Re:I hope work from home continues
by ryandrake on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @01:50PM
(#26715063)
I’m so tired of this “ad hoc water cooler chat” suddenly being elevated as the most important part of office work. It’s never in the past been valued by these execs, and on the contrary sometimes punished (hey, quit socializing and get back to work!). But, now, all of a sudden when these execs are scrambling to find some reason to return to the office, they trot out “serendipitous hallway conversations” as the great holy reason for the office’s existence. Sorry, but I call bullshit.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
When you can't point to something quantifiable, I guess you point to something like "water cooler chat!"
My feeling is the same: while random interactions are important, they aren't exclusive to an office setting. Weird logic. It's been surprising to me how much ink has been spilled about this, and how few solutions have been offered.
Exactly this. I've had as many "serendipitous hallway conversations" in the last year as I had in the years before - just this time, they happened on IM, on videocalls, and in code review comments.
A small group of co-workers willing to sometimes go off a tangent in a conversation is all it takes. Doesn't have to be face to face, much less in a hallway or in front of a water cooler.
This. You know what happened the first week I was back at the office? Non-work chit chat taking up hours of time.
If it's really valuable information, write it down so even more people can be exposed to it! It's like that saying about meetings: "this could have been an email."