The death of hallway conversations in the age of remote work

I used to bump into colleagues and hash out ideas on the fly. Now every discussion is scheduled, and it drains the energy out of collaboration.

3 comments

3 Comments

the_viola9d ago

Was all about remote flexibility until I realized how sterile scheduled calls feel.

christopher_burns78d ago

My 2 PM status update on Zoom yesterday felt like a dental appointment. I mean, the way everyone recites their updates with the same tone, it's like we're reading from a script. Maybe it's just me, but I start to miss the chaos of an actual office when the most exciting part of the call is someone's virtual background glitching. I had three back-to-back calls last week that were so procedural, I almost forgot what spontaneous human interaction feels like.

john6363d ago

Honestly though, is missing a random chat by the coffee machine that big a loss? Seems like people are maybe overthinking it. Sure, @the_viola has a point about the sterile calls, but those scheduled zooms also cut out so much wasted time and pointless small talk. The trade-off for wearing sweatpants all day feels pretty fair. Maybe we just need to get better at making the virtual chats less like a script reading.