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Comment by ttul | Hacker News Reader

Employer here. We had a fancy brick and timber office. It was beautiful and centrally located. I let the lease expire in 2021 after everyone went remote for the pandemic. There has been no sign of any decay in productivity.

It is true that hanging out in person develops a sense of human connection that feels good. But is that needed for effective work? I’m not so sure.

Brainstorming and creative collaboration activities seem more effective when done in person, so we have periodic “off-site” retreats for a day or two, or we meet at a conference. But most of work is just grinding. That works perfectly well from a home office.

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>Brainstorming and creative collaboration activities seem more effective when done in person

Let me tell you, I hate these. And I will take vacation days to avoid going to them. And I also think they're not very productive no matter how many 'How To Run A Sprint' classes the organizers take.

I think you're thinking "brainstorming and creative collaboration activities" implies something corporate organized. But it can also refer to actual brainstorming and creative collaboration that happens spontaneously and organically when smart people happen to talk to each other.

I consider myself 100% a remote guy, but c'mon. Isn't it reasonable for people in an org to be in the same physical space a few times a year.

No, why do you think it’s reasonable that be a requirement to be productive?

Because it helps people bond and so work better as a team. Plus probably not all your colleagues are complete introverts and may actually enjoy the company of others.

In my experience the only thing helping people work better as a team is just working better as a team.

Be patient, kind, and spend an extra minute writing a more detailed email that is helpful to your colleagues. If you're a manager, give them the right tools and empower them.

But this is completely orthogonal to whether the work is in an office or remote.

Part of the in-person experience is the opportunity for people to correct mistakes in communication. Many people are not effective writers, and so pushing for async or writing-heavy communication is difficult at best. Having one-on-ones by voice or video often helps cut down misunderstandings, and in-person is a way to help reduce the barrier to entry for such interactions.

This is just an example of extraverts forcing their way of doing things on others.

If people are bad at writing, they can get better at it, like any other skill. I have a bad memory for voice/video conversations, so my preference is to always have a written email to go back to for reference.

But I'll still attempt to do what my other team members are comfortable with.

I enjoy the company of others, but I can't say I much care for being forced to interact in-person with specific people. It's not that I dislike my coworkers, it's just that there's better ways to spend my time than in an office.

Because while I think the benefits of remote work clearly outweigh the cons, I also concede that face-to-face human interaction provides a host of benefits that cannot be replicated virtually, and meeting my clients and partners in person from time to time is nice (if I worked as an employee, I'd think the same of my teammates and bosses)

Personally I don't see any difference at all in being in the same building vs on online zoom/video meeting.

I find it very strange that being in a room with someone is somehow different than being on a video call.

You can see the peoples' faces...what are you going to do in person? Touch peoples' naughty bits? Fart so everyone can enjoy? I don't get it. You are there to exchange ideas. Being face-to-face in person allows you to see the person's face and non-verbals. But you get that in a video conference.

I don't understand.

I can imagine how one could arrive at such conclusion, but I have seen somewhat useful stuff come out of those.

Some key components for me are:

- don't impose too much structure, or God forbid, try to make it fun. It's work, let's complain about work and hopefully some useful ideas might come up - Bring in relevant people, that actually get work done. The less managers the better. - Don't be afraid of being negative. The whole point is to complain about shit and see communalities in problems, and perhaps come up with potential solutions.

This is the key point. In the arranged meetings and workshops that everyone likes so much there's constant pressure to be positive and come up with quick solution before deadline. Open ended complaining is far more productive.

Those type of discussions are great. Sounds like you just work at a horrible place where the only brainstorming going on is about super boring/worthless material.

I feel the same way. And wasn't there research showing that group brainstorming was the least likely to produce the best ideas? I should go look that up.

> It is true that hanging out in person develops a sense of human connection that feels good. But is that needed for effective work? I’m not so sure.

Especially questionable in an open-plan office, everyone is trying just to concentrate and are wearing headphones.

We were guilty of this. Open plan all the way. It was - to reflect back - horrible.

That was the best of both worlds. Headphones on, you're focusing, standing around the coffee machine, you're open to chat. There is really no signal for remote that someone is open for a random chat.

Regarding brainstorming, I was reading “Quiet” recently, and the author quoted a study that indicated that brainstorming worked better on almost all metrics when it was done in isolation, and then the group discussed the ideas afterwards.

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