14 ms·

The death of 'mandatory fun' in the office

106 points by akeck 4y ago

ulisesrmzroche 4y ago
That's what I tried to tell students at a bootcamp, but then I never got hired back. They could just fuck off whenever they wanted to go play mario kart, and I tried to tell them that's not what they were paying them for. No clue if any made it
trynewideas 4y ago
If I hadn't just come back from a mandatory company onsite loaded with mandatory fun events, I'd understand this article. They haven't died, they've just become more concentrated, disruptive, and expensive.
underseacables 4y ago
A great example of forced celebration and socializing is The Circle by Dave Eggers. There's a moment early in the book between two characters. A man is very upset with a woman whom he has never met, and who was just hired by his company, because she failed to RSVP to his invitation for a company social event. The ridiculousness-yet-very-serious nature of the scenario reads almost like satire, but it's what I've always imagined Silicon Valley's forced social events to be like.
- ghaff 4y ago
  The Circle can only really be enjoyed if read as an over-the-top satire in the vein of "if things go on this way." And the film was a great missed opportunity to do some sort of Strangelovian dark comedy rather than playing things straight.
IMTDb 4y ago
> But that doesn’t mean that colleagues stopped connecting altogether, says Lopushinsky. They just started doing it in ways they actually found enjoyable. “On the flip side, the pandemic also led to the rise of more employee-led initiatives,” he says. Team-building events and ‘fun’ ceased to be top-down. “Employees would lead a Zoom yoga class, or a cooking class for their colleagues. It’s an interesting shift, away from ‘you have to do this,’ and toward, ‘what do you guys really want to do?’” I am almost sure that the "mandatory fun" that the article described initially started as employees lead initiative that turned "mandatory", when he employees championing them started reaching position of power within the company. That's when people started feeling like they had to participate to impress their boss. I can't wait for Janine "fun yoga zoom class" to become "mandatory" when said Janine becomes manager of her team and people notice that she has a privileged relationship with people who participate because they have something in common. And the cycle will repeat. There is no reason to believe the pattern has fundamentally changed.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > I am almost sure that the "mandatory fun" that the article described initially started as employees lead initiative that turned "mandatory", when he employees championing them started reaching position of power within the company. It doesn't even have to get that far. I have low-level manager friend who's being pressured into leading "mandatory fun" events by his team. He hates that kind of thing, but if he doesn't do it his team will complain (not specifically about mandatory fun, but vaguer morale things) and it will look bad.
  - LeanderK 4y ago
    I don't understand...the team will complain? But it's his job to lead and take care of the team. He's not being pressured, it's part of the job. It's like when employee #2 is having a big fight with #3 because he never cleans the common kitchen after preparing his coffee. You might not care about the feelings of #2 but you have to do something, you are not pressured into it because the team can't stand the situation.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      But the comment I was responding to was about these things becoming more "employee led" by people who actually want to participate. In this case it's a kind of weird up-down pressure by a couple people who who may want these events, but would rather complain than take the initiative themselves.
  - dom96 4y ago
    Why does he need to lead it? A manager should delegate, especially for things like this that can easily be organised/lead by someone that actuallys wants to lead them.
- memco 4y ago
  > I can't wait for Janine "fun yoga zoom class" to become "mandatory" when said Janine becomes manager of her team and people notice that she has a privileged relationship with people who participate because they have something in common. This sounds like it could qualify as harassment in some jurisdictions if my last harassment training is anything to go by.
betterthanlast 4y ago
My company moved mandatory fun to Zoom. I joined the first half of the first call back in 2020, nothing after that. It will hurt me in the long run, but I can’t stomach mandatory fun.
- BoxOfRain 4y ago
  I didn't mind mandatory fun that's just stuff you might do anyway like going down the pub with your colleagues and maybe your boss to get some pints it, but I'm really not a fan of structured mandatory fun that involves a sense of obligation.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    If you were working with somebody you respect would you ask them to lunch or dinner? Sure, perfectly normal in every society on earth. However would you invite them to a sack race?
- lucideer 4y ago
  I can handle mandatory fun if it involves physical movement. Sedentary mandatory fun isn't particularly more interesting than solitary sedentary fun.
  - corrral 4y ago
    Heh, you just made me realize my favorite kind of mandatory fun is the sort that forces a bunch of my co-workers to play some team sport (any team sport, really) with me that I don't get to play often as an adult, because it's usually difficult to get enough people together for it. I dislike most of the rest, but that kind's awesome. For me, anyway—probably some of the others hate it.
    - rightbyte 4y ago
      Haha ye. I hate "mandatory fun" unless it is soccer or longball or whatever I never have chance to do otherwise. Strangely, those events are usually actually not "mandatory" but just enthusiasts wanting to play team sports.
timcavel 4y ago
hprotagonist 4y ago
Friggin' good. Obligatory "fun" time is horrid.
sys_64738 4y ago
"You WILL have fun, dammit!"
gjvc 4y ago
the beatings will continue until morale improves
FredPret 4y ago
This is the most paternalistic thing ever and needs to go away forever
diogenescynic 4y ago
I was supposed to attend a team offsite next week, but got COVID. I’m actually relieved to have an excuse not to be forced to participate.
- papito 4y ago
  That part of offsites where you are put into a group to compete with other groups, sometimes offsite offsite.... I don't have enough hate for those.
usrn 4y ago
It's been replaced with mandatory evening DEI training.
alkaloid 4y ago
Anyone think it's healthy to get anxiety attacks from being forced to get on a Zoom meeting where I have to share three personal photos with everyone?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kirykl 4y ago
  Feeling nervous about it may be common. Anxiety attack prob not
- navbaker 4y ago
  Tangentially related: I was deeply relieved to be able to take a required training course on one of the standard corporate "don't be a bad person" topics virtually, thinking I would be spared the inevitable small group discussions. I of course completely overlooked Zoom's breakout room functionality and had to deal with two hours of periodic awkwardness as three of us started at a countdown timer and tried to stretch 30 seconds of bullet point discussion into 7 minutes.
  - irrational 4y ago
    My internet connection always goes down during those times.
- voidfunc 4y ago
  Id be like “what photos?” (I almost never take pictures of anything including myself). Id be happy with a phone that didn’t have a camera etc.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  It's never healthy or normal to get anxiety attacks from a situation that is not genuinely dangerous. For example an anxiety attack from being chased by a crazy dude would be normal. In any normal social situation, no.
  - 4y ago
h2odragon 4y ago
I fondly recall the mandatory volleyball games at my first employer. The guy with no arms got hired; played one game, and kicked ass. Suddenly the games weren't mandatory anymore and the bosses' kids took up baseball instead of volleyball.
falcolas 4y ago
Its not dead. It was just on pause. Sent from my mandatory conference with mandatory fun events.
papito 4y ago
Or just cover small group lunches. Lots of bonding can happen over food. NOT at the office. Particularly important when there are older employees around. Like, you know, thirty four. Happy hours are the fastest way to bond, because libations lead to openness, and openness leads to friendships. Do that while you can. Then switch to lunches. Or even dinners!
