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Comment by majewsky | Hacker News Reader

Another huge problem is the transition path from "everyone in the same office" to "everyone working remote". If you have 60% of your team sitting in the office, and 40% remote, you can be absolutely certain that those 40% will be out of touch on all those important decisions that just emerge during a watercooler conversation. (The watercooler also provides a way for different teams to get to know each other, even if they do not work with each other directly, thus forging bonds that might later turn out helpful.)

With all that (plus what you said), most individual employees will prefer the office over remote access. So remote would only work if you moved everyone from the office to remote access at a single point in time.

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I've worked on distributed teams that had an always-on video conference that everyone joined all day, every day. This facilitated much of the communication you are describing. The team still used instant message and email, but if someone needed to have a conversation, it was just a matter of looking at them to see if they looked they were busy and just saying "Hey!" If other people were interested they would listen in. If they had something to add, it was just a matter of speaking up.

The watercooler / hallway discussions are the signs of a culture lacking documentation processes. If requirements or changes are communicated in this way what happens when someone leaves or tries to QA the latest changes? What if there is a disagreement where one person assumed something else during the hallway discussion? Without documentation a company starts to fall apart after the team grows bigger than 6-12 people.

If you have that many employees working remotely, you should have already transitioned to an independent, accessible source-of-truth for all your discussed changes and plans. Slack convos, Confluence, a wiki, a Google doc, something.

I try those watercooler conversations: the rare occasion the bosses aren't avoiding the proles on purpose, they just quickly make their drink then make excuses to disappear. If you touch on an important topic, it's not taken seriously because you're not in a meeting room.

Colleagues on the same level that hang out and discuss the latest new TV series seems that's good, but I don't think the bonds that builds are always strong.

Depends on your boss. I had plenty water cooler conversations with mine.

I would say that is not professional. If there is anything work related, you book a meeting and then discuss. For this reason I know few people are on the look out when to go get the water without stumbling upon a boss or a manager, because they take it as a harassment. This adds huge amount of stress and knocks the productivity. Workplaces with "we are big family" approach are the worse. This should be illegal.

This seems like a very restrictive and unproductive way to do things. Does no work-related discussion take place without someone booking a formal meeting?

Why would you discuss things that are not work related? Some people don't have boundaries apparently.

I'm having trouble understanding you. Are you saying that:

1. All work-related discussion should take place in formal meetings.

and

2. No non-work-related discussions should ever happen in the workplace.

The poster is saying if you are discussing non work related things it is unprofessional because you are paid to work not socialize.

If you are having a discussion with your boss don't bother him when he is on a break, book a meeting.

I agree with parent poster in large orgs but in orgs where the founder eats lunch with you that level of formalness is awkward

A company where I may not ever discuss non-work-related things sounds like a bizarre dystopia.

"I'll grab a donut from the store across the street. Does anyone else want something?" - "No, we don't because YOU'RE FIRED."

Requiring a formal meeting - booking a room (of course the only available room ends up far away from everyone's offices), negotiating a time with everyone, etc. - is sometimes unavoidable but certainly adds a lot of friction. And worst of all, it must be planned beforehand. Not spontaneous. Some of the most useful work discussions I had were during short, unplanned encounters in the corridor.

I suspect that a workplace where work discussions happen only in form of formal meetings would be rather unproductive.

That is bizzare. Here is how it works where I am at. You are in the kitchen getting a snack, drink, or eating or whatnot and a conversation strikes up. You mention a problem you are facing, they offer a solution or idea. Boom. Progress. On harder problems, these organically grow to brainstorm sessions. This can be with anyone in the org from new developer to someone who used to work on that system to ops to c-level exec to founder of the company. After all is said and done, it is up to the individuals to be mature and communicate discoveries or insights to the rest of the team. This will happen at scrum or via email. Sometimes a real meeting gets set up when there are others who need to be in the discussion and an email thread won't cut it. The only times it is a pain for us is when those in a different office forget to communicate outward which is not very often. I can only think of two times that it was apparent that water cooler conversations did not bubble up but still led critical designs at an inter-team level. And we are open enough to call out the lapse and work towards it not happening more often. I would not like working at a place where I had to stop communication in the kitchen and book a meeting for work related talk.

Death by a thousand meetings!

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