarily equivalent to compensation since work is usually talked about in some capacity at these events.
That's why they don't mind paying for these, because it is seen as additional collaboration/problem solving time. but they 100% would not be okay with handing out additional money to those who do not wish to attend.
Edit: To clarify as well, I don't think people should feel forced or inclined to attend these events for whatever reason they wish, this is just the argument I know and quite literally is in onboarding training I've taken.
> But surely “let’s knock off at three today and go down the pub, thanks for all the hard work” is a positive for most people?
Definitely not.
1. I am not fond of drinking with workmates. An occasional, incidental, one-on-one or not much more: OK. In groups ("teams"): no thanks, this isn't school, we are not students, so no pseudo school party.
2. I abhor having drinks with people who have any kind of hierarchical power upon me.
who hurt you?
obviously don't get too drunk with coworkers, but do you know there is a way to have a drink or two and not turn it into a fraternity event
>> 2. I abhor having drinks with people who have any kind of hierarchical power upon me.
Funny thing is the opposite isn't great either. I've seen a startup that likes doing this. Except all the decision-makers are in SF, not at the field office. So HH at the field office means none of the participants have any real power to see your passion, hear your ideas, or conversely for you to learn from their wisdom. It is still bonding for the team, but the team site is all terminal dead-end jobs.
> Except all the decision-makers are in SF, not at the field office. So HH at the field office means none of the participants have any real power to see your passion, hear your ideas, or conversely for you to learn from their wisdom.
My experience has been that the opportunity to actually learn from people’s wisdom has little to do with their heirarchical position, though the opportunity to suck up by making a show of “learning from their wisdom” might.
You don't have to go to the pub. You can just say something like, "I better go home now and get ahead of the traffic, have a good time!" then proceed to find a new job if they actually give you flak from that.
Some people will bitch and complain about anything. You could hand out $20 bills to everyone you see and in a big enough group someone will gripe.
Imo the key is making sure you don’t create a perception that you punish or bully people for not participating. As evidenced by this thread, it’s easy to do even inadvertently.
Or Social Inequity Aversion? I don't like beer, so if you get it and I have to watch stupid sports and drink water, I don't want you to have your reward?
In many cases, yes. Others will complain that coworkers are asocial or they don’t feel an atmosphere of camaraderie.
It’s all part of the package if you manage people. As I said, you need to be careful to avoid behaving in a way that creates bad situations. (Ie I’m not advocating frat house behavior or alcohol culture at work)
Not for me. If I'm not working i'd rather do my hobbies, excercise, be with my friends or gf. And I dont enjoy sitting in a pub. I'll be more than glad to take a walk with a co-worker. Play some sports together etc, but I really really don't want to feel like I am doing a mandatory activity with my job. Either I am working or not.
Writing software in most companies is a team endeavor. If you can't handle interacting with others on a daily basis, find another industry. Better yet, start your own company.
I get away with being "The grumpy Scotsman", it's got the point that I don't even get invited which took some work but wouldn't have it any other way. I am still held in high regard at work and part of the furniture now. I just don't do that forced shit. It's not my personality.
THIS, 100% this. I don't want to be "social" with you, I don't want to "bond" with you, and I don't care about you as a human being. You are 100% just a queue of work tasks and a source of pay checks. The less I see, hear, or know about the other people on my team, the happier I am and the better off they are. WFH forever, don't mess with a good thing.
FWIW, I would hate working with someone like this. You don't have to be super active, socially, but treating the other people (and they _are_ people) on your team as just drones is a) not conducive to good collaboration and b) pretty damn rude.
It doesn’t have to be rude. Seeing it as rude is an imposition on those of us who don’t see it as rude.
I’m pretty antisocial, personally, and love it when my workmates get to the point and focus on the actual “drone”-tasks. Why? Because that is why I do software. I don’t do software because I love people. I don’t do software because I love the paycheck. I do software because I love software and every second away from focusing on the concerns of producing quality software just seems like a genuine waste of time. Even here on HN, it’s mostly an opportunity to safely experiment with “politics” in a way that isn’t totally exhausting.
I get that everyone is not like me, and I’m okay with that. I don’t expect everyone to have my preferences.
I’d personally prefer to be treated as a respected “drone” (now THAT seems rude) and I don’t really want to spend time on banter, unless it’s being used as a metaphor that can improve our collective output.
This is “fun.” This is why I “work” (it’s not work to me). Discussing requirements and problem solving solutions is great; it’s fun. Happy hour is “work” to me. Please don’t act like I’m rude just because I don’t share your preferences.
That's not really the same as not caring about your co-workers as human beings, though. I'm happy to leave introverts alone and not drag them to unhappy hour with me, but they're still worth something as people, and I'd still help them out if they e.g. got hospitalised and needed someone to bring them clothes and a book.
I interpreted "I don't care about you as a person" as "I don't think you have moral worth outside your instrumental value to me", which goes beyond rudeness and into questions of whether the person can be trusted at all.
As someone who as been on both ends of that spectrum at different points of my life, I’ll attempt to explain: your core concept is completely legitimate and understood, at least here in HN.
Presenting it as a clear-cut _you are a queue of work and paychecks_ is where it breeds conflict. For the royal you that description is merely a description and expresses no judgement, it is simply the _why_ of your intentional lack of interaction with your coworkers.
To the people on the other side, that description brings back the negative feelings they felt when a coworker that held that same opinion (not you) was unnecesarily rude at work and shielded his failings behind the _I don’t do people_ cover.
I realize that asking you to use the human touch (for lack of a better term) is asking you to have to “work” to cater to the social aspects that you are trying to not get involved with…
So instead I’ll posit that your last paragraph is a perfectly acceptable response to the eternal “want to join and be social” question. It’s innofensive yet firm, and it conveys your position in a concise way that nobody can really pick apart unless they want to make an scene and look bad.
First, I made friends with most people I worked with. I still see them years after I left the company.
So who do I not see, the ones who insisted I must follow their favourite sport teams, the ones who got so drunk on the weekend they could not remember what they did but thought I should have been with them. The one (thank goodness it was only one) who keep eyeing the high school girls while we were in our 30s and 40S. And last the ones who always had to go out for a smoke, I don't want to imagine what their places were like.
You can like some people, but some people you just do not want to be around when you are not being paid to work with them.
Seriously this is the best solution. Instead of after work, do a (virtual or not) HH at 3 on Friday. People don’t have to donate free time and will appreciate it much more.
My previous company had done mid-week outings (definitely not Fridays, people want to go home), where everyone in the team kicks off at 3PM, go see a movie together (the team splitting up based on what movie they wanted to see), then have a nice dinner, with games and prizes at the end at around 7PM. I won a Nintendo Switch one time. It wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon.
I think the problem with something like (specifically) Happy Hour is that it's really welcome by some employees, and really hated by others.
Imagine being one of the few Mormons, observant Muslims, or recovering alcoholics at a company that "rewards" your team with Happy Hours. Or being someone who's been sexually harassed or assaulted at previous events where coworkers drank too much.
I'm not suggesting that it's easy (or even possible) to plan a social event that's guaranteed to be welcomed by every member of a team. But I think events that focus or rely on alcohol as the means of team bonding can be a bad idea depending on the team.
Imagine just being someone who is an introvert and feels exhausted after hanging out with people 8 hours a day in an office, who really can't put up with being around other people for 12+ hours a day...
I'm much better with a long lunch + socialize and then piss off early from work as a reward.
What you describe, company sponsored fun times, sound a little toxic. But just buddies hanging out is a valuable option for people who need a social outlet. A lot of times, after undergrad and you move to a new city, it becomes exceedingly difficult to meet other people and make friends. You don't have to be friends with your coworkers, but if you are, even shitty jobs can feel a lot more bearable in my experience. In the beforetimes we had a standing happyhour. Some coworkers never showed up and that was fine. Some showed up but only drank water and that was also fine. If you work somewhere that alienates you instead of not caring at all about the highschool clicky bullshit, I'd run for the hills.
Following up late nights working by expecting people to attend an after-work event is not a benefit to the worker. As others have said, having a big team lunch and then sending them home is a benefit.
When I was single and in my 20s / early 30s I was a big fan of the happy hour / dinner option, but I'm old now and have a partner and a dog and even when I like my co-workers I'd rather just go home and be with them.
There are people who don't like to drink and there are people who are not allowed to drink due to their believe/health problem. And they are not minority-minority in some places
It's not even that. American work drinking culture is just not up to par. You're expected to pound coffee all day then go and drink on an empty stomach at 5 before you've eaten dinner. It's just not realistic.
Heaven forbid my first meal of the day is lunch and not breakfast.
People who have "normal" eating habits just can't understand.
As someone who never has drunk, it's fine. You just drink fizzy water, diet coke and free food or whatever and nobody gives a shit. It's a work happy hour, nobody should be getting drunk and nobody notices.
It excludes people like me who can't stand the idiot actions I see once people get drunk. And often once drunk they try to force me to drink with them. I had on more than one occasion used force to stop someone trying to force a drink onto me.
Worse, later they claim they would never do such a thing.
