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I recently pinged 2 co-workers for Friday afternoon remote "water cooler calls". I could send the relief when they had some informal time to vent and freely ch

• tidepod12 6y ago
  I've noticed this too. I've made it a point now to call up some of my team members at least once a week for no purpose other than to have a venting session. I don't think I ever realized how much of this venting must have subtly happened in person, but since COVID I think most of it gets bottled up and people get very frustrated when they can't casually talk through these issues in person. My team has collectively agreed that these "venting calls" are great if only for the reason that they make you aware that you're not the only one with frustrations, and I think that really helps morale.
  • haswell 6y ago
    > I don't think I ever realized how much of this venting must have subtly happened in person, but since COVID I think most of it gets bottled up and people get very frustrated when they can't casually talk through these issues in person. I hadn't considered this angle before reading your comment, but the psychological impact of this alone is huge. As any therapist will tell you, working through frustrations and integrating negative experiences instead of bottling them up is crucial. This is something I already struggled with prior to COVID, and I've been seeing a therapist for years now for this (and many other) reasons. The thing about bottling things up is that it kind of "works" for awhile. Until it doesn't. So we probably haven't even started to see the longer term impact this will have over time.
• gomox 6y ago
  Our company uses a Slack bot thing called "donut" that schedules these random meetups for you.