bearjaws 4y ago
It still astonishes me to this day how Director+ level at a company doesn't understand the power dynamic of being asked to 'optionally attend' these types of events. Saying no is instantly a negative thing by the literal definition of "no". So however you ask your staff it won't matter, they will be uncomfortable at the event or uncomfortable saying no.
- BrandoElFollito 4y ago
  It depends on the company, on the country and the manager. I sometimes organize dinners for my team (it's France after all). People can freely come or not and there is always someone who does not come. This someone changes all the time and nobody is keeping count. I know my team inside out and, believe me, they will say when something pisses them off. Clearly. The dinners are not one of these things.
- Handytinge 4y ago
  If most other people are comfortable saying no and you're not, maybe the issue here isn't the person doing the asking...
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  > Saying no is instantly a negative thing by the literal definition of "no". So however you ask your staff it won't matter, they will be uncomfortable at the event or uncomfortable saying no. I'm a new SWE Manager and I've been thinking alot about power dynamics since I got promoted. You would think that you can just tell you reports "hey you can be honest with me and speak your mind", but the difficult part about that is no one will take you at your word when you say that. I'm still working it out but one thing I've found that helps is to crack some jokes with my reports. Like the other day I was having a one on one with a report where they were saying that they didn't like how ClientX was doing ThingY on ProjectZ. I could tell by his tone that he was trying to gauge my reaction before continuing, I interjected with a light joke about said client, basically telling him that I completely agreed with his sentiment. From there I noticed that things got much lighter and he was able to speak his mind more about the issue. Was that the right approach? Who the fuck knows.
mc4ndr3 4y ago
True work life balances acknowledges that we have lives outside of business, that coworkers are not family, and that higher bonuses and flexible time off policies are more appreciated than anything else. If we wanted to be here and suffer the tedious bedlam of your office politics, you wouldn't need to pay us.
_fat_santa 4y ago
I asked this question on Reddit a while back and this seems like a good place to ask the question now: I'm a brand new manager, managing several reports and we are all remote. I've been tossing thoughts in the back of my head around on various ways we could bond as a team. My managers suggest that we do Zoom happy hour but I honestly cringe at the idea. With that said does anyone have any suggestions for things I can do with the team that wouldn't be "mandatory fun"? My thought on it thus far is if we are all remote, the best thing you can do is to just support your team and not get in the way with various activities and such. But I would love to be proven wrong.
- gkop 4y ago
  Proactively investing in team health, is the closest thing to a free lunch as far as improving team outcomes. Try different things and see what works, but definitely do something if you want to find out what the highest version of your team could be.
- hogrider 4y ago
  Just don't. If you are paying them enough you won't need the mandatory fun to retain them.
- criddell 4y ago
  > I've been tossing thoughts in the back of my head around on various ways we could bond as a team. What is the problem that lead to you thinking about this in the first place? Maybe somebody will be able to give you better advice if you can be more specific about what needs to be corrected.
- derefr 4y ago
  Any activity that involves potentially bonding with your boss will always suck. The potential for power dynamic interactions gets in the way of relaxing. If you think your team needs to be better meshed with each other, then suggest to one of them (who, after discussion, seems to think the same) that they propose an out-of-work bonding thing to their coworkers. And that they invite the rest of their team, but—crucially—not you. Much more likely to be seen as a pleasant activity, rather than “mandatory fun.” Now, if you as a manager want to bond better with your team yourself… I have no honest idea. Probably you can at least build empathy, by taking on some of the worst “somebody’s gotta do it” work they’d otherwise be doing, to shield them from said work and instead keep them on work that’s their comparative advantage. They may never notice this / may take it for granted, though. (But the real trick is to rise through the ranks from a non-managerial role, and ensure everyone already vibes with you before the promotion to management.)
system16 4y ago
The worst is companies that mandate their "fun" on your time. Scheduling these events later in the day or after office hours, or - for some truly evil companies - on weekends.
Agamus 4y ago
The cadaverous reek of mandatory fun was best captured by the impressively pathetic David Brent in the original UK Office series (portrayed by Ricky Gervais). The moment when he points to a stuffed monkey on top of the coat-rack to demonstrate how much fun it is to work there... that moment is with me forever.
LeanderK 4y ago
A friend of mine is working in a somewhat larger, remotely working team and they have a retreat once or twice a year. It's usually a holiday destination, a few days (like the work week) and it looks quite fun. It's one of the few times where everyone can see each other and it's seems to do it's job well as a team-building exercise, and I think it's largely because it's bottom up. It's up to the engineers what they want to do. It's a holiday together, somewhat boozy with different social activities where not everyone is forced to participate (some might need something physical in between and others are not really in shape to participate). Which might be the secret to 'mandatory fun' in the office. Maybe just ask what they would like, listen a bit and gather feedback what worked and what not, instead of just booking some random team-building offering. Top-down, mandatory fun (with a focus on mandatory) is just not going to work.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
cwoolfe 4y ago
The article casts office forced-fun birthday parties as toxic, and yet the only alternative mentioned is co-workers voluntarily gathering together to drink alcohol and complain over zoom...as if that isn't also toxic. Hello everyone, we can do better! A better alternative is employee-led, voluntary gatherings. For example, my company will pay up to $1000 for any such gathering. Somebody organizes a gathering they want to do, and it's announced to the whole company. Anybody who wants to join can come too.
- Cthulhu_ 4y ago
  We used to have these things at our old company, and they were happy to pitch in with e.g. dinner; that way we've had board game, MTG or video game nights (for the last one they employed a company that supplied gaming PCs), sports events, hackathons, airsoft, you name it. My current employer did a lowkey after work beer here and there, and during the pandemic, awkward "forced fun" zoom meetups which started off with the guy pulling things to remark on everyone's camera image. I mean I get it, someone has to do it because in this company nobody else will because they all just want to get paid and get on with their life, but still.
wink 4y ago
Or maybe it's just the sign of a meh place to work if there is mandatory fun? I've worked at several (small I have to admit) companies where the people were usually honestly disappointed if they couldn't join the yearly weekend outings, the parties were fun and if someone didn't want to join, they didn't join. OK, I only started at my current one during the pandemic so I haven't actually met most of the people and it's also a bigger one, with actually separate departments, so no high hopes here, but I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be this bad.
nicgrev103 4y ago
Everyone turning their backs on the office bday party... everyone but Boris Johnson during covid lockdown!
nicgrev103 4y ago
My boss recently had a birthday party where he invited us to come and pay for our own pizza at a place of his choosing. He invited his wife and baby but no one else was allowed to bring partners. It was made out like it was optional but when I didn't respond to the invite he singled me out and I was the only one not going. Didn't feel like I had a choice really.
