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The importance of offtopic

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Re: The importance of offtopic

#51

Post by anal_reactor »

bowsamic wrote: post #45
47282847 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am German and this statement catches me by surprise. All of my friends from a lot of different fields would agree that workplace friends are a very important pillar of our lives. I think there are many strategies to get your own needs met. Keeping friends and work separate doesn’t automatically make it unhealthy; it’s more about individual choice. My peers would not want to work in places without friendship.

I haven't encountered a workplace where that would be tolerated

"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, from the perspective of factory owner, it's best if strangers stay strangers. If they start getting buddy-buddy with each other not only you'll see workplace conflicts, but also they might organise and demand something.

Re: The importance of offtopic

#52

Post by anal_reactor »

I used to work at a startup. Whenever I was bored I'd write short essays about random bullshit. Everyone enjoyed reading them. Then I moved to corporate. I immediately learned that corporate tries to, above everything else, minimize conflict. This means that anyone seen as conflict initiator will be punished heavily. This means that if my essay could be considered even remotely offensive to any of thousands employees, it will be, and I'll have problems. I learned to keep my mouth shut.

Re: The importance of offtopic

#53

Post by pavel_lishin »

sognetic wrote: post #31
atoav wrote: post #13

> You can create as many Slack channels as you want, but all that is worthless if you don’t build the culture where it’s okay to use them. Well the problem with corporate offtopic spaces is obvious: It is (potential) surveillance. One of the essential properties of the coffee kitchen at the office is that only you and the person who was there know what you said. People at work will occasionally like to talk about thi…

Accepting the possibility of committing the old "solving social problems with technological solutions" fallacy: I wonder if an offtopic channel without history (or only a very limited one) could help here. Something that prevents management from scrolling up to identify the people who post too much. In my company I wouldn't even expect that (surveillance) to happen or have consequences but I always have the possibili…

The kind of management that would trawl through history to check if I'm being too negative is the kind of management that would never allow this history to vanish.

Re: The importance of offtopic

#54

Post by ajuc »

_w1tm wrote: post #12
kruffalon wrote: post #2

I got some kind of summer flu the other day. It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer. Oh, well, I don't really mind, it is one of the few times I rest and don't keep chipping away at my todo-list. It sucks too though, because I also had plans with friends and it's harder to make new plans since many of my friends are teachers and start working soon, around the 20th.

> It always catches me by surprise that you can get "a cold" in summer. Despite the name you don’t get sick from cold weather but from viruses that make you sick. During cold season we stay indoors more which increases our likelihood of being exposed to other people that are sick.

There's new research that infrared radiation (mostly experienced when it's sunny and you're outside) helps mitochondrial function and boosts the immune system.

So there's at least 4 mechanisms:

- warmer = less likely to catch a cold

- more time outside = more UV which kills pathogens

- more time outside = less time spent exchanging pathogens with other people

- more time outside = more infrared radiation which boosts the immune system

Re: The importance of offtopic

#55

Post by davidw »

ghaff wrote: post #50
davidw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's one of the reason I prefer fully online shops, they'll usually have made peace with it and structured themselves in saner ways. There's also a 'tipping point'. If you have 9 out of 10 people in the office, they're just going to be human and chat about stuff in the office and meet in person and the 1 person not there is best viewed as someone to farm piece work out to rather than part of the team. Which is fi…

Yeah, I'm not sure 100% remote all the time is ideal but if you're the 1 in 10 person who is remote, that's probably not a good space to be in.

It can be ok if everyone is clear, and accepts that you're not really an equal part of the team, but someone who gets tasks and does them relatively independently. That kind of thing can work ok for the right person at the right time.

The problem is if you're trying to maintain the fiction that the one remote person is just like everyone else.

Re: The importance of offtopic

#56

Post by ghaff »

davidw wrote: post #55
ghaff wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm not sure 100% remote all the time is ideal but if you're the 1 in 10 person who is remote, that's probably not a good space to be in.

It can be ok if everyone is clear, and accepts that you're not really an equal part of the team, but someone who gets tasks and does them relatively independently. That kind of thing can work ok for the right person at the right time. The problem is if you're trying to maintain the fiction that the one remote person is just like everyone else.

I agree with that. They're effectively a consultant who pops in from time to time and may be on calls. Which can be fine but everyone needs to be clear that's effectively what the situation is whether it's explicitly acknowledged or not.

Re: The importance of offtopic

#58

Post by bowsamic »

anal_reactor wrote: post #51
bowsamic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't encountered a workplace where that would be tolerated

"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, f…

Okay well I live in capitalist times and not in a small village. I don't really care about the reason. I don't want to make friends at work

Re: The importance of offtopic

#59

Post by bowsamic »

KoboldAdvocate wrote: post #57
bowsamic wrote: post #5

I don’t see why my colleagues should be my friends. Then again I live in Germany and it seems to be very much not the culture to mix those two things here

I'd like to get along with the people I spend 8 hours a day with, personally.

You can get along with strangers. The alternative to friend is not enemy

Re: The importance of offtopic

#60

Post by anal_reactor »

bowsamic wrote: post #58
anal_reactor wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"your coworkers aren't your friends" is a thing that came to us along with industrial revolution. When you live in a small village during medieval times you're going to be friends with everyone, whether you like it or not, and you'll spend most of your life working with your immediate family. But when industrial revolution came, people started working together with strangers in giant factories. And let's be honest, f…

Okay well I live in capitalist times and not in a small village. I don't really care about the reason. I don't want to make friends at work

If you paid attention to what I wrote you'd see a clear reason why having friends at work benefits you in capitalist globalist times, but I guess you're just antisocial, and you're trying to logic your way into that preference, instead of admitting that it's just a preference.
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