I have 30+ food allergies that developed as an adult (which includes alcohol). Yes, it's ridiculous. I literally cannot eat food that isn't prepared by me from a hilariously small and ever-shrinking list of approved ingredients. I also can't prepare food more than a day in advance due to a histamine intolerance (food grows in histamine count as it sits in the fridge), so roughly 50% of my free time is spent cooking, else I starve.
I find these kinds of social outings shitty because I'm invariably left out, asked why I'm left out, and now we're talking about my health issues. Politely declining is never met as well as you'd like it to be (people always insist), so either I forcefully decline so as to avoid option #2 (and people think I'm an asshole); or I take option #2 and talk about it, and am now sad because it sucks and will never stop sucking and I don't really like bringing it up.
Then, the following script: everyone gives the minimum pity, commensurate with social niceties. At least two people tell me about their experiences with food intolerances (not even remotely the same thing) and how they got over it (which is not possible with adult-developed food allergies), or they suggest that it's leaky-gut (not scientifically-proven to exist; god knows I've looked into it regardless), or suggest acupuncture, or some other pseudoscience bullshit. Now I get to either choose to tumble head-first into yet another unpaid lecture on the nuances of food allergies, and perhaps inform them as to why what they're suggesting isn't scientifically sound (which is bound to offend, no matter how nicely I say it, because pseudoscience and pop-science is believed with near-religious fervor; the best I'm gonna get is "agree to disagree," so it's not worth it). Or -- my preferred choice nowadays -- I nod and smile and thank them for their novel, sage advice, and tell them I'll be sure to contact the homeopath they suggested first thing tomorrow, as I'm sure that, finally, now, thanks to their intervention, my nightmare is about to come to an end.
At this point, an uncomfortable amount of people are listening to me. I mumble something about "and..uh...yeah." Someone stumbles to change the subject, the wheels of conversation spin in the mud for a while before finally getting back to normal -- and everyone subtly ignores me for the rest of the night, lest I bring down the mood or suck the air out of the room again.
I've been through this song and dance so many times, I'm completely over it and now just avoid it altogether. Which sucks, because now you're the social pariah that never wants to hang out (because virtually all social gatherings revolve around food). I want nothing more than to enjoy good food and drink with my friends and peers and to be happy and merry and well-fed and buzzed. That used to be my element.
It's a touchy subject, because prior to age 30, I was the biggest "foodie" and craft beer freak you've ever met. Finding a new restaurant or trying something I'd never eaten before was literally my favorite activity, period. I was legendary for my weight-to-ability-to-pound-food ratio (I've always been a stick).
Now, it's rice and chicken (no spices!) from here to the grave. Washed down with water, and nothing but. Coffee in the morning is fine -- thankfully, I'm not yet allergic to that (no OJ, though).
I hate that my best option is "lie and smile" -- saying "I'm not hungry" (when I'm actually starving, made worse by watching everyone else eat and enjoy the camaraderie that only a shared meal can bring, slowly losing blood sugar and trying in vain to combat the moodiness that always accompanies it); or "I need to wake up early" (as an excuse for no drinks; otherwise some asshole pressures you to drink anyway or someone across the table gives you a knowing nod, thinking they've found anoth...
That sucks. If I wanted to bond with you - what could we do aside from food and drinks?
Would you go bowling with me? Could we play cricket in a nearby field? Can we sing karaoke? Would it be better or worse if our coworkers were drunk while singing?
Ha, thanks for asking. Sure, all that works (and more) except the karaoke. Long story short, I have another chronic illness known as hyperacusis. Google it if you care.
But a more valuable answer has less to do with me personally and more to do with people with tons of food allergies in general:
-We are probably down to invite you over and cook for you. Just be prepared for stuff with lots of alternatives, or somewhat strange dishes. That said, I can eat steak and potatoes, so I'm always down to grill.
-If we go do a thing, like bowling, understand that the time might be a little earlier or later than we'd like, because I might want to eat first or duck out early to go home to eat. I can get by if I bring snacks, but unfortunately there just aren't many non-perishable snacks that I can eat.
-Day trips tend to be limited since I can't just grab food somewhere. Same deal as above applies. This is honestly the worst. I miss just heading out somewhere for a long day on the weekend, getting brunch, then dinner, then ice cream...man. The freedom is incredible.
Thank you for sharing. Through experimentation, I've found "no thanks, I don't eat round things" to have the highest success rate of gracefully ending the conversation and moving on. If pressed, "it's a religious thing". At worst, now we're talking about shapes and religion, which are two things that have nothing to do with my health.
The kind of happy hour you are describing is great and one of the things I miss about the office. Chilling with your tight knit team after a long day or a big release is great. I assume the GP is talking about the other sort of happy hour where it is a bigger crowd. I can’t stand those.
I've worked with teams that worked well together and got stuff done, at work. But never wanted to hang out after work with anyone. We all had different lives. Some single, some married, some with kids, some not, etc. At the end of the day everyone just wants to go home to his or her private life.
I prefer the larger team outings, as there are usually more people that I enjoy hanging out with than the small 4-7 people team that I work with. Also, larger team outings usually means more things to do because of the larger budget, so it could be a trip to a tourist attraction or activity camp, as opposed to just a meal when it is the smaller team.
It can be great to sometimes (!) put in a little more time to reach a goal, deliver something the team wanted to deliver for a long time or improve upon some annoyances in status quo.
Working extra hours is not to be expected and should be valued. A team probably works better when extra effort is valued. I think it is great, that you are trying to thank your employees / coworkers.
True, you got a point, but consider: Saying a few words at lunch time can become a kind of automatism quickly. Perhaps inviting people to social time going out to eat somewhere will leave a more lasting memory. It might not be for everyone. For example people having children and all that. But it does give people a chance to be in a setting outside of work, but with people from the job, which might give a chance to bond through other topics.
I think there might not be the perfect reward/thank you for everyone.
> I think there might not be the perfect reward/thank you for everyone
There is actually.
It's called big stacks of money.
Oddly, companies don't seem to want to reward people with it, the one universal thing that basically everyone could appreciate and is the entire reason anyone works anywhere in the first place.
Crazy. It's almost like playing relatively small amounts for a big expensive catered meal saves the company way more money than rewarding people with meaningful sums of money would.
Surely that'd be an insultingly small amount to receive as cash? (Maybe that was your point? 'And then realise it doesn't show that much gratitude after all'?)
I worked in the hardware lab for a while, and we had the incredulity to ask why they didn't do just this. Turns out, our director told us "it set a bad precedent, and if they did this with us other teams might be encourage to do this as well." As you might have guessed, the hardware lab was not the most social and 1/2 of us didn't drink, so bars were out.
Good. You'll have to think harder to find ways not to overwork your team in the first place.
This attitude towards workers rubs me the wrong way, but your side note saved you in my eyes:
> Working long hours is bad
Yes! Overworking people and then saying "thanks" by exploiting the fact ("using the chance", as you put it) that you locked them into the office isn't exactly fair. If this is what people mean by happy hour, that's absurd. If they chose to stay for social stuff after a normal day of work, that's of course another thing.
> and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.
That occurred already. It happened through the process of overcoming the challenge.
I get the intent, but your people probably just want to rest and get some of their time back. If you must celebrate, do it during hours. I typically did offsite lunch time activities pre-COVID. Now it's more gift driven and individual. I made up award systems like the high school "most likely to ...". If someone renovated their masterbath, give them something that is specific to that as a thanks. Find out if they prefer public or 1:1 gratitude
That’s a bit different than when the leader wants to celebrate your long hours by making you work more hours in a social capacity.
It’s very much different strokes for different folks. Just like everyone’s personal lives differ so does their appetite for coworker extracurricular activities. But I agree that the every 3 months or so is a fine cadence. But, 1) schedule it at the beginning of the quarter 2) be ready to reschedule it if it coincides with a sprint of long hours.
In a perfect world, your team would tell you if they were too burned out for it or not, in a judgement free way. But that doesn’t happen due to fear of judgment or not wanting to rock the boat (say nay when others want yay) or multitude of other reasons. Point is, if you know anyone on the team has significant others, kids, pets, or any life outside work you as a leader shouldn’t ask them to work more in the name of celebration.
Yup. Ever after 5pm work thing I've been "rewarded" with is still work. Even if it's more fun than working at my desk its still work. I'm not able to do with that time what I want. It's only a reward if it is replacing work. And really it's only a reward if the amount of time that it is replacing is taken out of the sprint planning.
At the end of the day if you take a weeknight from me I'm going to be annoyed at best and upset at worst. If you take a work day from me, or part of one, but still expect me to get a full days or work done we will both be in a bad position.
I get the intention here. I used to be a people manager and I planned lots of things for after work. But I stopped when I realized how difficult it actually made things for many people and people with kids.
I'm trying to get some budget right now to do a in-person social event for my team now that almost everyone is fully vaccinated, and I've been extremely explicit about scheduling it during regular business hours (1pm-3pm for example), to ensure there's no competition between this event and what people actually want to do with their evenings/spare time.
This resonates with me as well. And it was hard/impossible to get my last employer to understand it. I dont care if you treat us at a great restaurant, its still work, because if I had a choice I'd rather do something else.
These things are highly individual. Usually, after crunches and pressures, I tended to be angry at disorganization that caused it and also wanted to go home due to pile of stuff that accumulated there.
