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A comment on Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by ineptech on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:04PM (#34668651)
> I echo others here - I've not seen a meaningful, revenue-driving conversation happen in these in a decade of work. Do you have specific examples of valuable collaboration in one of these environments?

I can think of lots, and am surprised anyone would say otherwise - I guess you must be using a really high bar for "meaningful". An example might be, "You know, I didn't want to say anything in the meeting, but doesn't Greg's data lake proposal sound exactly like the project that failed two years ago?"

Looking back though, I think the important thing is not physical proximity, it's conversation without an agenda. If you only interact during scheduled meetings with a defind purpose, you never engage in work-related small talk: grousing about frustrations, daydreaming about improvements, comparing notes, etc. I think these things are important (not to everyone, I get that some people despise small talk, but to some people). If you only communicate in formal meetings, you can end up with 6 people independently realizing Greg's data lake proposal is doomed to fail, but not speaking up because they each feel like everyone else is on board.

And it hadn't occurred to me before this moment, but the way to get this back without returning to an office seems obvious: pairing and mobbing. That's the only time since I started WFHing that I've had or seen others having these kind of un-directed conversations with coworkers: during downtime in a mob. I need to think about this a bit more...

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by ornornor on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:14PM (#34668777)
> If you only interact during scheduled meetings with a defind purpose, you never engage in work-related small talk

Whats stopping people from scheduling “shoot the shit” of coffee calls though? That’s what I’ve seen many do since the wfh mandate and it works in exactly the same way you describe: people vent, talk about what happened during meetings, etc.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by DangerousPie on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:37PM (#34669059)
It feels very artificial and takes a lot more planning. I still do this sometimes but it's not the same.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by jemmyw on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:49PM (#34669184)
Why does it require a lot of planning? I do this, usually it's "bored, coffee break?" "Yep" or I ask a question on slack and the other party says "call?"
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by doutunlined on Sunday February 05, 2023 @05:40PM (#34670503)
Because IRL you're effectively always in call. Not sure whats hard to understand about the difference.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by jemmyw on Sunday February 05, 2023 @06:04PM (#34670754)
I just don't see the difference. When I worked in an office I'd wander over to a colleague and say "coffee?" Now I open a dm and say "coffee call?"
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by nostrebored on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:44PM (#34669132)
I hate online coffee chats and love workplace conversation. Coffee chats have an overloaded amount of assumptions — conversation should start off personal, last for x minutes, make you feel closer to a teammate.

This is the exact opposite of a hallway conversation that can be about anything. It can differ based on the person and your relationship.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by jemmyw on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:52PM (#34669225)
Yeah I'm not keen on the organized chats. We did those pre pandemic and I got nothing from them. Casual conversation has to be adhoc, whether it's in person or by call.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by krabizzwainch on Sunday February 05, 2023 @05:24PM (#34670312)
Our director started scheduling a big group video meeting with all the people that started since 2020 just as a chat room. But he did absolutely 0 planning or conversation guiding or anything outside of "so who wants to talk about something?" and we would just sit there in silence.

It completely feels like the scene from Arrested Development where Gob yells "everybody dance, NOW".

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by Johnny555 on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:23PM (#34668892)
An example might be, "You know, I didn't want to say anything in the meeting, but doesn't Greg's data lake proposal sound exactly like the project that failed two years ago?"

A lot of that seems to happen over Slack already - whether you're in the meeting or at home.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by DangerousPie on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:39PM (#34669074)
I am a lot more open in honest in person than I am on Slack, because I know everything I say on Slack is logged and can bite me in the ass years down the line.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by Johnny555 on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:45PM (#34669146)
We have a very strict Slack retention policy, both DM's and messages in user created private channels self destruct in 7 days with no possibility of retrieval. Public channels and designated private channels can have a longer lifetime. And they really are gone, a VP tried to retrieve some 2 week old messages and was unable to.

So the only fear is someone in IT snooping your private channel during the week that the messages are alive -- probably less than the chance of the person you're talking about standing around the corner.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by JohnFen on Monday February 06, 2023 @12:06PM (#34680464)
I am just the opposite. On slack, I can think through what I want to say to make sure I'm conveying what I intend to convey. In person, I can't do that at all.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by SpeedilyDamage on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:32PM (#34669007)
How would you know? The very nature of that communication is that it’s private.

Maybe nobody talks to you in person, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by Johnny555 on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:39PM (#34669077)
How would you know? The very nature of that communication is that it’s private.

How would I know that these conversations happen over Slack? Because I've participated in them, either in DM's or small private channels. And this was commonplace well before the pandemic and WFH started.

Maybe nobody talks to you in person, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

It's hard to have a private in-person conversation outside of a meeting room in a typical open-office setup -- breakroom conversations tend to get heard by people that you don't want to hear them.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by SpeedilyDamage on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:45PM (#34669142)
It’s really not hard to have private convos in an open office setup, I did it for years and years. Nobody cares about you or what you’re saying.

I would find it highly suspicious if someone tried to have a backroom convo with me on a digital platform.

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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by JohnFen on Monday February 06, 2023 @12:08PM (#34680496)
I find it hard to have any conversations at all in an open office setup, just like it's hard to get work done in that environment. Open office setups amplify all of the downsides of working in an office.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by Smaug123 on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:15PM (#34668793)
My team kept a Webex room open at the start of every morning for just turning up and chatting in; it would generally stay open in the background until everyone had left for meetings. It certainly worked well for us. Sometimes people just worked silently through it, but usually there was lots of chat.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by ineptech on Sunday February 05, 2023 @03:23PM (#34668894)
We don't have something like this (except for the bullshitting that usually occurs in the last few minutes of standup) but I'm thinking we should try it.
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by nunez on Monday February 06, 2023 @08:49AM (#34677234)
Not at all the same. Most people will just go back to their own stuff behind the camera. Also, Zoom is EXHAUSTING for a lot of people. You're talking at a monitor, not a person!
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by Smaug123 on Monday February 06, 2023 @05:53PM (#34685696)
If you're allowed the "exhaustion" excuse, then I'm certainly allowed the same excuse for not going into the office! In-person interaction is EXHAUSTING for a lot of people. You're trying to absorb dozens more nonverbal cues at once!
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Re:Ask HN: Employers, why do you want us back in the office? by watwut on Sunday February 05, 2023 @06:26PM (#34670969)
> example might be, "You know, I didn't want to say anything in the meeting, but doesn't Greg's data lake proposal sound exactly like the project that failed two years ago?"

The failure there is that the person is afraid to tell that in the meeting. He or she has to rely on backchannel.

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