3 ms·

i worked at company that is remote first and they did a company retreat every year (as well as team-focused retreats, like engineering, support, C-level). it w

i worked at company that is remote first and they did a company retreat every year (as well as team-focused retreats, like engineering, support, C-level). it was a blast -- you got a week of "free" travel w/ your SO (because it was just once a year, they paid for your SO to come with you). i loved it, because it was a time to get together, have some drinks, chitchat and do some super productive work.

mrtranscendence 5y ago
If it was a week long, in a desirable location, and I could take my fiancee, I'd be all for it. But it's 1.5 days, no SOs, and held in a casino in the ass end of bumfuck Indiana. And forget about working -- it's centered around a team-building exercise with people from other parts of the company you probably don't know and will never talk to again.
- andrewnicolalde 5y ago
  These sound like two different sorts of trips, and two very different sorts of companies.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  I understand the “why” of team building, but the “what” or “how” the team-building is done often handled in such a hackneyed top-down way that I often wonder “if you just brought the team together, gave them options on ways to spend their time together, would they otherwise choose to do the same activities the managers designed for the event”? That’s more rhetorical than anything and is a roundabout way of saying: most organized team building events are just…boring. It’s also just a preference though: getting together and just hanging out without the pressure to talk shop or participate in some kind of coordinated, planned and overly-orchestrated activity is just as engaging for me as “escape rooms” or “games” or other “activities”.
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    Yeah, some alternative scenario where we're given time to get to know folks at our own pace would be nicer. Like, here's some drinks, here are some board games, mingle, maybe talk about work, maybe not, make some connections. Instead we're under pressure to do some silly game that has only the faintest connection to anything the company does or stands for. Maybe I'm just too bitter. Maybe if I stayed for the afterparty I'd get the kind of interaction I want. But late night carousing isn't my kind of thing generally.
- iKidA 5y ago
  lol was the company 84.51/dunnhumby
  - mrtranscendence 5y ago
    I will neither confirm nor deny that speculation. ;)

mrtranscendence 5y ago

If it was a week long, in a desirable location, and I could take my fiancee, I'd be all for it. But it's 1.5 days, no SOs, and held in a casino in the ass end of bumfuck Indiana. And forget about working -- it's centered around a team-building exercise with people from other parts of the company you probably don't know and will never talk to again.

andrewnicolalde 5y ago
These sound like two different sorts of trips, and two very different sorts of companies.
dvtrn 5y ago
I understand the “why” of team building, but the “what” or “how” the team-building is done often handled in such a hackneyed top-down way that I often wonder “if you just brought the team together, gave them options on ways to spend their time together, would they otherwise choose to do the same activities the managers designed for the event”? That’s more rhetorical than anything and is a roundabout way of saying: most organized team building events are just…boring. It’s also just a preference though: getting together and just hanging out without the pressure to talk shop or participate in some kind of coordinated, planned and overly-orchestrated activity is just as engaging for me as “escape rooms” or “games” or other “activities”.
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  Yeah, some alternative scenario where we're given time to get to know folks at our own pace would be nicer. Like, here's some drinks, here are some board games, mingle, maybe talk about work, maybe not, make some connections. Instead we're under pressure to do some silly game that has only the faintest connection to anything the company does or stands for. Maybe I'm just too bitter. Maybe if I stayed for the afterparty I'd get the kind of interaction I want. But late night carousing isn't my kind of thing generally.
iKidA 5y ago
lol was the company 84.51/dunnhumby
- mrtranscendence 5y ago
  I will neither confirm nor deny that speculation. ;)