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An offsite is [in my experience] a dedicated series of days where a team comes together in one place (including from remote and satellite offices) to discuss st
by tschwimmer 3y ago
An offsite is [in my experience] a dedicated series of days where a team comes together in one place (including from remote and satellite offices) to discuss strategy or other high importance problems together. Historically they were held "off site" (usually in someplace cool like a resort) Usually you have meeting(s) during the day and then there's a social activity in the afternoon or evening. Sometimes the location is someplace really desirable (Hawaii, Tahoe, etc) and you spend a few days alternating between focused meetings and fun activities.
Recently many companies are cutting back on the fun part of the offsites and holding them onsite or nearby the office to reduce costs. I've been to a few "on-site offsites" that were just in a different building than we normally sit in with light refreshments served afterwards. I imagine since Dropbox doesn't have much of an office presence anymore they probably still do destination offsites and fly people in.
Source: this is just something you learn working in tech in the bay area
I'm pretty sure Dropbox flies people in for these.
- kadoban 3y agoThanks for the explanation. Jesus though, they're going to spend 10% of the year doing that? Maybe only part of the company? As an engineer I really can't imagine spending 30ish days of the year doing that. Must be just for upper management or something?
- tschwimmer 3y agoAssuming 4 weeks off for vacation, if you do one of them a quarter, each for a week, that's 8%. Close enough.
- kadoban 3y agoYeah I'd much rather spend that extra week per quarter on vacation instead, and I'd probably get about as much done. My job just does not require 1 week of solid meetings per quarter.
- prmoustache 3y agoWhat makes you think these are "solid meetings"?
- kadoban 3y agoBasically whatever they are, half meetings half forced vacation, I'd rather just have real vacation.
- prmoustache 3y agoThey can be none of that but regular work, just in person except you have the time to bind in person and decide (or not) to share time together after work. My team is split across several countries, I don't need to see my teammates in person on a daily basis but I like to have the chance to see them once or twice a year and also tackle specific problems, run some workshop together during hackathons and participate in a teambuilding event.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 3y agoThe current company I'm working for, VC funded startup, does two company wide offsites per year, 5 days (one work week) each. Then another department wide offsite for another 5 days in another quarter, then the final quarter is a team-wide one that is up to each individual team to schedule and intended to last 4-5 days. So that tracks pretty closely. TBH I feel like it's just a little much, but not much more than a little much. In other words, I think probably two weeks (10 full days) is probably a good minimum because I do see some value in seeing the team once or twice a year in person. So somewhere between 10-20 full days is probably the sweet spot for me.
- prmoustache 3y agoMore like 20-22 days or so if you are working 5 days a week, have around 25 days off + all the public holidays, which are about 4 weeks. 2 weeks every 6 months doesn't sound extraordinary to me. These are not vacation, these are regular work days. For an engineer I would imagine that would be what we call hackathons.
- junon 3y agoIt's not 30 days typically, IME it's around a week or so, sometimes even just a few days. An off-site is typically also somewhere pleasurable. It's also usually a huge, ridiculous cost to the company. A few companies ago they spent a million or so sending us 200 employees to an island. It would have been cool if it hadn't been immediately followed by layoffs citing cash burn being too high.