I get that there were people who appreciated these, but not everyone does. It is one more added duty after you have already done a lot.
Imo, It's people who have no other life or responsibility outside of work that love work organized and paid for events.
And they seem incapable of understanding that other people have better things to do than get wasted at a bar with their coworkers on a weeknight, even if the company is paying for it.
It depends on the kind of work-organized events. My previous company organized free concerts, from pop to classical to jazz, as well as family events such as Theme Park Day. Aside from company-wide events, there are the large team events (~50 people) that included day hikes, museums, activity camps, and plays. I've enjoyed many of these despite having responsibilities outside of work.
It's a balancing act. It's good for people to have some bounding time with the people they work with in a non work environment. It builds empathy across individuals, teams, and departments which makes resolving conflicts easier. Work is a big part of your life and there's nothing wrong with building strong long lasting relationships with your co-workers.
On the flip side, work is a big part of your life and it shouldn't be 100% of you life. It's good to have relationships and commitments outside of work. Finding this balance is hard and different for everyone.
It sounds like you're the manager in this case, and that your intentions are genuine. But are you entirely sure that your team feels the same?
I've done similar, but in local restaurants during working hours. It's unfair to implicitly demand your team to donate free time, regardless how much you believe they should enjoy and appreciate it.
That aside, virtual options have come pretty close for us. Give everyone a budget to arrange their own food and either organize activities/games that your team will enjoy or just hang out.
yeah, after pulling long hours to meet ridiculous deadlines, the last thing i want is to be required to spend even more time with coworkers instead of just been given time off.
nope. i've never worked for a company that gave away stock. i also never wear the swag t-shirts/hoodies that companies give out to employees (or worse sell). why?
Thank you for answering. I ask because I have this theory that there is a correlation between employees who don't mind working more to make stock to go up if they have stock.
It's never a simple analysis. I don't mind working more for a deadline if I recognize a tangible increase in revenue or cost savings, as I benefit from the stock.
"Gave away" is an interesting term. In our company, stock is 10-40% of our compensation, so it aligns our motives in a way that folks without stock don't have.
I have a friend who gets part of his compensation as stock, but the company is not publicly traded. There's the vesting part, which he knows upfront, but the worst of it is that the valuation seems somewhat arbitrary, and he can't sell when he likes.
Now I understand they give the same valuation to everyone, as estimated by some third-party, but the issue is that even after the vesting period, he's not able to sell his stocks as he pleases if he needs the money. There's a pretty convoluted process, where he basically can only do this once a year and has to let someone know (don't know the specifics) ahead of time that he's looking to sell.
There's a term that's used "not real money", and the stock-as-compensation is an example. There are plenty of examples of people working their asses off on the hope/promise/gamble that it will be rewarded with a high stock price and then the stock not reaching those soaring heights or worse the company runs out of runway and the stock is worthless. Now those people realize they were making a lot less money than they thought. There's also the larger than 0% chance that the market tanks and everyone's value goes kaput again leaving the employee high and dry. Let's also not discount those companies that require employees to work a minimum time in years before those options vest.
Like half my comp right now is stock, and I don't want to work more. I don't think anything I do makes a difference. Do you really think anything you do makes a difference? If so, curious how or why? Its a coin flip how the price moves every earnings ime. More profit, more users, stock drops. Its all speculation from investors.
It depends on whether you have any meaningful amount of stock - and that meaningfulness varies to some extent by how expensive your city is and what your standards are of course - and whether you're so empowered as to make a meaningful difference in the "stock price."
I'm fairly senior, but since I don't work in sales nor in some strategy aspect of the business, I don't "make the stock go up." I can get more stock as a pat on the head if I'm a good boy, at the end of the year, but generally 95% of the company is waiting for the stock to vest and let the stock go up by itself.
Senior companies at my company think people will work harder if they have stock because they "want to make the stock go up." This is false. Great company, false premise nonetheless.
One manager I had would reward us with a nice lunch out. It meant we didn't have to give up personal time for the reward, and it also limited drinking since we all had to go back to work and it was midday (usually there wasn't any drinking).
We all enjoyed it because it meant getting time off work and having a nice meal without giving up family time.
You could replicate that by ordering a nice lunch to be delivered to everyone's house and enjoying the meal together remotely.
I am the type of person who appreciates this sort of thing, but it seems like we're in the minority.
Growing up, I always loved getting to see people from school / school clubs (e.g. FSAE team, photography, etc) out of the normal context. It really opens up relationships and helps you figure out how to work better as a team.
If someone's not there because they don't want anything to do with work after hours, it's hard to treat them fairly -- the people who do show up are going to start viewing them as an outsider, and they might get passed up on promotion for someone that the higher-ups got to know better after office hours. So, objectively, having a happy hour probably tends to punish the people that don't show up, turning it into a mandatory function. I'd never really thought about it that way.
I don’t think we’re in the minority. The HN crowd that is pro WFH has been extremely vocal since even before the pandemic.
For what it’s worth I was remote starting a couple years before the pandemic. I can’t wait to go back in at least a couple days a week. I can’t wait to spend time with my coworkers in some capacity.
Heck, most of the newly remote have only been doing so for twelve months; wait until your life has been one context for 3 years. It becomes quite brutal.
Liking this kind of thing correlates highly with being extraverted. In the general population, off the top of my head, "you people" (tongue in cheek) represent about 60%. In tech, I'd wager it's skewed heavily in favour of introverts.
I wish you luck in your business, and certainly opinions will vary.
My teams are more skeptical of corporate gestures. As the culmination of a week-long offsite in an exotic locale, a candid team photo might be a welcome commemoration. Anything more artificial would be artificial.
PS: It's customary to disclose your relationship when plugging your own business, here on HN. I did not realize you had a vested interest in your opinion. Again, good luck with customers of other dispositions than ours!
Personal experience which is at the very opposite point of the spectrum from yours.
I have had the pleasurable working in a team where bonding is simply working toward a common goal. This was an extremely cohesive team. Our main motivation of working long hour was to push the company to a more beneficial position so that we are also benefited from it.
The reward is the good result of the work itself and going home/out knowing that it will benefit us in the future.
The experience was almost like playing a co-op game rather than doing typical office work.
Happy hours and additional recreational activity were a way to regulate stress rather than a main reward.
Of course this is pretty unique, and is a rare thing to happen, especially in big companies where profit and work rather detached.
If we're assembled ahead of time, yes, but usually everyone is all business to keep the meetings short and packed.
Outside of meetings, yes we had banters. We were nerds, so we conversed about nerdy things, which sometimes are spin-offs of our works. Another it was about food because who don't love food?
The workplace was a small open-plan office, 27 desk max in that room. When stressed and needing someone to talk to, I would see if anyone didnot have earphones on and are not working. I guess that was the "busy"/"not busy" signal.
> Some places make it very hard to bond during work hours.
I guess yeah, moreover if there are physical or procedural separator between people.
Also, I realized I don't feel the same atmosphere once we grew into a larger company with varying prople with varying interests. I guess it was a niche kind of thing.
Parties with my coworkers are often far enough from the office that we all have to drive anyway. That doesn't work for these impromptu things, but it does work for things you know a priori.
When you say reward people for working hard on something, you don't mean the same night, do you? That sounds like possibly fun for extroverts and no fun at all for everyone else.
If you really wanted to give them a treat, you could do the "team bonding" stuff during normal work hours, rather than asking them to give up yet more of their personal time when they've already been overworked.
Maybe something like "We're playing hooky today, folks. We're all going to lunch and...we're not coming back to the office afterward."
What my team does, is every 1 or 2 months we would all go to work at the office for 1 day (not mandatory of course, but people usually like to come), at the end of which we would all go to a really nice restaurant, and order anything we'd like, paid by our boss. 90% of us are WFH, and I find this works really well and helps with bonding.
It sounds like your intentions are good and that you are a great manager, but to be honest, and just to share my personal perspective: the last thing I want after working long hours is to spend even more of my personal time on work, even if its a HH or a expensive meal. I just want to get home/off work and do my own stuff, even if its just eating pizza in my couch. Its probably not like this for everyone, but it is for me. Don't sweat it that you haven't been able to arrange HH, some of your team might be like me.
A trick I've used before in a pinch is to set your monitor connection (via USB-C/HDMI/DisplayPort) as the Zoom audio output. I never use it as an output, so it's permanently muted in the on-screen menus. Since Zoom makes it fairly easy to customize audio, it can act as a simple mute effect.
You can mute individual applications in windows volume mixer (right click speaker icon in the taskbar, click open volume mixer). I don't know if there's a Mac equivalent but I would be really surprised if there wasn't.
I don't use EarTrumpet, but I think (?) right clicking the volume icon -> volume mixer has a similar effect, and is included with the OS.
I use this to tune windows system sounds all the way down, and content up. Or balancing audio levels of different apps when they don't have good in-app controls on level (increasingly rare).
Sorry if this is insensitive or just clueless, but, to you and OP: If you have nothing to contribute to a meeting and have no reason to hear the things that are said at the meeting, why do you even attend? Just skip it. Maybe I'm privileged by being farther along in my career, but when I see a meeting that I don't get anything out of and don't contribute anything to, I just decline and move on with my life.