chrismeller 4y ago
Anecdotal evidence suggests it’s still alive and well in Estonia, almost like they’re frozen in time with a 90’s “Companies for Dummies” book. Of course they also have that mindset in a dozen other ways, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.
kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 4y ago
People are distinguishing between being friends with their boss and friends with their peers. Is there really a difference? Are people really cutting loose and opening up with their peers in a way that they wouldn't if their boss were physically in the room?
motohagiography 4y ago
During a particularly weird HR intervention at a branch office I worked at, all the managers were required to sit through a team building exercise where we were handed crayons, construction paper, glitter, markers and other kindergarten craft tools, and required to create some kind of personal expression and share the result with each other. The intervention was in response to some big attrition and rage quits on the engineering team, and a general disconnect between that office and the rest of the company. Forgetting for a moment that a group of adults had to create these objectively demeaning expressions and then present what the glitter or animal stickers represented to each other, and to an exec with hire/fire authority, HR collected the artifacts at the end of the session - and when we returned to the office the next day, they were hung on the walls for all the managers' staff to see what we had accomplished on a day long retreat while everyone was under immense deadline pressure to ship features. One engineer saw these pathetic clusters of multi coloured clutter taped to the walls and with the horror of someone whose invested career so far depended on performance reviews from said managers, she asked, "seriously, what the hell is this?" We had pissed off eng staff to begin with, but what the exec team thought we needed was a kind of coup de grace to utterly discredit managers as men and women in front of the people whose livelihoods depended on their leadership. Since then, what I have come to think these exercises are is a test of supplication, and of whether you can convincingly and competitively debase yourself better than your next peer. It was a kind of race to the bottom to demonstrate how sincerely you could erase your humanity and individuality in service to the narrative of a team, and what you were willing to do to survive. I've even come to suspect it's a system, where they take average people with impostor syndrome, make them debase and humiliate themselves in front of others, and then leverage the shame of the exercise into a new cruelty and compensatory sadism to squeeze out marginal effort from their staff. Now when I see glitter and crayons, I am reminded of how they tried to teach me to hate.
- jayd16 4y ago
  I think you're reading too much signal from the noise of an HR team with no good ideas.
- tubalcain 4y ago
  Well put and succinct! Mandatory child games like the one you described above are confidence busting exercisee, done to demoralize your colleagues to the point where they feel quitting isn't an option because they see themselves as barely worthy of the job they already have.
low_tech_love 4y ago
One thing about these “perks” is that they are supposed to automatically turn into good reasons to work somewhere. Like “hey your salary is shit but at least there is a nintendo switch in the common room”. I want to play games at home after work. Plus, if I sit down for more than 15 minutes in the common room playing Super Mario Odyssey people will invariably start to look at me weird. In the end it’s just another bullshit way to attract naive, young employees.
- gs17 4y ago
  > Plus, if I sit down for more than 15 minutes in the common room playing Super Mario Odyssey people will invariably start to look at me weird. Yeah, the "game room" style perks always felt like a trap to me.
- 908B64B197 4y ago
  > Like “hey your salary is shit but at least there is a nintendo switch in the common room”. Even better, "we're like Google" except they give you a blank stare where you ask about the 20% time, free food, compensation or where they hire from. Turns out it's all bootcamp/local wages no stock, no 20% time. But hey, they have beanbag chairs! On the flip side, they make it almost too easy to poach talent...
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  I had an employer burn piles of money on an "employee appreciation" day with carnival games and inflatable slides.
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    My dad worked for Shell. Every year, the plant he worked at would rent out an entire carnival for two days so that the families of plant workers could play the games.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      Mine wasn't a family day. Just the adult employees.
fleddr 4y ago
The problem with the "fundatory" phenomenon is not whether or not it actually is fun (sometimes it can be), rather that the motivation is not genuine. When you organize a drink with friends, there's no hidden agenda. A corporate drink may still deliver fun, but not for the sake of fun itself. It's a means to an end that ultimately benefits the company. If you disagree, and are a manager that genuinely wants to add fun to an employee's life without any secret agenda, ask them which they consider more fun: leaving an hour early or staying with coworkers they already see more than their family. You should then have no problem with the "leaving early" answer since you're all about maximizing fun. If you find that answer disappointing, you never cared about fun in the first place.
- the_lonely_road 4y ago
  This is a weird reductive line of reasoning where you can't have multiple goals. My primary goal is relationship building amongst my staff, my secondary goal is for them have fun while doing it. Therefore I try to create the most fun activity possible that involves the staff being together. Your "send them home an hour early" completely violates the primary goal without invalidating the secondary goal as you claim.
  - fleddr 4y ago
    The reason you can't have multiple goals in this case is because fun and mandatory are directly opposed to each other. The moment you require somebody to have fun, it no longer is fun.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Then the relationship building excercise should be during normal work hours. In my experience, the “fun” exercise is only a problem when it is after work hours and not appropriately compensated.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Your "send them home an hour early" completely violates the primary goal without invalidating the secondary goal as you claim As you imply, there is a middle ground: let them off early and announce you’ll buy drinks at the bar. If people want to join, they have the option. If they don’t they won’t. If you’ve created the right culture, nobody will feel obligated, but you’ll receive feedback on the social state of your team.
reactjavascript 4y ago
I won't miss the Mandatory Fun Corporate T-Shirt. What a waste of resources. Printed up and shipped halfway around the world to be used one day and then donated to Goodwill. Let's do better!
pwillia7 4y ago
