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Comment by helij | Hacker News Reader

Work/company culture is overrated in my opinion. That's why I don't do anything special apart from regular catchups and being nice along with trying to get better paycheck and titles for people reporting to me.

For everything else I let grownups (employees) decide if they want to mingle with others on and off work, either in person or over Zoom.

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I dunno, I've worked at businesses that didn't care about culture and the working conditions were pretty mediocre. I've worked at businesses that intentionally tried to make the business a "good place to work" and people were happier. Sure people are less likely to quit, but isn't necessarily a bad thing.

People like to think of our work selves as these alter egos we take off when we go home from work. Life is more nuanced than that. If you've got a stressful job that stress is going to bleed into your personal life.

big +1 to this. I've similarly been in orgs that aimed for some sense of culture and others that didn't, and it was much more pleasant to work at the ones that tried.

8 (and sometimes more!) hours a day is a big demand on one's time, and it's a lot more enjoyable when you know and appreciate the folks around you, not just as code-outputting machines, but as people. Good luck in your efforts, and please report back if you find something that works!

Exactly. Pay me well and let me choose who to be friends with and how to spend that money. I used to work at a company that told you how much all their culture spend was per employee it was eye watering they could have doubled everyone's salary and had a much happier workforce.

Culture isn’t about “mingling” - it’s about scaling a group of humans that’ll propagate a set of norms, rewarded behaviors and discouraged habits. If you just leave it to everyone to do whatever they please, you _might_ succeed, the same way you _might_ succeed by slinging code at the wall. You’re just ignoring the biggest leverage a group can use to achieve better results

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