Why do so many “remote” companies still push in-person meetups and offsites?
Companies can go remote for many reasons, but a lot (Dropbox, Airbnb, etc) still mandate regular in-person meetups. To me this sounds like hybrid with more steps. Requiring meetups (especially in the middle of a pandemic) completely undoes a lot of remote benefits and creates different classes of workers like we had pre-pandemic. Parents, caretakers, people with disabilities, and introverts aren’t as free to travel to random cities for multiple days at a time to force in-person “bonding”. At my own company we’re already seeing teams having offsites (which has already caused a few Covid outbreaks, stunting productivity with people out sick) and starting new projects, having deep dives on work during dinners, etc that remote team members can’t participate in. I understand conversations happen as I did work in person once, but mandating non-remote activities seems to fly in the face of what remote is about. I’ve seen this when I was in-person and we had 1-2 mostly remote employees and employees at satellite offices: they straight up get forgotten compared to those who have regular face to face interaction. #remotework #hybrid #wfh
Remote is king but having lived through full in office, full remote, and hybrid environments there is something that helps a team bond when they get a little physical face time. I feel like it humanizes the screen name on the other end of the chat. I believe it makes remote teams more cohesive in the long run.
Ok so let it be a choice
Technically it could be a choice. However, in reality it has to be either a full remote first team or everyone is willing to meet once in a while. Being the minority just doesn’t work in the long term.
Here it’s every 3 months max, for maybe a week, but hasn’t started yet. People live all over the country and travel frequently and that’s not going to change. Offices are open but empty. I’m looking forward to seeing people in person to make stronger connections, and I’d bet it becomes less frequent than quarterly over time.
Spending a full week of your time isolated with co-workers you likely have never met sounds awful. Why would you want to spend more time with people you don’t care about?
I’ve been here a long time and know most of them from pre-COVID. I don’t mind hanging out with them for a week along with the new people. They’re all good people.
Middle of the pandemic? lol, undoes? Are you b**tchng about paid offsite meetings? Where you see a new city fly first class? I swear half of the devs are God damn entitled trolls
This completely ignores any of the downsides I mentioned in my post. Kind of sad that your time can be bought with a flight to a Holiday Inn outside of Austin where you’ll spend the majority of your waking hours in a stuffy room with random co-workers. Sounds like a real treat.
Resign stating that work environment isn’t conducive for you and go find a job that doesn’t require you to meet anyone in person. Problem solved.
Spoken like a true corporate shill!
Agree... It's too early to cram 30 people holding pizzas in a conference room
Stopped reading after “middle of pandemic”. Fucking covidiots.
Cases are higher now than they were last year at this time, long Covid is affecting millions, monkeypox is also on the rise
Monkeypox lmao
Because remote work is a joke and in-person collaboration is needed.
It’s not required at Dropbox
That’s not true, ask my manager
Escalate
They’re usually never hard required, if you want to opt out you probably can. Most people want to go to these
Cus not everyone is an antisocial introvert that wants to sit at home all day and see nobody?
Yea sorry it’s strange that I’d rather spend time with friends and family than random co-workers. If the only people in your life are those that are paid to be there, you should take a sabbatical.
Even antisocial introverts want to see their friends and family but no one wants to be forced to “bond” with their coworkers.