This is a sentiment I see expressed all the time from friends and peers that are in engineering and product that I don't see as much on the sales side of things. I don't know if it's the Austin tech community that seems slightly more focused on treating your co-workers and employees with humanity, the nature or type of people on sales teams, or just a coincidence in my limited experience, but I tend to try to work at places where I genuinely like the people I'll be working with and build real friendships (though still in a different context than non work friendships) and it seems a lot better than other's experience. You have to spend ~1/3 of your waking life working in almost all cases and I can't imagine trying to frame it solely as an impediment to the other things I could be doing or other people I could be interacting with. I feel negative about work and the concept of work even a lot of the time, but I don't like the idea of fully giving into that and accepting that 1/3 of all my time will be captured by some not valuable time sink with people I'd rather not speak to. I don't think I could live that way for long. I was wooed by koolaid and 'perks' at companies when I was fresh out of school, but when that faded or failed, it was the people you could build relationships with, learn and win/fail with that really makes it tolerable to go into an office or spend 8 hours a day making someone else a bunch of money. My biggest question looking at orgs is if they look at people as human beings or cogs in a machine first, and at what level as you go up the chain, if any, that stops. When you read about Amazon forcing leadership to distance themselves from DR so they can not feel when they shrewdly make the business more efficient, that is one of the most glaring examples.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > places where I genuinely like the people I'll be working with and build real friendships These are dangerous places to work for people who like co-workers because they hold up their end of the work, and have their own criteria for choosing friends. It turns work into high school, with an in-group and outgroups. Those outgroups will often be older people with children and lives, or something like all of the women or all of the Indians. I'm friends with people I would never work with, and I love working with people who I would never be friends with. People don't have to be everything for me, they just have to be at least one thing well. I choose my friends carefully, and they were difficult to find. A job is arbitrary people thrown together by their ability to do that job. The odds that I would want to be friends with a bunch of them are about the same as the odds that I would want to be friends with everyone at a random bus stop. The odds that I would want to work with them are a lot better. Settle for that. edit: I'm actually annoyed when I realize that a coworker would make a good friend. I have to say things to coworkers sometimes that I would never say to friends, because coworkers need to get shit done.
dbbk 4y ago
I'm sure this isn't the same for everyone, but for me, my work environment is great. I love being in the office and socialising with people. We go for after work drinks twice a week. It's not mandatory (or even perceived mandatory), but I personally enjoy it for getting to know my coworkers outside of work contexts.
technothrasher 4y ago
Maybe its different because we're a small company, or maybe I'm deluding myself, but I've always run 'work parties' here as non-mandatory and people seem to see it that way without trouble. Typically we'll buy pizza, or have a bbq for lunch, or handle birthdays by one cake a month for everybody who has a birthday that month, and the employees who want to partake do, some never do, and some do occasionally. Nobody gets ostracized based on whether they attend. But I also 1) never provide alcohol, 2) never require any social 'ice breaker' type games, and 2) never have company events during non-working hours.
ChrisArchitect 4y ago
Just started watching Severance on Apple+ TV and it's a dark thriller (far as I can tell early in) but it demonstrates tons of this corporate behaviour if you want to chuckle at the absurdity of some of our realities.
- neogodless 4y ago
  Just wrapped up Season 1 last night. But yes this article, especially the photos with people wearing Cones of Dunshire hats made me think of the corporate perks!
whoknew1122 4y ago
The problem with "fundatory" activities really is in how they're implemented. I've had managers schedule 'fun' activities... after the workday. I'm not spending any more time at work than I have to. If you want co-workers to celebrate birthdays, get to know each other better, etc. do it on the clock. Also, most of my outside interests and lifestyle is not HR appropriate. So, outside of the work we do, I don't have much in common with coworkers. Or, at least, I don't know that I do because talking frankly about outside activities could lead to a trip to HR. So there's not really anything to talk about except works tangential to work. And I already do that for 1/3 of the day when I'm forced to. I'm not looking to talk about AWS outside of my working hours with the people on my immediate team. Things change slightly when it stretches beyond my current workgroup. If I'm in an offsite training? Yeah, I'll go do the 'fun' stuff. Because that's where I can get to know new people and have potentially find a lead on my next job move. But with my current team? After work? Nah... Unless it's with the one person on my team who shares the same taste in music. We can hang out a bit and talk about music.
lastofthemojito 4y ago
Using the ol' quadrant construct, I think we can create 4 categories of folks with respect to such activity: 1 | 2 ----- 3 | 4 Above the line are folks who genuinely are open to friendship beyond work, below are folks are are not. To the left are folks whose jobs encourage or require this extracurricular fun, to the right are folks whose jobs do not. If you're a #1, things are great! Work is fun AND you're making new friends! If you're a #2, things are ok, Work is work, and you have hobbies and activities outside of work too. You might wish you were in category #1 though. If you're a #3, your job is causing undue stress and misery. You're having your arm twisted to do things you don't want to, perhaps due to outside commitments or maybe just lack of interest. If you're a #4, there's mutual respect in the workplace and that's enough. I guess the traditional view is that boring old companies led to people in categories #2 and #4. But then some companies declared themselves "fun" and set people up to be in categories #1 or #3. I don't see why it's so hard to arrange fun activities, while making it clear there's absolutely no pressure, and get people into categories #1 and #4.
- 121789 4y ago
  I like your framing. I think the challenge is just that people have different personalities. Some will be happy to go out with coworkers multiple times a week (and will stay in #2 unless they get the social aspect), some will treat a company-comped steak dinner and drinks once a quarter as a tyrannical step towards slavery (and will easily slip from #3 to #4 at the mere suggestion). Hard to manage both types in the same team, especially if people are remote.
Ragingweb 4y ago
As an engineering manager of a team spanning 5+ time zones, i don't do any remote huddles, too cringy in my opinion. I offer free Friday afternoons for personal fun, and i travel to meet face to face every 2-3 month, on a volountary basis.
dannyphantom 4y ago
Severance [1] has a few bits about "office fun" which reflected how awkward work sponsored "fun" can really be. Personally, the idea of "fundatory" is lost on me; I am working to perform a function that furthers an end goal and in return collect payment for doing so. If work wishes to have a weekend event or a no-obligation after work get together, the people who wish to be there will happily show up with those who would rather not be there won't. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7M-RcRsow4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7M-RcRsow4
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
"Sorry about not getting a bonus, but here are some paper hats and a couple slices of pizza to make up for it!"
scioto 4y ago
I was once at a mandatory Winter Holidays party at my startup. Family was invited, too. And what happened at the end was that we were all, family included, directed to pick up a computer or chair or other relatively lightweight piece of office furniture, load it into your car, and move it to the company's new location about five miles away. Surprise! Since at the time I was driving a minivan, my family got to load up half the server room, racks included, and drive it to the new place. (yes, the startup failed)
presidentender 4y ago
At my last job, we had an organically-developed years-old tradition of what we called "adventure lunch," a weekly outing where one attendee would nominate someone to choose another restaurant for next time. The shared experience of a brief walk was nice. There was no expectation that anyone would go and no judgment associated with nonattendance on a particular day. We hired this director-level engineering manager who took it upon himself to commandeer the slack channel we had previously used to coordinate these outings, to dictate that they were now daily, and to dictate that he was in charge of choosing the location every day. Covid quickly made the specific point moot, but they have since suffered nearly complete turnover in the engineering organization.