Do you really think merely having your name show up as one of 35 attendees in Zoom is really going to positively affect your career?
I used to be worried about things like face time and "they'll notice I'm gone" but I gave that worry up. I guarantee at most companies it's really not a big deal. No VP goes back to his office after a meeting and says to himself "Hmm, DroneEngineer43318 was not silently sitting at my meeting. I must ensure he doesn't get promoted next cycle!". If you're not presenting or need the information, nobody is going to care that you're absent.
Yup. I ran an office out of a wework for a while and it was a mess. But the folks who used their office as a secondary part time space to do focused work seemed to really enjoy it. They were also the only people who were there during our entire lease.
If you can afford it that’s a great setup. I had this for a while in Munich with my office a five minute bike ride away from home. But it costs a lot so it’s probably not a good choice for a lot of people.
I did this for years. During the pandemic it became a 1 room schoolhouse. Seems like a viable solution for most people in a SFH or even many townhomes.
Only thing I might do differently in the future is get an RV instead of fixed buiding, because then I can use it as an RV, too.
An underlying issues nobody is talking about is real estate prices need to crash then. The quality of life outside a city is just so unbelievably better that I'm not going back to live in a box for hundreds of dollars a month, on a filthy street with no sense of community.
How so? There is way more stuff to do in the city, than in rural Ohio (for example), friendliness is very subjective, if you are "one of them" then yes, they will be nice to you, if you look different, then things change. More space? duh, there is a reason no one wants to live there. Less people == less crime and violence (most of the time). Less noise, yeah, thats true.
If you are one for the Night Life, bars, events, etc then sure pre-covid and maybe post covid the city was for you.
For many people however "City Life" was for economic reality, that is where the work is, so that is where they were. They did not care about "night life", hated having to shop daily for groceries, etc etc
"Boring" suburban life is appealing to ALOT of people, boring life where the most exciting thing that happens is old bob hit something with the mower...
As to "one of them", this is true for many communities including the city, when "country folk" come into the city they are often treated with hostility and disdain. In fact I would say poor treatment of "outsiders" is MORE common and MORE pronounced in cities than in suburbs. This however could be my personal experience showing through as I grew up in the country around farmers, and conservative (not political but in the reserved traditional sense of the word) so I was an outsider in the city.
That is just not true , at least in the US. Minorities and immigrants are treated considerably worst in rural areas than in the cities. I get some people want to live in the country. As I said , most people like to interact with other human beings, outside the Sunday church gathering. Being from a rural town in the US doesn't make an outsider in any city, I would say the other way around is correct, the city is big enough you can find a bar where your country fellas go, people who "hate the city", what really hate is diversity, competition and civility(with exceptions). In the other hand, a family of asian immigrants, for example, will have a hard time, in a white evangelical small town anywhere in the US.
Yes to all of those, for me at least. I'm not denying there are some upsides to city living (easy access to office being the big one) but I wouldn't move back to one without at least double the salary.
QoL is much much better in the city IMO. The only downside is rent, and maybe parking. I have access to lively nightlife, food, shops, etc, whereas in suburbs stuff is closed by 8/9PM.
Of course, this varies by stage of life; I don't have kids, so I'd prefer the city to a suburb.
I was paying close to twice the area average in rent so I could be within walking distance of a bunch of restaurants and bars and such. Then the pandemic hit and I was paying a fortune to live in a smaller-than-average box. Although looking back on it, even before the pandemic hit I only really took advantage of my proximity to those locations a few days a month.
I'm uncertain to what degree life will go back to how it was before, but even in the best case scenario I'd probably be better off living in a cheaper area and using the money I save to get an uber to the bar. I'm a lot easier to move than my residence.
> organizations that allow remote work should not only encourage these employees to find professional spaces near (but distinct from) their homes—they should also directly subsidize these cognitive escapes
Well I can think of one location a lot of businesses could allow an employee to work from - the office.
I actually have this arrangement with my employer. They're paying $500/mo. to rent a small one room office for me a few blocks away from my home because I am easily more than twice as productive when not at home. It's a no-brainer comparing the cost to value.
"Here’s my proposal: organizations that allow remote work should not only encourage these employees to find professional spaces near (but distinct from) their homes—they should also directly subsidize these cognitive escapes. The cost need not be prohibitive. If we turn back to our author examples, we see that a workspace doesn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing, or well-equipped, or air-conditioned (or even have walls or a roof!)"
I'm not sure I agree with the specific proposal put forward here. Those examples probably won't work for most people. BUT I think many of us would agree with the general idea of having a place near home to do some work in some fashion. That's the point of remote work places like WeWork and all the many local places out there, isn't it?
I could not imagine taking anyone seriously who says I should leave my air conditioned house, comfy office set up exactly how I like it, for "that a workspace doesn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing, or well-equipped, or air-conditioned (or even have walls or a roof!"
>doesn’t need to be aesthetically pleasing, or well-equipped, or air-conditioned (or even have walls or a roof!"
They're clearly talking about my sagging back porch/deck. And I've tried working out there, but the problem is the noise, particularly of the highway about 250 feet thataway.
Don't forget the one hour commute each way, every work day.
My friend who now works from home, now can get up in the morning, walk the dog, make breakfast and never has to hurry to make sure she catches the train.
I do this exactly. I rented a small apartment very near (fifty meters) from home, declared it my “studio” and set up my workplace. I can work there with my older daughter (studying at home) and my younger daughter (a toddler) is safely separated and home is not a work place. Literally, I don’t have a “computer” at home; only my iPad and a 25 year old Nintendo. 10/10, strongly recommend.
If work still has to be conducted by videocall they may as well just be at home it's just an inefficient either way and you still lose the ability to have creative ideation discussion that just doesn't work over videocall because of the time delay and forced one at a time speaking.
I do think WFH is here to stay but I also see an uncomfortable divide is going to form both in the types of work given to the two sides and the promotion and salary opportunities.
I've recently become aware of the fact that since I am good at imagining things in my head, I'm much less hamstrung by these virtual meeting than other people. For sure not all of them are as affected, but some are definitely getting the short end there.
Hopefully there are some companies out there that thought this pandemic was going to go on as long as it has and have been working on better collaboration tools.
I did this for a bit during the pandemic (because my productivity approaches zero at home) unfortunately, it gets hot in the summer here, so working on a park bench in 110F heat isn't a year round option. I suspect there are few plaes in the US where this could work year round. I ended up just going back to the office--everyone else was gone, at home due to quarantine--and I could be very productive.
Yes. I've done this for the past 4 years and it's the best of both worlds. Right now I rent a private office that's ~10 minutes walking from home. Close enough that there's no traffic; far enough that I have a routine. Love it.
This has been my life for years except without the “renting a place” part. I work in cafes. I work in parks. I work sitting on a bench taking shelter from the rain on my way to somewhere else. I work anywhere I have space to take my Wacom tablet out of my bag and plug it into my laptop, and the desire to spend more time working today.
I also work at home in my studio but getting away from the distractions of home is, as this article notes, important.
I thought “remote work” already meant this? I’ve been doing it for years, it’s one of the perks of being a freelance artist. Sometimes I’ve toyed with the idea of getting together with some friends and splitting the rent on a shared studio space but really I know I’d only show up a few days a month.
Like anything, it's a spectrum. To some people, "travel" means "I drove to the next state over for the afternoon," and to some it means "I am going to this island down by Antarctica that requires getting a special government permit".
Now that you can sit in inside spaces without a mask, I feel libraries and cafes are a real alternative for me! And this is me typing from a desk at a public library 10 minutes from my apartment. Can't express the amount of relief and joy I feel right now
ooh, thanks for reminding me about libraries, I got a lot of work done upstairs in the main branch of Seattle's library, I gotta get around to checking out the options in my new city.
very much this, I'm a very restless person and I _need_ to move every 2-3 hours. Cafe hopping is very very important to my general flow. I also need noise and general life happening around me. Offices are too artificial an environment and my apartment is too silent.
Blues Bars for me. It may be strange, but I get a table in the corner, tell the bar tender to keep the coke and lime coming and my programming just flows with the music.
I wouldn't mind working in a different place than at home, but I've grown accustomed to having a 27" screen, and having to switch to using just the 13" screen of my work laptop would drive me bonkers. Perhaps one day when rollable monitors are a common thing and I can carry a 27" scroll screen in a poster tube...
yeah all you people who Absolutely Require a giant screen, or multiple ones, are stuck at desks. Me, I like plugging my laptop into the 24" screen on my desk, but I also like sitting out in a park with birds and cicada singing, so I've got my tools set up for both ways.
I'm guessing you are young and have better eyesight than me. :)
When I was young, I carried a little subnotebook with a 7.1" screen and really enjoyed it. Now I have to hold my phone at a certain exact distance, too close and it's burry, too far and it's blurry. I had to use the 13" work laptop for a few weeks without an external monitor and it was painful, the screen was small enough that I have to lean in to see the text, but then I am too close and so I have to squint. I could crank up the font size, but then the screen doesn't show very much. Having the 27" external monitor means that I can sit at a comfortable distance and crank the magnification up so that everything is legible.
