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> 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 c
by ineptech 4y ago
> 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...
- ornornor 4y ago> 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.
- DangerousPie 4y agoIt feels very artificial and takes a lot more planning. I still do this sometimes but it's not the same.
- jemmyw 4y agoWhy 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?"
- doutunlined 4y agoBecause IRL you're effectively always in call. Not sure whats hard to understand about the difference.
- jemmyw 4y agoI 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?"
- nostrebored 4y agoI 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.
- jemmyw 4y agoYeah 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.
- krabizzwainch 4y agoOur 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".
- Smaug123 4y agoMy 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.
- ineptech 4y agoWe 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.
- nunez 4y agoNot 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!
- Smaug123 4y agoIf 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!
- Johnny555 4y agoAn 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.
- SpeedilyDamage 4y agoHow 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.
- Johnny555 4y agoHow 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.
- SpeedilyDamage 4y agoIt’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.
- JohnFen 4y agoI 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.
- 4y ago
- watwut 4y ago> 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.