This is unreadable. Increase the contrast, please...
Edit: I may be falsely blaming the contrast, but something about the design is causing me eye strain. Im not sure what. Here is a screenshot how the site looks to me: https://imgur.com/a/LNVCMRc Maybe someone else can figure it out.
A social channel seperate from work stuff is good. It lets you post the messages that otherwise be "oh won't post that as it'll bother 20 people who meed to decide if it's urgent"
The cynic in me says this ends up as yet another list of channels that I need to scan for anything interesting, and interact with to keep up an appearance of engagement.
I appreciate any effort to increase social cohesion in remote teams, but intermingling it with one of the main stressors of my work environment—keeping up with team communication—isn’t the right way IMHO.
This is what things like "water cooler chat" looks like for remote-first.
This is the fundamental difference between what a healthy remote-first company starts to look like versus the soulless version historically in-person companies try to sell.
To the author, thank you for sharing your version of the dynamics.
> We have no scheduled meetings, so ramblings are our equivalent of water cooler talk.
This is the difference. Most teams have scheduled daily (!) meetings, so such rambling channels often times feel more like another chore and therefore fail because they haven't emerged of a natural need from the team.
At work we use Teams and one interesting feature that I use is my own chat, with my own Name, where i post links that mostly can catch my interests and use for future reference.
Also Signal offers something similar, called "Personal Notes"
I fail to see how this is different from a general off-topic chat channel which you're not expected to follow (but can peek at on downtime or while waiting for Claude Code).
While that doesn't scale for large companies, for 2-10 (mentioned in the article) it's better than 2-10 such channels you need to keep track of.
I think perhaps counter intuitively this harms the team spirit. Those things still get voiced in chat threads and more importantly in 1:1 calls/chats, allowing individuals to bond more intimately over non strictly project related things.
> Each ramblings channel should be named after the team member, and only that person can post top-level messages. Others can reply in threads, but not start new ones.
I'm trying hard to understand why it has to be a personal channel. Water coolers aren't personal, that's the whole point.
In particular you're still adjusting what you write to be OK for anyone in your team read, so the distinction with the other "casual" channels sounds thin.
OTOH if your team doesn't have a casual place to say random stuff, it would be a nice improvement to get one.
The reason it's analogous to water-cooler talk for each person to have their own channel is because when you go to get some water, and see other coworkers milling about, you're going to know which coworker you're interested in talking to, who often has interesting insights, who might have something interesting going on in their personal life that you'd like to hear more about. So, in the absence of a common meeting space, you can go check out the channels of people you're interested in, and scroll through to see if they've got anything interesting going on in their life.
I've tried to create or revive a watercooler channel in every remote company I've worked in last 10 years. For some reason it usually doesn't work. Some people don't needed it, some people just call each other and vent out privately. I miss watercooler talk.
This type of writing down ideas and half-thoughts is useful even if you work alone. Thoughts are very fleeting, the instant you put them to paper (or bits) they materialize and it becomes much easier to evolve them.
When doing deep work in some problem domain, often I find the brain starts to drop these highly ephemeral fragments of ideas (that are sometimes downright ingenious). Caveat is they often only come once, and then they're gone if you don't grab them.
I often keep an envelope or scrap paper next to my desk where I write down any idea I have, whether it's "I should fix this" or "what if I did that", really no matter how small I try to put it to paper.
What usually ends up happening is I somehow end up with a fairly concrete todo list of easy improvements.
I think it is significant that this rambling channel supplements the yearly in-person meeting. Presumably, that's where one tends to form deeper social connections and get a feel for what different people find interesting to talk about? That is, if the team is varied enough so that there is little overlap in hobby interests or daily life.
I have a whole private discord server with multiple channels just for this, for my personal projects. Yes yes, walled garden and all, I know. But it's incredibly useful even though I'm the only one in there.
I'd imagine this is highly team dependent. I'd personally love if my company adopted this. I think only one other team member would actually participate though. We're far too busy.
In my experience, these kind of channels end up being filled with complaints about the company/processes/managers/c-levels… (ofc, managers are not invited to these private channels)
Like, if the ceo said something very stupid in the last All Hands, well, you use the ramble channel to talk about it.
Sometimes this works (you feel like you’re not the only one that thinks X), but it could easily go south.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 74.5 ms ] threadEdit: I may be falsely blaming the contrast, but something about the design is causing me eye strain. Im not sure what. Here is a screenshot how the site looks to me: https://imgur.com/a/LNVCMRc Maybe someone else can figure it out.
[1] https://www.bobek.cz/the-power-of-written-standup/
I appreciate any effort to increase social cohesion in remote teams, but intermingling it with one of the main stressors of my work environment—keeping up with team communication—isn’t the right way IMHO.
As in, take time in your day to wander and roam. (I would go for a ~1hr hike in the mornings as my “commute”)
It gives you a sense of distinction from being home or “at work”. The routine cardio, and musings you have while walking make it well worth it.
This is the fundamental difference between what a healthy remote-first company starts to look like versus the soulless version historically in-person companies try to sell.
To the author, thank you for sharing your version of the dynamics.
This is the difference. Most teams have scheduled daily (!) meetings, so such rambling channels often times feel more like another chore and therefore fail because they haven't emerged of a natural need from the team.
Also Signal offers something similar, called "Personal Notes"
Also Signal offers something similar, called "Personal Notes"
While that doesn't scale for large companies, for 2-10 (mentioned in the article) it's better than 2-10 such channels you need to keep track of.
Team chat is for the project.
A single rambling channel sounds like a good idea though.
http://www.jacobelder.com/2025/02/25/habits-and-tools-effect...
I'm trying hard to understand why it has to be a personal channel. Water coolers aren't personal, that's the whole point.
In particular you're still adjusting what you write to be OK for anyone in your team read, so the distinction with the other "casual" channels sounds thin.
OTOH if your team doesn't have a casual place to say random stuff, it would be a nice improvement to get one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frcRMQ2m1B4
When doing deep work in some problem domain, often I find the brain starts to drop these highly ephemeral fragments of ideas (that are sometimes downright ingenious). Caveat is they often only come once, and then they're gone if you don't grab them.
I often keep an envelope or scrap paper next to my desk where I write down any idea I have, whether it's "I should fix this" or "what if I did that", really no matter how small I try to put it to paper.
What usually ends up happening is I somehow end up with a fairly concrete todo list of easy improvements.
I'd imagine this is highly team dependent. I'd personally love if my company adopted this. I think only one other team member would actually participate though. We're far too busy.
Like, if the ceo said something very stupid in the last All Hands, well, you use the ramble channel to talk about it. Sometimes this works (you feel like you’re not the only one that thinks X), but it could easily go south.