Be careful. One day, this might happen to you too. :D
I'm also an artist, not a programmer, so I don't need to fill my screen with a ton of text. Plus my tools are pretty much designed around regularly zooming in and out.
While I do use a large second screen, often, I don't need it all the time.
I don't need it when cleaning my inbox. Or planning a sprint. I don't need it when conferencing. Or when designing an architecture. I don't need it when reviewing PRs, stepping through a debugger, poring through logs, deploying, running ansible or finding what config made that deploy fail.
I split my time as such. I can work on my laptop for a morning, then go home and plug into my large screen just fine. It actually helps me focus: multi-monitor = coding. Laptop only = other work.
> [...] I don't need it when reviewing PRs, stepping through a debugger, poring through logs, deploying, running ansible or finding what config made that deploy fail. [...]
Interesting how people work different. Would not like to dig through logs without 2 monitors (allows to have 4 different logs open). Same with debugging (having multiple source positions visible). Or deploying (watching logs/deployment progress). Reviewing PR (having spec side-by-side with code).
It could not imagine any task I could do in a park (besides playing with a dog ;) )...
I have a big screen laptop that has a full 10-key keyboard layout so it's workable anywhere. I also have a few tools that let me use the keyboard for 99% of actions I need for work.
But admittedly I also don't work long stints at once. If I had to work a few hours in a row my neck would protest and my eyes would concede defeat.
I have considered this but it seems too inconvenient. A cafe doesn’t seem like a great place to work unless it’s consistently quiet and mostly empty so you aren’t taking a table an actual customer could have. The library seems like the next best place after home but it doesn’t seem to provide a whole lot of value over just working from home since I have a pretty good setup there.
Currently my current and ideal situation is working from home 3-4 days a week and then coming in at the end of the week. Those in office days might be less productive but they do provide enough social interaction for the week.
I worked remotely in 2011 while in Vancouver on a Working Holiday visa. While watching the sunset at English Bay, I met a Starbucks barista who had 5 free drinks per shift and was willing to give some to me. Sure enough, I now had a café-office!
Finding a nice desk with good WiFi, power socket, and a view was always challenging. Outside isn't ideal because of lacking WiFi/power socket. Free WiFi in backpacker hostels is sometimes limited to a few hundred MB. The Apple Store has a fast connection, but blocks everything that's not port 80 (which means no connecting to our SQL database on Amazon RDS). University WiFi worked well, thanks to a friend's eduroam.
Libraries are wonderful, but need to have longer opening hours in Western countries. The KHOP prayer room in Kaohsiung was excellent.
I wish there were a place I could go after work that isn't the office or my room. As it is, I get a lot done while sitting on a bus, but WiFi, power, and a view would make that much more pleasant.
> Sometimes I’ve toyed with the idea of getting together with some friends and splitting the rent on a shared studio space but really I know I’d only show up a few days a month.
I am the same. I actually do rent a "hot desk" at a co-working space and I use it barely once a month.
I have probably used it more for a private bathroom in the city centre than for the desk.
The original goal was just to get me out of the house and an excuse to get into the city for a wander. But I almost always choose to actually work in the gardens or at a cafe en-route. I keep renting it because it is pretty cheap and is entirely tax deductable for me, and on occasion it has proven invaluable (rain, cold, noisy at home, need to work for more than a few hours in a row and need the commitment device etc).
I already find it distracting enough listening to conversations from other departments that have nothing to do with me, now I'd have to deal with discussions from other companies instead. Open plan needs to die already.
I think we will soon see a dip in productivity.whenever assessing trends, you should never base conclusions on outlier events and we are basing too much of the wfh success on this past year. A year when you couldn't go out and do things, when people feared for their jobs amid a global crisis and felt a call of duty to keep on working.
Possible, but there's the counter-balancing fact that people have been amped up and stressed out the whole last year, they didn't have the hardware they needed or the processes in place to help them succeed, they were dealing with their kids being unexpectedly dumped in their laps, etc.
This time last year companies were scrambling because they were absolutely unprepared for the amount of VPN bandwidth and other resources that would be necessary to handle abruptly shifting their work-force remote.
If anything, I would expect things to go more smoothly, for the companies that don't hastily revert to the asses-in-seats paradigm.
A lot of managers seem to have an unshakeable convention that as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs. As if the only thing stopping them from vegging out on the couch, eating ice cream and watching Jerry Springer during the work day is the watchful and benevolent gaze of their adult supervisors from across the open office floor plan.
Believe it or not, most professionals are actually still productive outside the panopticon. If anything, substantially more productive because of being in a pleasant environment of their choosing. The only reason I can think why so many refuse to accept this evidence is because a lot of middle managers add little value beyond daycare supervisor. Not all, but a lot.
A natural consequence of the peter principle. You get one mediocre manager with questionable methods of evaluating employees, they promote more people who succeed according to those criteria, and in turn evaluate people on the same criteria, while the people who care about productivity and other more meaningful metrics move on to greener pastures.
I was remote working before the pandemic, and once it hit and people had to be home, I started hearing this argument. I looked at people leaders and asked them how they dealt with people who weren’t delivering in the office, and why that would no longer work. People who slack off were doing it before at the Starbucks or through walks, Internet browsing, etc, but when they’re home you can’t look over their shoulder while they do it. What you can do is continue to look for them delivering or not, and if they are, who cares where they do it?
> as soon as workers are no longer cattle-penned into an office that they'll turn into lazy slobs
That's full on projecting. It's what they'd do.
I'm trying to figure out what options I'm going to be interested in to work part time once I have enough money to retire, because I'm always going to be making something. It's why I got into this industry in the first place, instead of getting a job trying to trick other people into doing work.
WFH people were more productive before the pandemic. There were just fewer of us. If anything, as everyone else learns how to be remote and to do it well, and the stress of the pandemic subsides, performance should increase to match those of us that have been doing it for years.
I can absolutely say that at the firm I work, we're moving to a hybrid model following COVID's WFH model. Surveys from across the business show that some people want to WFH all the time, some want to work from the office sometimes and others (like me) want to work in the office all the time.
We're having this conversation and discussion around what is best when it comes to WFH, but there's no perfect fit, it depends entirely on the type of job you have, your home situation and also your social needs.
Yeah, imagine if people could do the stuff that they were not allowed to this past year, and so many things had not been postponed. Productivity would be through many roofs
I've worked like this since way before Covid. Unfortunately the lockdowns have pushed me more at home than at my usual haunt of cafes and bars (or occasionally the beach). I'm completely incapable of getting anything productive done at home. I work for myself so an office is kind of a waste. A bustling cafe or a bar gives me the best ambiance in which to focus distraction-free.
I've been working remote for 13 years now and I really wish I had rented an office outside of my house much earlier than I did. At 23 your threshold for pain and discomfort is I think much higher in many ways, but I definitely burnt myself out by having my workspace also be my living space (small apartment in NYC).
Once I started sharing a loft space with some friends to co-work out of things got a lot more enjoyable. My space was a 20 minute walk from my apartment, I could keep a more robust setup there, had space for an electronics/soldering station, kept a library of CS and math books there, etc. And if I needed to just do some work on my laptop and stay at home, that was always an option too.
Highly recommend having a situation like that if it's at all possible. I gave up my space in Brooklyn mid-way through the pandemic and definitely am going to go find a new one soon. (If anyone has got a hacker space in north brooklyn let me know!).
Counterpoint: I have a small room that is now my home office, and I really enjoy that it is essentially "zero commute", and think that even just a small 10 minutes walk would make that worse.
Because a 10 minutes commute is not actually a 10 minutes commute, for me at least. In the morning, I have to shower even if I still feel clean (my hair otherwise would need hours to look like I didn't just wake up), I have to dress for outside, I have to take my breakfast with this constant mental reminder that "you should get out to work soon".
With my little office room, I just declare "over!" at some point in the evening and am happily at home instantly.
But everyone's different, and I had generally observed that the lack of physical separation that some lament seems to affect me less. On the weekends, I still use my "office room" as a recreational room, and I sometimes also work from my living room couch and am happy to just declare "over!" by closing the laptop, without the impression that this has somehow "spoilt" my living room.
Key there is a dedicated space for an office. This may be renting an office space outside your living space, or if you live anywhere that is not a large city chances are you can afford a larger place that would include a dedicated space for an office for much less than renting an office would be.
Around here a 1 Bed room apartment + small office rental would be FAR FAR FAR more costly than simply renting a 2 bedroom apartment.
1 year ago, before home prices skyrocketed, it would have been very economical to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom home in order to have a dedicated office space.
Granted that only applies if you do not live in one of the top 50 Metro's, and if your job is not really fully remote why would you want to stay in a high cost of living location?
Friends and family are my largest reason for wanting to live in a location. A lot of my friends live in very high cost of living areas. So I will aim to be comfortable living in those same places. It definitely is a lot more expensive than state I grew up in, Oklahoma, but it’s cost I accept.
I still like full remote for flexibility it gives especially with a trip for a couple weeks/months but long term location I’d probably end up in the Bay Area independent of my work just from friends.
