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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

Ugh. Multi-day work offsites are the worst. Along with conferences. You have to make arrangements to be away, (try to) sleep in a hotel room, end up eating and drinking too much, getting a workout in is nearly impossible, they just completely disrupt all your routines and responsibilities.

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It's harder 2 weeks a year, but that is so easily offset by the 50 other weeks that make your workout, eating habbits, routines and responsibilities so much easier.

Is 2 weeks of travel a year that unexpected? A job I got hired at said to expect quarterly travel for various conferences. Not week long arrangements, but we're talking about being ready with a few week's notice to fly out for a few days to some different part of the world.

of course I got hired in that place in 1/2020, so we know how that turned out.

I know the feeling.

I'm the only person "remote" (work from another office/country) in my team and I am the one that always has to travel to meet the rest of the team.

It's nice meeting people and all, but I generally find these offsites pointless and not work the hassle of traveling for it.

It sounds like you are perhaps just inexperienced at traveling, or don't like it.

All of your complaints are (usually) easily solved by experienced travelers. It's okay to not like travel, but it doesn't condemn the concept of a weeklong company offsite a couple times a year.

I'm not crazy about travel, that is true. But I'd concede it might be worth it if the offsite or conference provided exceptional value. I my experience, they don't. Never had an offsite meeting where the actual information being communicated could not have just been in an email. The social component of it is something I'd rather manage for myself on my schedule and with people of my choosing. Work relationships should be professional and collegial, I don't need or want to be in an egg race or play charades or go hiking or do some other stupid "team building activity" with Betty from accounting.

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