106 points by akeck 4y ago

That's what I tried to tell students at a bootcamp, but then I never got hired back. They could just fuck off whenever they wanted to go play mario kart, and I tried to tell them that's not what they were paying them for. No clue if any made it

trynewideas 4y ago

If I hadn't just come back from a mandatory company onsite loaded with mandatory fun events, I'd understand this article. They haven't died, they've just become more concentrated, disruptive, and expensive.

underseacables 4y ago

A great example of forced celebration and socializing is The Circle by Dave Eggers. There's a moment early in the book between two characters. A man is very upset with a woman whom he has never met, and who was just hired by his company, because she failed to RSVP to his invitation for a company social event. The ridiculousness-yet-very-serious nature of the scenario reads almost like satire, but it's what I've always imagined Silicon Valley's forced social events to be like.

ghaff 4y ago
The Circle can only really be enjoyed if read as an over-the-top satire in the vein of "if things go on this way." And the film was a great missed opportunity to do some sort of Strangelovian dark comedy rather than playing things straight.

IMTDb 4y ago

> But that doesn’t mean that colleagues stopped connecting altogether, says Lopushinsky. They just started doing it in ways they actually found enjoyable. “On the flip side, the pandemic also led to the rise of more employee-led initiatives,” he says. Team-building events and ‘fun’ ceased to be top-down. “Employees would lead a Zoom yoga class, or a cooking class for their colleagues. It’s an interesting shift, away from ‘you have to do this,’ and toward, ‘what do you guys really want to do?’” I am almost sure that the "mandatory fun" that the article described initially started as employees lead initiative that turned "mandatory", when he employees championing them started reaching position of power within the company. That's when people started feeling like they had to participate to impress their boss. I can't wait for Janine "fun yoga zoom class" to become "mandatory" when said Janine becomes manager of her team and people notice that she has a privileged relationship with people who participate because they have something in common. And the cycle will repeat. There is no reason to believe the pattern has fundamentally changed.

tablespoon 4y ago
> I am almost sure that the "mandatory fun" that the article described initially started as employees lead initiative that turned "mandatory", when he employees championing them started reaching position of power within the company. It doesn't even have to get that far. I have low-level manager friend who's being pressured into leading "mandatory fun" events by his team. He hates that kind of thing, but if he doesn't do it his team will complain (not specifically about mandatory fun, but vaguer morale things) and it will look bad.
- LeanderK 4y ago
  I don't understand...the team will complain? But it's his job to lead and take care of the team. He's not being pressured, it's part of the job. It's like when employee #2 is having a big fight with #3 because he never cleans the common kitchen after preparing his coffee. You might not care about the feelings of #2 but you have to do something, you are not pressured into it because the team can't stand the situation.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    But the comment I was responding to was about these things becoming more "employee led" by people who actually want to participate. In this case it's a kind of weird up-down pressure by a couple people who who may want these events, but would rather complain than take the initiative themselves.
- dom96 4y ago
  Why does he need to lead it? A manager should delegate, especially for things like this that can easily be organised/lead by someone that actuallys wants to lead them.
memco 4y ago
> I can't wait for Janine "fun yoga zoom class" to become "mandatory" when said Janine becomes manager of her team and people notice that she has a privileged relationship with people who participate because they have something in common. This sounds like it could qualify as harassment in some jurisdictions if my last harassment training is anything to go by.

betterthanlast 4y ago

My company moved mandatory fun to Zoom. I joined the first half of the first call back in 2020, nothing after that. It will hurt me in the long run, but I can’t stomach mandatory fun.

BoxOfRain 4y ago
I didn't mind mandatory fun that's just stuff you might do anyway like going down the pub with your colleagues and maybe your boss to get some pints it, but I'm really not a fan of structured mandatory fun that involves a sense of obligation.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  If you were working with somebody you respect would you ask them to lunch or dinner? Sure, perfectly normal in every society on earth. However would you invite them to a sack race?
lucideer 4y ago
I can handle mandatory fun if it involves physical movement. Sedentary mandatory fun isn't particularly more interesting than solitary sedentary fun.
- corrral 4y ago
  Heh, you just made me realize my favorite kind of mandatory fun is the sort that forces a bunch of my co-workers to play some team sport (any team sport, really) with me that I don't get to play often as an adult, because it's usually difficult to get enough people together for it. I dislike most of the rest, but that kind's awesome. For me, anyway—probably some of the others hate it.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Haha ye. I hate "mandatory fun" unless it is soccer or longball or whatever I never have chance to do otherwise. Strangely, those events are usually actually not "mandatory" but just enthusiasts wanting to play team sports.

timcavel 4y ago

hprotagonist 4y ago

Friggin' good. Obligatory "fun" time is horrid.

sys_64738 4y ago

"You WILL have fun, dammit!"

gjvc 4y ago

the beatings will continue until morale improves

FredPret 4y ago

This is the most paternalistic thing ever and needs to go away forever

diogenescynic 4y ago

I was supposed to attend a team offsite next week, but got COVID. I’m actually relieved to have an excuse not to be forced to participate.

papito 4y ago
That part of offsites where you are put into a group to compete with other groups, sometimes offsite offsite.... I don't have enough hate for those.

usrn 4y ago

It's been replaced with mandatory evening DEI training.

alkaloid 4y ago

Anyone think it's healthy to get anxiety attacks from being forced to get on a Zoom meeting where I have to share three personal photos with everyone?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kirykl 4y ago
Feeling nervous about it may be common. Anxiety attack prob not
navbaker 4y ago
Tangentially related: I was deeply relieved to be able to take a required training course on one of the standard corporate "don't be a bad person" topics virtually, thinking I would be spared the inevitable small group discussions. I of course completely overlooked Zoom's breakout room functionality and had to deal with two hours of periodic awkwardness as three of us started at a countdown timer and tried to stretch 30 seconds of bullet point discussion into 7 minutes.
- irrational 4y ago
  My internet connection always goes down during those times.
voidfunc 4y ago
Id be like “what photos?” (I almost never take pictures of anything including myself). Id be happy with a phone that didn’t have a camera etc.
bowsamic 4y ago
It's never healthy or normal to get anxiety attacks from a situation that is not genuinely dangerous. For example an anxiety attack from being chased by a crazy dude would be normal. In any normal social situation, no.
- 4y ago

h2odragon 4y ago

I fondly recall the mandatory volleyball games at my first employer. The guy with no arms got hired; played one game, and kicked ass. Suddenly the games weren't mandatory anymore and the bosses' kids took up baseball instead of volleyball.

falcolas 4y ago

Its not dead. It was just on pause. Sent from my mandatory conference with mandatory fun events.

papito 4y ago

Or just cover small group lunches. Lots of bonding can happen over food. NOT at the office. Particularly important when there are older employees around. Like, you know, thirty four. Happy hours are the fastest way to bond, because libations lead to openness, and openness leads to friendships. Do that while you can. Then switch to lunches. Or even dinners!

bearjaws 4y ago

It still astonishes me to this day how Director+ level at a company doesn't understand the power dynamic of being asked to 'optionally attend' these types of events. Saying no is instantly a negative thing by the literal definition of "no". So however you ask your staff it won't matter, they will be uncomfortable at the event or uncomfortable saying no.