This was my life even before the pandemic (Since 2005 I've worked in coffeshops, parks, in my car and in beaches nearby) with the only difference that coffeshops are closed at the moment and I'll have to make do with what is left. Leaving home while working from home is very important.
I wouldn't have a problem, but I do feel there's an undercurrent of these kind of "You can't be productive actually at home" articles I'm reading. I wonder if WeWork are pushing these :)
Of course companies will push whatever agenda suits them and websites will push anything that gets clicks. But there are people who genuinely feel this way (I'm one of them).
I live and work in a 700 square foot apartment (of which too large of a percentage is closet space for my liking). I just discovered that there are two coworking spaces within walking distance; I'm going to see if I can get a reasonable daily rate and shell out a hundred or two a month to go in once or twice a week.
This doesn't help those who have to work from home because of a disability. Finding excuses to discriminate against the disabled is toxic behavior. So I'm going to go ahead and label this article as "toxic" since it recommends a "solution" without mentioning that it's completely inappropriate for some people.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 220 ms ] threadCurrently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.
In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner/late meal. It gave me a chance to say "thanks" and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.
I can't do that anymore! I've don't virtual HH, but it isn't the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to "bond with your team" and "say thanks in a meaningful way" - cost be damned.
As a side note, politics suck. I really like WFH. Working long hours is bad - bonding is good.
Maybe your team would appreciate a $200 gift card instead of HH + dinner/late meal, especially when some people don't drink or prefer healthy meals instead of steakhouses.
"Let's go down to the pub" is still capitalizing on my time. It's still work, just the location has changed. And in the past it has often started at 3 and then kept going and going until way later than if I'd just worked out my day.
There is always some idealism around it like "oh if you don't drink you don't have to, just come hang out for a bit" or "you don't have to stay late you can leave early" but in practice people aren't actually that understanding. You try to head home and it's all "you're not having a good time?" Or "you're not a team player"
No thanks. I'll pass on all of that from now on.
I'm going down the pub - anyone care to join me? I'm buying."
That's why they don't mind paying for these, because it is seen as additional collaboration/problem solving time. but they 100% would not be okay with handing out additional money to those who do not wish to attend.
Edit: To clarify as well, I don't think people should feel forced or inclined to attend these events for whatever reason they wish, this is just the argument I know and quite literally is in onboarding training I've taken.
Definitely not.
1. I am not fond of drinking with workmates. An occasional, incidental, one-on-one or not much more: OK. In groups ("teams"): no thanks, this isn't school, we are not students, so no pseudo school party.
2. I abhor having drinks with people who have any kind of hierarchical power upon me.
What makes you think I want to even have one drink of alcohol?
Funny thing is the opposite isn't great either. I've seen a startup that likes doing this. Except all the decision-makers are in SF, not at the field office. So HH at the field office means none of the participants have any real power to see your passion, hear your ideas, or conversely for you to learn from their wisdom. It is still bonding for the team, but the team site is all terminal dead-end jobs.
My experience has been that the opportunity to actually learn from people’s wisdom has little to do with their heirarchical position, though the opportunity to suck up by making a show of “learning from their wisdom” might.
Imo the key is making sure you don’t create a perception that you punish or bully people for not participating. As evidenced by this thread, it’s easy to do even inadvertently.
But, is it ingrained griping?
Or Social Inequity Aversion? I don't like beer, so if you get it and I have to watch stupid sports and drink water, I don't want you to have your reward?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_inequity_aversion
It’s all part of the package if you manage people. As I said, you need to be careful to avoid behaving in a way that creates bad situations. (Ie I’m not advocating frat house behavior or alcohol culture at work)
I love working on a team. I don't want to spend my free time with them. That's what my friends are for.
Sometimes people from the team become friends that I spend time with outside of work, but that's on my terms not my employers.
It really seems like many people do not have any kind of healthy boundary with their employer.
I’m pretty antisocial, personally, and love it when my workmates get to the point and focus on the actual “drone”-tasks. Why? Because that is why I do software. I don’t do software because I love people. I don’t do software because I love the paycheck. I do software because I love software and every second away from focusing on the concerns of producing quality software just seems like a genuine waste of time. Even here on HN, it’s mostly an opportunity to safely experiment with “politics” in a way that isn’t totally exhausting.
I get that everyone is not like me, and I’m okay with that. I don’t expect everyone to have my preferences.
I’d personally prefer to be treated as a respected “drone” (now THAT seems rude) and I don’t really want to spend time on banter, unless it’s being used as a metaphor that can improve our collective output.
This is “fun.” This is why I “work” (it’s not work to me). Discussing requirements and problem solving solutions is great; it’s fun. Happy hour is “work” to me. Please don’t act like I’m rude just because I don’t share your preferences.
I interpreted "I don't care about you as a person" as "I don't think you have moral worth outside your instrumental value to me", which goes beyond rudeness and into questions of whether the person can be trusted at all.
Presenting it as a clear-cut _you are a queue of work and paychecks_ is where it breeds conflict. For the royal you that description is merely a description and expresses no judgement, it is simply the _why_ of your intentional lack of interaction with your coworkers.
To the people on the other side, that description brings back the negative feelings they felt when a coworker that held that same opinion (not you) was unnecesarily rude at work and shielded his failings behind the _I don’t do people_ cover.
I realize that asking you to use the human touch (for lack of a better term) is asking you to have to “work” to cater to the social aspects that you are trying to not get involved with…
So instead I’ll posit that your last paragraph is a perfectly acceptable response to the eternal “want to join and be social” question. It’s innofensive yet firm, and it conveys your position in a concise way that nobody can really pick apart unless they want to make an scene and look bad.
So who do I not see, the ones who insisted I must follow their favourite sport teams, the ones who got so drunk on the weekend they could not remember what they did but thought I should have been with them. The one (thank goodness it was only one) who keep eyeing the high school girls while we were in our 30s and 40S. And last the ones who always had to go out for a smoke, I don't want to imagine what their places were like.
You can like some people, but some people you just do not want to be around when you are not being paid to work with them.
It's fine that some teams of workers socialize, and are expected to socialize.
It's fine for teams to select for people who will socially mesh with the office culture.
Nobody here is wrong; just work at a company where the culture fits what you want. Not everybody wants or needs the same thing.
Imagine being one of the few Mormons, observant Muslims, or recovering alcoholics at a company that "rewards" your team with Happy Hours. Or being someone who's been sexually harassed or assaulted at previous events where coworkers drank too much.
I'm not suggesting that it's easy (or even possible) to plan a social event that's guaranteed to be welcomed by every member of a team. But I think events that focus or rely on alcohol as the means of team bonding can be a bad idea depending on the team.
I'm much better with a long lunch + socialize and then piss off early from work as a reward.
I know I like to drink.
There are people who don't like to drink and there are people who are not allowed to drink due to their believe/health problem. And they are not minority-minority in some places
Heaven forbid my first meal of the day is lunch and not breakfast.
People who have "normal" eating habits just can't understand.
Worse, later they claim they would never do such a thing.
I find these kinds of social outings shitty because I'm invariably left out, asked why I'm left out, and now we're talking about my health issues. Politely declining is never met as well as you'd like it to be (people always insist), so either I forcefully decline so as to avoid option #2 (and people think I'm an asshole); or I take option #2 and talk about it, and am now sad because it sucks and will never stop sucking and I don't really like bringing it up.
Then, the following script: everyone gives the minimum pity, commensurate with social niceties. At least two people tell me about their experiences with food intolerances (not even remotely the same thing) and how they got over it (which is not possible with adult-developed food allergies), or they suggest that it's leaky-gut (not scientifically-proven to exist; god knows I've looked into it regardless), or suggest acupuncture, or some other pseudoscience bullshit. Now I get to either choose to tumble head-first into yet another unpaid lecture on the nuances of food allergies, and perhaps inform them as to why what they're suggesting isn't scientifically sound (which is bound to offend, no matter how nicely I say it, because pseudoscience and pop-science is believed with near-religious fervor; the best I'm gonna get is "agree to disagree," so it's not worth it). Or -- my preferred choice nowadays -- I nod and smile and thank them for their novel, sage advice, and tell them I'll be sure to contact the homeopath they suggested first thing tomorrow, as I'm sure that, finally, now, thanks to their intervention, my nightmare is about to come to an end.
At this point, an uncomfortable amount of people are listening to me. I mumble something about "and..uh...yeah." Someone stumbles to change the subject, the wheels of conversation spin in the mud for a while before finally getting back to normal -- and everyone subtly ignores me for the rest of the night, lest I bring down the mood or suck the air out of the room again.
I've been through this song and dance so many times, I'm completely over it and now just avoid it altogether. Which sucks, because now you're the social pariah that never wants to hang out (because virtually all social gatherings revolve around food). I want nothing more than to enjoy good food and drink with my friends and peers and to be happy and merry and well-fed and buzzed. That used to be my element.
It's a touchy subject, because prior to age 30, I was the biggest "foodie" and craft beer freak you've ever met. Finding a new restaurant or trying something I'd never eaten before was literally my favorite activity, period. I was legendary for my weight-to-ability-to-pound-food ratio (I've always been a stick).
