It's not a meetup | Hacker News Reader

It's not a meetup

37signals.com

21 pointsmh_19 comments

So, let me play Devil's Advocate here. If meeting up with your co-workers in person is so enjoyable, would it not make sense to just do it every work day? ie make remote work the exception rather than the rule?

Though I don't work for 37Signals, I don't think remote work is the rule there (hence why they have a rather nice office in Chicago).

The first photo in the article suggests otherwise.

No. What makes it so enjoyable is that it doesn't happen every day. That makes it a special occasion. It means that when you meet your co-workers in person, the quality of the interaction is most likely higher than if you saw them 5 times a week.

Take any single enjoyable thing and do it 5 times a week, every week. You'd have a law of diminishing returns situation. You'd get to a point where you no longer derive enjoyment from it and you may start to resent it.

Not to be glib, but does that apply to working from home?

Maybe, but remote work is not the same as working from home.

Why would it apply to working from home?

Ones options are: -Wake up, fire up computer, start working, do whatever throughout the day, when day ends you are at home, no need for commute. OR -Wake up, get dressed, take shower, drive to train station, take train, get to work, work from desk all day, take train home, drive home, wonder what you will do for dinner since you got home so late.

Which one do you think one might derive more enjoyment from and which do you think one might be more likely to resent?

Quirky Bob becomes Annoying Bob when he's down the hall and you have to deal with him every day.

There's 36 signals now... one hire away from living up to the company name :)

Wow, do they pay for all their employees air fare + hotel to come in for a week?

Why would that be surprising? It's a pretty normal thing for companies to do.

While I don't think its surprising, its quite a stretch to say this is "a pretty normal thing for companies to do".

We do it at my company, which is comparably sized. The location rotates between our offices. The company I was at before this one flew everyone out to a ski resort. Every year. Not even to a central office! The company before that was based in Calgary and hired most of its team from the US, all of whom spent multiple weeks in Canada every year on the company's dime.

No, I think this is normal.

I think a lot of things sound expensive, but the reality of operating a tech company is that nothing is as expensive as salaries, even occasional ski trips.

Having been your experience does not make it "normal." Clearly there are companies that do it, but there are certainly far more that can't, won't, or otherwise don't.

If you think company retreats, offsites, or all-hands meetings are abnormal for tech companies, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you're not a tech company operator.

It's really not.

If a company has a remote employee and wants that employee to come to the home office for a day/week/month, it's ridiculous for anyone to think for even a moment that the company wouldn't pay for everything.

If this is what your experience has been, you've been ripped off. This is not industry standard except in the case of rogue consultants getting paid a very high hourly rate.

I'm not implying that companies I've worked for have made me pay for trips or anything like that. I'm just saying that to act like companies sponsoring employee getaways is not a "normal thing", its a pretty cool, rare thing. Unless of course we are only talking about venture backed tech startups, and then yes, this approaches normalcy.

It doesn't sound far fetched if company tells you to fly across the world, that they would pay for it. However would they also pay for your family to come (if you got wife/kids)? Seems like a pretty bad requirement if there's an ocean between your immediate family - wouldn't feel right to me.

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