Maybe it's just me but I don't really want to think about work outside of working hours, much less hang out or 'unwind' with my coworkers before or after work.

Nobody said it was outside of working hours.

you just said food or drinks before or afterwards. people don't have food in the middle of the day after a meeting.

The differences with in person are that conversations have a much higher fidelity. There can be spontaneous multiple conversations going in the same room which is impossible virtually without spinning up another videoconf session, people leaving, people re-joining, etc. So it really is much better for brainstorming and doing the “figure things out” mode of software engineering. Once you’ve figured things out, the implementation can be dome remotely.

Sharing meals during this time together also helps build relationships and trust within a team. I mean as you work, or even offsite at a restaurant - go out to breakfast or lunch during the work day.

> Having food or drinks before or afterwards

That's not work. That should NEVER be part of work, even.

You sound joyful to work with.

Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse.

Also, please don't cross into personal attack on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.