Now, it's rice and chicken (no spices!) from here to the grave. Washed down with water, and nothing but. Coffee in the morning is fine -- thankfully, I'm not yet allergic to that (no OJ, though).
I hate that my best option is "lie and smile" -- saying "I'm not hungry" (when I'm actually starving, made worse by watching everyone else eat and enjoy the camaraderie that only a shared meal can bring, slowly losing blood sugar and trying in vain to combat the moodiness that always accompanies it); or "I need to wake up early" (as an excuse for no drinks; otherwise some asshole pressures you to drink anyway or someone across the table gives you a knowing nod, thinking they've found anoth...
Would you go bowling with me? Could we play cricket in a nearby field? Can we sing karaoke? Would it be better or worse if our coworkers were drunk while singing?
But a more valuable answer has less to do with me personally and more to do with people with tons of food allergies in general:
-We are probably down to invite you over and cook for you. Just be prepared for stuff with lots of alternatives, or somewhat strange dishes. That said, I can eat steak and potatoes, so I'm always down to grill.
-If we go do a thing, like bowling, understand that the time might be a little earlier or later than we'd like, because I might want to eat first or duck out early to go home to eat. I can get by if I bring snacks, but unfortunately there just aren't many non-perishable snacks that I can eat.
-Day trips tend to be limited since I can't just grab food somewhere. Same deal as above applies. This is honestly the worst. I miss just heading out somewhere for a long day on the weekend, getting brunch, then dinner, then ice cream...man. The freedom is incredible.
Working extra hours is not to be expected and should be valued. A team probably works better when extra effort is valued. I think it is great, that you are trying to thank your employees / coworkers.
I think there might not be the perfect reward/thank you for everyone.
There is actually.
It's called big stacks of money.
Oddly, companies don't seem to want to reward people with it, the one universal thing that basically everyone could appreciate and is the entire reason anyone works anywhere in the first place.
Crazy. It's almost like playing relatively small amounts for a big expensive catered meal saves the company way more money than rewarding people with meaningful sums of money would.
1. historically low wage growth 2. historically high difference between CEO and salaried employee wage 3. billions in dividends
How can people not see this as an issue?
Good. You'll have to think harder to find ways not to overwork your team in the first place.
This attitude towards workers rubs me the wrong way, but your side note saved you in my eyes:
> Working long hours is bad
Yes! Overworking people and then saying "thanks" by exploiting the fact ("using the chance", as you put it) that you locked them into the office isn't exactly fair. If this is what people mean by happy hour, that's absurd. If they chose to stay for social stuff after a normal day of work, that's of course another thing.
I work hard to have my own life, outside of work. I don't work hard to be rewarded with a single expensive meal with booze paid for.
I don't even drink anyways.
"Me" is the key word
> and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.
That occurred already. It happened through the process of overcoming the challenge.
I get the intent, but your people probably just want to rest and get some of their time back. If you must celebrate, do it during hours. I typically did offsite lunch time activities pre-COVID. Now it's more gift driven and individual. I made up award systems like the high school "most likely to ...". If someone renovated their masterbath, give them something that is specific to that as a thanks. Find out if they prefer public or 1:1 gratitude
I don’t want that every week, but the once every 3 months’ish that we had going was pretty nice.
It’s very much different strokes for different folks. Just like everyone’s personal lives differ so does their appetite for coworker extracurricular activities. But I agree that the every 3 months or so is a fine cadence. But, 1) schedule it at the beginning of the quarter 2) be ready to reschedule it if it coincides with a sprint of long hours.
In a perfect world, your team would tell you if they were too burned out for it or not, in a judgement free way. But that doesn’t happen due to fear of judgment or not wanting to rock the boat (say nay when others want yay) or multitude of other reasons. Point is, if you know anyone on the team has significant others, kids, pets, or any life outside work you as a leader shouldn’t ask them to work more in the name of celebration.
At the end of the day if you take a weeknight from me I'm going to be annoyed at best and upset at worst. If you take a work day from me, or part of one, but still expect me to get a full days or work done we will both be in a bad position.
I get the intention here. I used to be a people manager and I planned lots of things for after work. But I stopped when I realized how difficult it actually made things for many people and people with kids.
I get that there were people who appreciated these, but not everyone does. It is one more added duty after you have already done a lot.
And they seem incapable of understanding that other people have better things to do than get wasted at a bar with their coworkers on a weeknight, even if the company is paying for it.
On the flip side, work is a big part of your life and it shouldn't be 100% of you life. It's good to have relationships and commitments outside of work. Finding this balance is hard and different for everyone.
I've done similar, but in local restaurants during working hours. It's unfair to implicitly demand your team to donate free time, regardless how much you believe they should enjoy and appreciate it.
That aside, virtual options have come pretty close for us. Give everyone a budget to arrange their own food and either organize activities/games that your team will enjoy or just hang out.
It's never a simple analysis. I don't mind working more for a deadline if I recognize a tangible increase in revenue or cost savings, as I benefit from the stock.
"Gave away" is an interesting term. In our company, stock is 10-40% of our compensation, so it aligns our motives in a way that folks without stock don't have.
Is it a publicly listed company? If not, how do you mitigate or incorporate the risk of being diluted and/or not being able to cash out?
I have a friend who gets part of his compensation as stock, but the company is not publicly traded. There's the vesting part, which he knows upfront, but the worst of it is that the valuation seems somewhat arbitrary, and he can't sell when he likes.
Now I understand they give the same valuation to everyone, as estimated by some third-party, but the issue is that even after the vesting period, he's not able to sell his stocks as he pleases if he needs the money. There's a pretty convoluted process, where he basically can only do this once a year and has to let someone know (don't know the specifics) ahead of time that he's looking to sell.
I'm fairly senior, but since I don't work in sales nor in some strategy aspect of the business, I don't "make the stock go up." I can get more stock as a pat on the head if I'm a good boy, at the end of the year, but generally 95% of the company is waiting for the stock to vest and let the stock go up by itself.
Senior companies at my company think people will work harder if they have stock because they "want to make the stock go up." This is false. Great company, false premise nonetheless.
We all enjoyed it because it meant getting time off work and having a nice meal without giving up family time.
You could replicate that by ordering a nice lunch to be delivered to everyone's house and enjoying the meal together remotely.
Growing up, I always loved getting to see people from school / school clubs (e.g. FSAE team, photography, etc) out of the normal context. It really opens up relationships and helps you figure out how to work better as a team.
If someone's not there because they don't want anything to do with work after hours, it's hard to treat them fairly -- the people who do show up are going to start viewing them as an outsider, and they might get passed up on promotion for someone that the higher-ups got to know better after office hours. So, objectively, having a happy hour probably tends to punish the people that don't show up, turning it into a mandatory function. I'd never really thought about it that way.
That said, I'd still prefer to have them.
For what it’s worth I was remote starting a couple years before the pandemic. I can’t wait to go back in at least a couple days a week. I can’t wait to spend time with my coworkers in some capacity.
Heck, most of the newly remote have only been doing so for twelve months; wait until your life has been one context for 3 years. It becomes quite brutal.
There is nothing nice, personal, or thoughtful about a photograph of my coworkers.
As a manager, I would expect to be laughed at (with a healthy team, to my face; with a dysfunctional team, behind my back) for such an idea.
100's of other CEO's and managers who have bought and rebought from us think otherwise, and have had incredibly positive feedback from their teams.
But instead of assume the creative tastes of your team, or project yours, why not just simply ask them what they think?
YMMV.
My teams are more skeptical of corporate gestures. As the culmination of a week-long offsite in an exotic locale, a candid team photo might be a welcome commemoration. Anything more artificial would be artificial.
PS: It's customary to disclose your relationship when plugging your own business, here on HN. I did not realize you had a vested interest in your opinion. Again, good luck with customers of other dispositions than ours!
I have had the pleasurable working in a team where bonding is simply working toward a common goal. This was an extremely cohesive team. Our main motivation of working long hour was to push the company to a more beneficial position so that we are also benefited from it.
The reward is the good result of the work itself and going home/out knowing that it will benefit us in the future.
The experience was almost like playing a co-op game rather than doing typical office work.
Happy hours and additional recreational activity were a way to regulate stress rather than a main reward.
Of course this is pretty unique, and is a rare thing to happen, especially in big companies where profit and work rather detached.
Outside of meetings, yes we had banters. We were nerds, so we conversed about nerdy things, which sometimes are spin-offs of our works. Another it was about food because who don't love food?
The workplace was a small open-plan office, 27 desk max in that room. When stressed and needing someone to talk to, I would see if anyone didnot have earphones on and are not working. I guess that was the "busy"/"not busy" signal.
> Some places make it very hard to bond during work hours.
I guess yeah, moreover if there are physical or procedural separator between people.
Also, I realized I don't feel the same atmosphere once we grew into a larger company with varying prople with varying interests. I guess it was a niche kind of thing.
When you say reward people for working hard on something, you don't mean the same night, do you? That sounds like possibly fun for extroverts and no fun at all for everyone else.
Maybe something like "We're playing hooky today, folks. We're all going to lunch and...we're not coming back to the office afterward."
EDIT: For MacOS, I found this: https://github.com/kyleneideck/BackgroundMusic
I use this to tune windows system sounds all the way down, and content up. Or balancing audio levels of different apps when they don't have good in-app controls on level (increasingly rare).