BrandoElFollito 4y ago
It depends on the company, on the country and the manager. I sometimes organize dinners for my team (it's France after all). People can freely come or not and there is always someone who does not come. This someone changes all the time and nobody is keeping count. I know my team inside out and, believe me, they will say when something pisses them off. Clearly. The dinners are not one of these things.
Handytinge 4y ago
If most other people are comfortable saying no and you're not, maybe the issue here isn't the person doing the asking...
_fat_santa 4y ago
> Saying no is instantly a negative thing by the literal definition of "no". So however you ask your staff it won't matter, they will be uncomfortable at the event or uncomfortable saying no. I'm a new SWE Manager and I've been thinking alot about power dynamics since I got promoted. You would think that you can just tell you reports "hey you can be honest with me and speak your mind", but the difficult part about that is no one will take you at your word when you say that. I'm still working it out but one thing I've found that helps is to crack some jokes with my reports. Like the other day I was having a one on one with a report where they were saying that they didn't like how ClientX was doing ThingY on ProjectZ. I could tell by his tone that he was trying to gauge my reaction before continuing, I interjected with a light joke about said client, basically telling him that I completely agreed with his sentiment. From there I noticed that things got much lighter and he was able to speak his mind more about the issue. Was that the right approach? Who the fuck knows.

mc4ndr3 4y ago

True work life balances acknowledges that we have lives outside of business, that coworkers are not family, and that higher bonuses and flexible time off policies are more appreciated than anything else. If we wanted to be here and suffer the tedious bedlam of your office politics, you wouldn't need to pay us.

_fat_santa 4y ago

I asked this question on Reddit a while back and this seems like a good place to ask the question now: I'm a brand new manager, managing several reports and we are all remote. I've been tossing thoughts in the back of my head around on various ways we could bond as a team. My managers suggest that we do Zoom happy hour but I honestly cringe at the idea. With that said does anyone have any suggestions for things I can do with the team that wouldn't be "mandatory fun"? My thought on it thus far is if we are all remote, the best thing you can do is to just support your team and not get in the way with various activities and such. But I would love to be proven wrong.

gkop 4y ago
Proactively investing in team health, is the closest thing to a free lunch as far as improving team outcomes. Try different things and see what works, but definitely do something if you want to find out what the highest version of your team could be.
hogrider 4y ago
Just don't. If you are paying them enough you won't need the mandatory fun to retain them.
criddell 4y ago
> I've been tossing thoughts in the back of my head around on various ways we could bond as a team. What is the problem that lead to you thinking about this in the first place? Maybe somebody will be able to give you better advice if you can be more specific about what needs to be corrected.
derefr 4y ago
Any activity that involves potentially bonding with your boss will always suck. The potential for power dynamic interactions gets in the way of relaxing. If you think your team needs to be better meshed with each other, then suggest to one of them (who, after discussion, seems to think the same) that they propose an out-of-work bonding thing to their coworkers. And that they invite the rest of their team, but—crucially—not you. Much more likely to be seen as a pleasant activity, rather than “mandatory fun.” Now, if you as a manager want to bond better with your team yourself… I have no honest idea. Probably you can at least build empathy, by taking on some of the worst “somebody’s gotta do it” work they’d otherwise be doing, to shield them from said work and instead keep them on work that’s their comparative advantage. They may never notice this / may take it for granted, though. (But the real trick is to rise through the ranks from a non-managerial role, and ensure everyone already vibes with you before the promotion to management.)

system16 4y ago

The worst is companies that mandate their "fun" on your time. Scheduling these events later in the day or after office hours, or - for some truly evil companies - on weekends.

Agamus 4y ago

The cadaverous reek of mandatory fun was best captured by the impressively pathetic David Brent in the original UK Office series (portrayed by Ricky Gervais). The moment when he points to a stuffed monkey on top of the coat-rack to demonstrate how much fun it is to work there... that moment is with me forever.

LeanderK 4y ago

A friend of mine is working in a somewhat larger, remotely working team and they have a retreat once or twice a year. It's usually a holiday destination, a few days (like the work week) and it looks quite fun. It's one of the few times where everyone can see each other and it's seems to do it's job well as a team-building exercise, and I think it's largely because it's bottom up. It's up to the engineers what they want to do. It's a holiday together, somewhat boozy with different social activities where not everyone is forced to participate (some might need something physical in between and others are not really in shape to participate). Which might be the secret to 'mandatory fun' in the office. Maybe just ask what they would like, listen a bit and gather feedback what worked and what not, instead of just booking some random team-building offering. Top-down, mandatory fun (with a focus on mandatory) is just not going to work.

deleted 4y ago

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cwoolfe 4y ago

The article casts office forced-fun birthday parties as toxic, and yet the only alternative mentioned is co-workers voluntarily gathering together to drink alcohol and complain over zoom...as if that isn't also toxic. Hello everyone, we can do better! A better alternative is employee-led, voluntary gatherings. For example, my company will pay up to $1000 for any such gathering. Somebody organizes a gathering they want to do, and it's announced to the whole company. Anybody who wants to join can come too.

