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Comment by dboshardy | Hacker News Reader

I'm firmly of the belief that if there is genuine social interaction to be had, it will be had for the most part.

Forcing social interaction (corporate mandated fun) is just another tool to tie employees to an employer to make it more difficult/less desirable for them to leave for better opportunities.

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To me the issue is blurring the lines between work and not work.

Companies are not your buddies. They are not your friends. We make a deal. You pay me. I return value. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be more complicated than that.

You’re not family. You won’t be there when things go south. You will not hesitate to fire, if it’s in your interest.

Don't sugarcoat the relationship.

Totally agree with that. You know what I like to do with my friends? Bitch about my work. Vent about how idiotic our sales people are, mock how delusional our roadmap for the year is. That's for my friends, not my coworkers, not my manager who's trying to be my buddy.

Yes, I will occasionally have true friends at work with whom I can talk about that on a private channel, but that's the exception.

> Vent about how idiotic our sales people are, mock how delusional our roadmap for the year is

that's like half of my conversations with colleagues. Personally I don't see that many downsides with getting along with my colleagues, though it doesn't usually happen via mandated team building

The thing is you don’t want HR catching wind of things. It’s not that people rat on each other. But people are known to blurt things out when prompted (someone divulges a “secret” and often the other person divulges a “secret” in return. It’s just conversation.)

I guess it depends what's being said.

To take the "Delusional Roadmap" example above, the only thing that is every going to resolve this, is the quiet gossipy whispers.

e.g. Possible answers 1) No it's not - you're fired. 2) Is it? I was told it wasn't. Could you jot down some notes I could raise? 3) Yes, sorry - we all know what, but we have to go along with it to get budget, so we're not all fired 4) I know it looks a stretch, but somebody's been working on x, and y's about to be signed.

Any conversation or response, gives you some context - to better understand/accept that slide that just left you spluttering, speechless and outraged.

I don't think anything that we said was a fireable offense (or HR would need to fire the whole group). We might get an official reprimand for some of the dissing, though.

There was a guy hanging out with his work buddies. Other people within hearing distance. A recent graduate and uncultured, he referred to someone as a chick. So long!

Was it professional to say chick? No. Is it a fireable offense? I’ve heard much worse, but on the other side so it doesn’t even register with people.

Sometimes they fire whoever they think the ringleader is.

Kind of like when unions are forming, if you get rid of the leader then the rest of the employees, who were pro union a moment ago, might quiet back down and fall in line.

You need better co-workers. Your friends and family will listen and politely nod along to your complaints, but only a co-worker will truly appreciate your wrath, deeply sympathize, and then one-up you with some scandalous piece of gossip they heard about the target of your rage.

I think the exception to this rule is Partnerships and even LLPs. But otherwise I generally agree with this sentiment. Let's not sugarcoat the exchange of monetary remuneration for value added.

Family is a straw man, nobody's saying you have to marry the company.

However, note that you're spending 8 hours most of your days with these people. It is undoubtedly easier if the relationship is cordial, friendly, and if you can banter with them during the off moments.

There is a human element to every interaction and people are not robots.

"You pay me, I return value, that's it" reduces you to a nameless, faceless, replacable, fungible resource.

I would not like to work in a place where that's it.

I’d restrain from banter with colleagues. You never know who’s listening or who will catch wind.

Don’t mix biz and pleasure.

All workplaces are this place; some disguise it better.

This is an extremely cynical take.

There's a middle ground between "we're family, I'll sacrifice everything for you" and "I'll stab you in the back as soon as I possibly can".

I think it's perfectly reasonable for the vast majority of people to enjoy work more if they have a friendly relationship with their coworkers. Does it benefit the company to have happy employees? Sure. Does it benefit the employees to be happy? Sure!

It’s okay to form superficial relationships at work. Some may become real friendships, but that should be outside company influence.

I don’t want the company serving as intermediary. It becomes friendly “-ism”.

At the same time, I want to do good work while I'm on the clock, and that requires collaborating with people. In my experience, that collaboration goes better when I have some "casual rapport" (not sure if there is a better term) with my colleagues--people are more willing to work with me, exchange favors, etc. In a physical environment, the requisite social interactions happen more naturally, but in my new remote role it seems like it requires a certain amount of intentionality. And provided that social time is "on the clock" or otherwise compensated, I don't see how I'm being exploited.

In other words, I agree with everything you're saying, but I don't see how it rebuts team building.

I'm sure a lot of companies are like this but not all. The one I work for is huge (50k+ emps) and is very much like a family. One of our engineers got a really rare, debilitating disease and they kept him on even though he couldn't work for 2 years and they helped raise thousands of dollars for his medical bills. My manager even helped me find external jobs when things weren't improving here. Probably rare but it happens. My coworkers here are easily my best friends.

Companies aren't, but this is a relatively small community, especially in some niche languages. That conversation with a coworker might lead to a job years down the line. As a manager, I may not always be a manager. The next job, I may be a manager or engineer and knowing someone on another team that might be the right person for the job - and that conversation might start at a happy hour.

What if the work event allows for the first social interaction? If there’s no opportunity to get to know people from work, you may not discover common interests, etc. I’ve certainly been surprised a few times about colleagues I realized I didn’t know much about.

A more natural way would be to arrange for people to work together in smaller groups on tasks as part of the normal work. If you provide this then I agree with the parent poster if there is a social interaction to be had it will come. If not that's OK as long as we can work together in reasonable harmony. I value professionalism, if I can make a friend through work that is great but it should not be the norm that we all have to be friends to get along.

Hard disagree.

Leaving people to their own devices, you will have a couple of go-getters who hobnob with managers and everyone else cut out of the cliques.

Liking your coworkers is a mutually beneficial relationship for everyone and setting aside structured time to do it makes it more egalitarian.

> I'm firmly of the belief that if there is genuine social interaction to be had, it will be had for the most part.

I'd agree with you any day except the current ones. Given recent events, do you not Counter Strike Fridays might bring some much needed social interaction? Yes, making them mandatory would be stupid, but what company makes socializing events mandatory?

Not mandatory, of course, but lots of managers love to peer pressure employees into these sorts of social events by frowning heavily on people who miss them.

I agree.

I think the ideal would be that it just happens organically - your employees get along, groups want to spend time together outside of their employment, you reap the benefit when they're working in it. It's invaluable to know what makes people tick and how best to work with them.

If the groups don't form naturally, maybe try to 'seed' some. Stick some cash behind a local bar, ask if anybody wants to go karting after work, pop along for an informal 5-a-side on Sunday morning etc. Never force it, though.

I was made aware of a 'fun event' that didn't get enough uptake to hit it's KPI. Therefore people were encouraged to press-gang their people - and you end up with a bunch of miserable people all resenting the intrusion into their personal time and everybody involved.

There's something to be said for a little social lubrication humanizing the people you work with and making actual work interactions better.

I agree. If companies just treat employees well and provide a good working environment the employees will be happy and work hard and feel good about their co-workers.

I think there's an emphasis on forcing the employees to do things rather than creating the evironment where employees do it naturally.

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