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Comment by triceratops | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't you bring people together once a quarter or bi-yearly? Book a nice villa someplace exotic for a couple of weeks, get all the planning and coordination out of the way, give everyone the last few days off with families invited.

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Going "someplace exotic" may be great for some people, but if you have responsibilities such as being the caregiver for an aging parent, being forced to be away from home for a couple of days or weeks can be a big problem.

True. OTOH, and not to invalidate anyone's experiences, but people shouldering such responsibilities typically have help already (either paid or other family). Otherwise they couldn't do their current job. They also, presumably, have plans/protocols for when they need to take a vacation or break. Unless they were otherwise spending all their free time on caregiving, which isn't sustainable or healthy. They could potentially use those same measures when it's offsite time and even be given some makeup time off later.

They could also get an exception and attend the working sessions remotely. But there's a chance that could lead to fewer opportunities for advancement for them, because they weren't there. Which sucks. It's not an ideal situation.

BTW, lots of enterprise sales companies already do annual "sales kickoff" events where they fly all their salespeople globally to a single place. It's not unprecedented.

This is resolved by going somewhere within an hour of the office location. It’s a good idea, but not everyone wants to be forced into traveling for work.

If everyone's 100% remote, there's no "office location". The best compromise is to find a location that minimizes travel for everyone. That might mean the city nearest the centroid.

> Unless they were otherwise spending all their free time on caregiving

You're not far off the description of parents of young and early school-age children. Kids are in school/daycare for part of the day, then at home, needing dinner, care, etc.

That's different from caring for elderly family members. Parents with young families (maybe not those with newborns) can and do take vacations and travel. They also often have paid help even in their non-work hours e.g. babysitters or nannies.

> lots of enterprise sales companies already do annual "sales kickoff" events

Salespeople know, when they take their job, that they'll be expected to travel for work. Developers may not expect that to be a requirement of their job.

I worked at a company that did this: big in person retreats, once or twice a quarter. I've now been working remotely due to covid about as long as I worked at that company before I was laid off. I still feel much closer and more in sync with my current coworkers than I did to my coworkers at the remote company.

I feel like everyone in my remote company is a total stranger and it's the strangest feeling waking up every day and working with total strangers. Feels like every project I have to prove myself and it's been making my impostor syndrome pretty acute. Cultures a big, big thing there..

Would that really be any cheaper for the business than just renting an office?? Flying people to nice destinations and putting them in expensive hotels along with their families is $$$.

Almost certainly. Toptal used to do it. I'm not sure if they still do.

How would this work when both parents work different jobs and children in school?

Same way they take vacations. The parent working remote has more flexibility to take on childcare responsibilities the rest of the year, so they can probably work something out together.

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