Cthulhu_ 4y ago
We used to have these things at our old company, and they were happy to pitch in with e.g. dinner; that way we've had board game, MTG or video game nights (for the last one they employed a company that supplied gaming PCs), sports events, hackathons, airsoft, you name it. My current employer did a lowkey after work beer here and there, and during the pandemic, awkward "forced fun" zoom meetups which started off with the guy pulling things to remark on everyone's camera image. I mean I get it, someone has to do it because in this company nobody else will because they all just want to get paid and get on with their life, but still.

wink 4y ago

Or maybe it's just the sign of a meh place to work if there is mandatory fun? I've worked at several (small I have to admit) companies where the people were usually honestly disappointed if they couldn't join the yearly weekend outings, the parties were fun and if someone didn't want to join, they didn't join. OK, I only started at my current one during the pandemic so I haven't actually met most of the people and it's also a bigger one, with actually separate departments, so no high hopes here, but I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be this bad.

nicgrev103 4y ago

Everyone turning their backs on the office bday party... everyone but Boris Johnson during covid lockdown!

nicgrev103 4y ago

My boss recently had a birthday party where he invited us to come and pay for our own pizza at a place of his choosing. He invited his wife and baby but no one else was allowed to bring partners. It was made out like it was optional but when I didn't respond to the invite he singled me out and I was the only one not going. Didn't feel like I had a choice really.

chrismeller 4y ago

Anecdotal evidence suggests it’s still alive and well in Estonia, almost like they’re frozen in time with a 90’s “Companies for Dummies” book. Of course they also have that mindset in a dozen other ways, so I shouldn’t really be surprised.

kX4A8o4mVmX8aW 4y ago

People are distinguishing between being friends with their boss and friends with their peers. Is there really a difference? Are people really cutting loose and opening up with their peers in a way that they wouldn't if their boss were physically in the room?

motohagiography 4y ago

During a particularly weird HR intervention at a branch office I worked at, all the managers were required to sit through a team building exercise where we were handed crayons, construction paper, glitter, markers and other kindergarten craft tools, and required to create some kind of personal expression and share the result with each other. The intervention was in response to some big attrition and rage quits on the engineering team, and a general disconnect between that office and the rest of the company. Forgetting for a moment that a group of adults had to create these objectively demeaning expressions and then present what the glitter or animal stickers represented to each other, and to an exec with hire/fire authority, HR collected the artifacts at the end of the session - and when we returned to the office the next day, they were hung on the walls for all the managers' staff to see what we had accomplished on a day long retreat while everyone was under immense deadline pressure to ship features. One engineer saw these pathetic clusters of multi coloured clutter taped to the walls and with the horror of someone whose invested career so far depended on performance reviews from said managers, she asked, "seriously, what the hell is this?" We had pissed off eng staff to begin with, but what the exec team thought we needed was a kind of coup de grace to utterly discredit managers as men and women in front of the people whose livelihoods depended on their leadership. Since then, what I have come to think these exercises are is a test of supplication, and of whether you can convincingly and competitively debase yourself better than your next peer. It was a kind of race to the bottom to demonstrate how sincerely you could erase your humanity and individuality in service to the narrative of a team, and what you were willing to do to survive. I've even come to suspect it's a system, where they take average people with impostor syndrome, make them debase and humiliate themselves in front of others, and then leverage the shame of the exercise into a new cruelty and compensatory sadism to squeeze out marginal effort from their staff. Now when I see glitter and crayons, I am reminded of how they tried to teach me to hate.

jayd16 4y ago
I think you're reading too much signal from the noise of an HR team with no good ideas.
tubalcain 4y ago
Well put and succinct! Mandatory child games like the one you described above are confidence busting exercisee, done to demoralize your colleagues to the point where they feel quitting isn't an option because they see themselves as barely worthy of the job they already have.

low_tech_love 4y ago

One thing about these “perks” is that they are supposed to automatically turn into good reasons to work somewhere. Like “hey your salary is shit but at least there is a nintendo switch in the common room”. I want to play games at home after work. Plus, if I sit down for more than 15 minutes in the common room playing Super Mario Odyssey people will invariably start to look at me weird. In the end it’s just another bullshit way to attract naive, young employees.

gs17 4y ago
> Plus, if I sit down for more than 15 minutes in the common room playing Super Mario Odyssey people will invariably start to look at me weird. Yeah, the "game room" style perks always felt like a trap to me.
908B64B197 4y ago
> Like “hey your salary is shit but at least there is a nintendo switch in the common room”. Even better, "we're like Google" except they give you a blank stare where you ask about the 20% time, free food, compensation or where they hire from. Turns out it's all bootcamp/local wages no stock, no 20% time. But hey, they have beanbag chairs! On the flip side, they make it almost too easy to poach talent...
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
I had an employer burn piles of money on an "employee appreciation" day with carnival games and inflatable slides.
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  My dad worked for Shell. Every year, the plant he worked at would rent out an entire carnival for two days so that the families of plant workers could play the games.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    Mine wasn't a family day. Just the adult employees.

fleddr 4y ago

The problem with the "fundatory" phenomenon is not whether or not it actually is fun (sometimes it can be), rather that the motivation is not genuine. When you organize a drink with friends, there's no hidden agenda. A corporate drink may still deliver fun, but not for the sake of fun itself. It's a means to an end that ultimately benefits the company. If you disagree, and are a manager that genuinely wants to add fun to an employee's life without any secret agenda, ask them which they consider more fun: leaving an hour early or staying with coworkers they already see more than their family. You should then have no problem with the "leaving early" answer since you're all about maximizing fun. If you find that answer disappointing, you never cared about fun in the first place.

the_lonely_road 4y ago
This is a weird reductive line of reasoning where you can't have multiple goals. My primary goal is relationship building amongst my staff, my secondary goal is for them have fun while doing it. Therefore I try to create the most fun activity possible that involves the staff being together. Your "send them home an hour early" completely violates the primary goal without invalidating the secondary goal as you claim.
- fleddr 4y ago
  The reason you can't have multiple goals in this case is because fun and mandatory are directly opposed to each other. The moment you require somebody to have fun, it no longer is fun.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Then the relationship building excercise should be during normal work hours. In my experience, the “fun” exercise is only a problem when it is after work hours and not appropriately compensated.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > Your "send them home an hour early" completely violates the primary goal without invalidating the secondary goal as you claim As you imply, there is a middle ground: let them off early and announce you’ll buy drinks at the bar. If people want to join, they have the option. If they don’t they won’t. If you’ve created the right culture, nobody will feel obligated, but you’ll receive feedback on the social state of your team.

reactjavascript 4y ago

I won't miss the Mandatory Fun Corporate T-Shirt. What a waste of resources. Printed up and shipped halfway around the world to be used one day and then donated to Goodwill. Let's do better!

pwillia7 4y ago

This is a sentiment I see expressed all the time from friends and peers that are in engineering and product that I don't see as much on the sales side of things. I don't know if it's the Austin tech community that seems slightly more focused on treating your co-workers and employees with humanity, the nature or type of people on sales teams, or just a coincidence in my limited experience, but I tend to try to work at places where I genuinely like the people I'll be working with and build real friendships (though still in a different context than non work friendships) and it seems a lot better than other's experience. You have to spend ~1/3 of your waking life working in almost all cases and I can't imagine trying to frame it solely as an impediment to the other things I could be doing or other people I could be interacting with. I feel negative about work and the concept of work even a lot of the time, but I don't like the idea of fully giving into that and accepting that 1/3 of all my time will be captured by some not valuable time sink with people I'd rather not speak to. I don't think I could live that way for long. I was wooed by koolaid and 'perks' at companies when I was fresh out of school, but when that faded or failed, it was the people you could build relationships with, learn and win/fail with that really makes it tolerable to go into an office or spend 8 hours a day making someone else a bunch of money. My biggest question looking at orgs is if they look at people as human beings or cogs in a machine first, and at what level as you go up the chain, if any, that stops. When you read about Amazon forcing leadership to distance themselves from DR so they can not feel when they shrewdly make the business more efficient, that is one of the most glaring examples.