There you have per application volume control
Do you really think merely having your name show up as one of 35 attendees in Zoom is really going to positively affect your career?
I used to be worried about things like face time and "they'll notice I'm gone" but I gave that worry up. I guarantee at most companies it's really not a big deal. No VP goes back to his office after a meeting and says to himself "Hmm, DroneEngineer43318 was not silently sitting at my meeting. I must ensure he doesn't get promoted next cycle!". If you're not presenting or need the information, nobody is going to care that you're absent.
Yep. Enough of that bullshit already.
> Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven't been happier with a job ever.
Same here!
- taking a 20 min nap in your lunch break
- doing a set of push-ups between phone calls
- cooking your own meal at lunch
- giving a hug to your partner
- having your pet in the room with you
- not listening to your coworkers noises
- 3 x 7 minute yoga sessions
- a 20 min power walk while on the phone
- zero driving, waiting, zero miles on your car, zero car accidents guaranteed (where I live people spend 10h week commuting on average)
… during your workday.
Only thing I might do differently in the future is get an RV instead of fixed buiding, because then I can use it as an RV, too.
Less noise, less crowding, less violence and crime, more space, more peace, and more friendliness.
For many people however "City Life" was for economic reality, that is where the work is, so that is where they were. They did not care about "night life", hated having to shop daily for groceries, etc etc
"Boring" suburban life is appealing to ALOT of people, boring life where the most exciting thing that happens is old bob hit something with the mower...
As to "one of them", this is true for many communities including the city, when "country folk" come into the city they are often treated with hostility and disdain. In fact I would say poor treatment of "outsiders" is MORE common and MORE pronounced in cities than in suburbs. This however could be my personal experience showing through as I grew up in the country around farmers, and conservative (not political but in the reserved traditional sense of the word) so I was an outsider in the city.
This idea that only white people treat minorities badly is insane and not fit with actual realty (and is actually racist )
Of course, this varies by stage of life; I don't have kids, so I'd prefer the city to a suburb.
I'm uncertain to what degree life will go back to how it was before, but even in the best case scenario I'd probably be better off living in a cheaper area and using the money I save to get an uber to the bar. I'm a lot easier to move than my residence.
Well I can think of one location a lot of businesses could allow an employee to work from - the office.
I'm not sure I agree with the specific proposal put forward here. Those examples probably won't work for most people. BUT I think many of us would agree with the general idea of having a place near home to do some work in some fashion. That's the point of remote work places like WeWork and all the many local places out there, isn't it?
Unreal. The disconnect here is just shocking.
They're clearly talking about my sagging back porch/deck. And I've tried working out there, but the problem is the noise, particularly of the highway about 250 feet thataway.
Otherwise, in good weather, sure.
I do think WFH is here to stay but I also see an uncomfortable divide is going to form both in the types of work given to the two sides and the promotion and salary opportunities.
Hopefully there are some companies out there that thought this pandemic was going to go on as long as it has and have been working on better collaboration tools.
I also work at home in my studio but getting away from the distractions of home is, as this article notes, important.
I thought “remote work” already meant this? I’ve been doing it for years, it’s one of the perks of being a freelance artist. Sometimes I’ve toyed with the idea of getting together with some friends and splitting the rent on a shared studio space but really I know I’d only show up a few days a month.
Like anything, it's a spectrum. To some people, "travel" means "I drove to the next state over for the afternoon," and to some it means "I am going to this island down by Antarctica that requires getting a special government permit".
When I was young, I carried a little subnotebook with a 7.1" screen and really enjoyed it. Now I have to hold my phone at a certain exact distance, too close and it's burry, too far and it's blurry. I had to use the 13" work laptop for a few weeks without an external monitor and it was painful, the screen was small enough that I have to lean in to see the text, but then I am too close and so I have to squint. I could crank up the font size, but then the screen doesn't show very much. Having the 27" external monitor means that I can sit at a comfortable distance and crank the magnification up so that everything is legible.
Be careful. One day, this might happen to you too. :D
I'm also an artist, not a programmer, so I don't need to fill my screen with a ton of text. Plus my tools are pretty much designed around regularly zooming in and out.
I don't need it when cleaning my inbox. Or planning a sprint. I don't need it when conferencing. Or when designing an architecture. I don't need it when reviewing PRs, stepping through a debugger, poring through logs, deploying, running ansible or finding what config made that deploy fail.
I split my time as such. I can work on my laptop for a morning, then go home and plug into my large screen just fine. It actually helps me focus: multi-monitor = coding. Laptop only = other work.
Interesting how people work different. Would not like to dig through logs without 2 monitors (allows to have 4 different logs open). Same with debugging (having multiple source positions visible). Or deploying (watching logs/deployment progress). Reviewing PR (having spec side-by-side with code).
It could not imagine any task I could do in a park (besides playing with a dog ;) )...
But admittedly I also don't work long stints at once. If I had to work a few hours in a row my neck would protest and my eyes would concede defeat.
Currently my current and ideal situation is working from home 3-4 days a week and then coming in at the end of the week. Those in office days might be less productive but they do provide enough social interaction for the week.
Finding a nice desk with good WiFi, power socket, and a view was always challenging. Outside isn't ideal because of lacking WiFi/power socket. Free WiFi in backpacker hostels is sometimes limited to a few hundred MB. The Apple Store has a fast connection, but blocks everything that's not port 80 (which means no connecting to our SQL database on Amazon RDS). University WiFi worked well, thanks to a friend's eduroam.
Libraries are wonderful, but need to have longer opening hours in Western countries. The KHOP prayer room in Kaohsiung was excellent.
I wish there were a place I could go after work that isn't the office or my room. As it is, I get a lot done while sitting on a bus, but WiFi, power, and a view would make that much more pleasant.
I think since most people's taste of remote work happened during COVID, so home was the only acceptable remote work place.
I am the same. I actually do rent a "hot desk" at a co-working space and I use it barely once a month.
I have probably used it more for a private bathroom in the city centre than for the desk.
The original goal was just to get me out of the house and an excuse to get into the city for a wander. But I almost always choose to actually work in the gardens or at a cafe en-route. I keep renting it because it is pretty cheap and is entirely tax deductable for me, and on occasion it has proven invaluable (rain, cold, noisy at home, need to work for more than a few hours in a row and need the commitment device etc).
This time last year companies were scrambling because they were absolutely unprepared for the amount of VPN bandwidth and other resources that would be necessary to handle abruptly shifting their work-force remote.
If anything, I would expect things to go more smoothly, for the companies that don't hastily revert to the asses-in-seats paradigm.
Believe it or not, most professionals are actually still productive outside the panopticon. If anything, substantially more productive because of being in a pleasant environment of their choosing. The only reason I can think why so many refuse to accept this evidence is because a lot of middle managers add little value beyond daycare supervisor. Not all, but a lot.
That's full on projecting. It's what they'd do.
I'm trying to figure out what options I'm going to be interested in to work part time once I have enough money to retire, because I'm always going to be making something. It's why I got into this industry in the first place, instead of getting a job trying to trick other people into doing work.
We're having this conversation and discussion around what is best when it comes to WFH, but there's no perfect fit, it depends entirely on the type of job you have, your home situation and also your social needs.
Once I started sharing a loft space with some friends to co-work out of things got a lot more enjoyable. My space was a 20 minute walk from my apartment, I could keep a more robust setup there, had space for an electronics/soldering station, kept a library of CS and math books there, etc. And if I needed to just do some work on my laptop and stay at home, that was always an option too.
Highly recommend having a situation like that if it's at all possible. I gave up my space in Brooklyn mid-way through the pandemic and definitely am going to go find a new one soon. (If anyone has got a hacker space in north brooklyn let me know!).
Because a 10 minutes commute is not actually a 10 minutes commute, for me at least. In the morning, I have to shower even if I still feel clean (my hair otherwise would need hours to look like I didn't just wake up), I have to dress for outside, I have to take my breakfast with this constant mental reminder that "you should get out to work soon".
With my little office room, I just declare "over!" at some point in the evening and am happily at home instantly.
But everyone's different, and I had generally observed that the lack of physical separation that some lament seems to affect me less. On the weekends, I still use my "office room" as a recreational room, and I sometimes also work from my living room couch and am happy to just declare "over!" by closing the laptop, without the impression that this has somehow "spoilt" my living room.
Around here a 1 Bed room apartment + small office rental would be FAR FAR FAR more costly than simply renting a 2 bedroom apartment.
1 year ago, before home prices skyrocketed, it would have been very economical to buy a 2 or 3 bedroom home in order to have a dedicated office space.
Granted that only applies if you do not live in one of the top 50 Metro's, and if your job is not really fully remote why would you want to stay in a high cost of living location?
I still like full remote for flexibility it gives especially with a trip for a couple weeks/months but long term location I’d probably end up in the Bay Area independent of my work just from friends.
What I think has happened is that the author just hasn't considered the less abled, which is a common mistake. Far from toxic though.
I see no attempt to do that in the article. You are not helping your cause.
I work remote for 7 years now and the first year I worked mostly from libraries and coffeeshops.