pessimizer 4y ago
> places where I genuinely like the people I'll be working with and build real friendships These are dangerous places to work for people who like co-workers because they hold up their end of the work, and have their own criteria for choosing friends. It turns work into high school, with an in-group and outgroups. Those outgroups will often be older people with children and lives, or something like all of the women or all of the Indians. I'm friends with people I would never work with, and I love working with people who I would never be friends with. People don't have to be everything for me, they just have to be at least one thing well. I choose my friends carefully, and they were difficult to find. A job is arbitrary people thrown together by their ability to do that job. The odds that I would want to be friends with a bunch of them are about the same as the odds that I would want to be friends with everyone at a random bus stop. The odds that I would want to work with them are a lot better. Settle for that. edit: I'm actually annoyed when I realize that a coworker would make a good friend. I have to say things to coworkers sometimes that I would never say to friends, because coworkers need to get shit done.

dbbk 4y ago

I'm sure this isn't the same for everyone, but for me, my work environment is great. I love being in the office and socialising with people. We go for after work drinks twice a week. It's not mandatory (or even perceived mandatory), but I personally enjoy it for getting to know my coworkers outside of work contexts.

technothrasher 4y ago

Maybe its different because we're a small company, or maybe I'm deluding myself, but I've always run 'work parties' here as non-mandatory and people seem to see it that way without trouble. Typically we'll buy pizza, or have a bbq for lunch, or handle birthdays by one cake a month for everybody who has a birthday that month, and the employees who want to partake do, some never do, and some do occasionally. Nobody gets ostracized based on whether they attend. But I also 1) never provide alcohol, 2) never require any social 'ice breaker' type games, and 2) never have company events during non-working hours.

ChrisArchitect 4y ago

Just started watching Severance on Apple+ TV and it's a dark thriller (far as I can tell early in) but it demonstrates tons of this corporate behaviour if you want to chuckle at the absurdity of some of our realities.

neogodless 4y ago
Just wrapped up Season 1 last night. But yes this article, especially the photos with people wearing Cones of Dunshire hats made me think of the corporate perks!

whoknew1122 4y ago

The problem with "fundatory" activities really is in how they're implemented. I've had managers schedule 'fun' activities... after the workday. I'm not spending any more time at work than I have to. If you want co-workers to celebrate birthdays, get to know each other better, etc. do it on the clock. Also, most of my outside interests and lifestyle is not HR appropriate. So, outside of the work we do, I don't have much in common with coworkers. Or, at least, I don't know that I do because talking frankly about outside activities could lead to a trip to HR. So there's not really anything to talk about except works tangential to work. And I already do that for 1/3 of the day when I'm forced to. I'm not looking to talk about AWS outside of my working hours with the people on my immediate team. Things change slightly when it stretches beyond my current workgroup. If I'm in an offsite training? Yeah, I'll go do the 'fun' stuff. Because that's where I can get to know new people and have potentially find a lead on my next job move. But with my current team? After work? Nah... Unless it's with the one person on my team who shares the same taste in music. We can hang out a bit and talk about music.

lastofthemojito 4y ago

Using the ol' quadrant construct, I think we can create 4 categories of folks with respect to such activity: 1 | 2 ----- 3 | 4 Above the line are folks who genuinely are open to friendship beyond work, below are folks are are not. To the left are folks whose jobs encourage or require this extracurricular fun, to the right are folks whose jobs do not. If you're a #1, things are great! Work is fun AND you're making new friends! If you're a #2, things are ok, Work is work, and you have hobbies and activities outside of work too. You might wish you were in category #1 though. If you're a #3, your job is causing undue stress and misery. You're having your arm twisted to do things you don't want to, perhaps due to outside commitments or maybe just lack of interest. If you're a #4, there's mutual respect in the workplace and that's enough. I guess the traditional view is that boring old companies led to people in categories #2 and #4. But then some companies declared themselves "fun" and set people up to be in categories #1 or #3. I don't see why it's so hard to arrange fun activities, while making it clear there's absolutely no pressure, and get people into categories #1 and #4.

121789 4y ago
I like your framing. I think the challenge is just that people have different personalities. Some will be happy to go out with coworkers multiple times a week (and will stay in #2 unless they get the social aspect), some will treat a company-comped steak dinner and drinks once a quarter as a tyrannical step towards slavery (and will easily slip from #3 to #4 at the mere suggestion). Hard to manage both types in the same team, especially if people are remote.

Ragingweb 4y ago

As an engineering manager of a team spanning 5+ time zones, i don't do any remote huddles, too cringy in my opinion. I offer free Friday afternoons for personal fun, and i travel to meet face to face every 2-3 month, on a volountary basis.

dannyphantom 4y ago

Severance [1] has a few bits about "office fun" which reflected how awkward work sponsored "fun" can really be. Personally, the idea of "fundatory" is lost on me; I am working to perform a function that furthers an end goal and in return collect payment for doing so. If work wishes to have a weekend event or a no-obligation after work get together, the people who wish to be there will happily show up with those who would rather not be there won't. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7M-RcRsow4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7M-RcRsow4

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

"Sorry about not getting a bonus, but here are some paper hats and a couple slices of pizza to make up for it!"

scioto 4y ago

I was once at a mandatory Winter Holidays party at my startup. Family was invited, too. And what happened at the end was that we were all, family included, directed to pick up a computer or chair or other relatively lightweight piece of office furniture, load it into your car, and move it to the company's new location about five miles away. Surprise! Since at the time I was driving a minivan, my family got to load up half the server room, racks included, and drive it to the new place. (yes, the startup failed)

presidentender 4y ago

At my last job, we had an organically-developed years-old tradition of what we called "adventure lunch," a weekly outing where one attendee would nominate someone to choose another restaurant for next time. The shared experience of a brief walk was nice. There was no expectation that anyone would go and no judgment associated with nonattendance on a particular day. We hired this director-level engineering manager who took it upon himself to commandeer the slack channel we had previously used to coordinate these outings, to dictate that they were now daily, and to dictate that he was in charge of choosing the location every day. Covid quickly made the specific point moot, but they have since suffered nearly complete turnover in the engineering organization.