<story><title>What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/remote-work-not-from-home</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>geoduck14</author><text>Regarding the Happy Hours:&lt;p&gt;In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner&amp;#x2F;late meal. It gave me a chance to say &amp;quot;thanks&amp;quot; and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t do that anymore! I&amp;#x27;ve don&amp;#x27;t virtual HH, but it isn&amp;#x27;t the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to &amp;quot;bond with your team&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;say thanks in a meaningful way&amp;quot; - cost be damned.&lt;p&gt;As a side note, politics suck. I really like WFH. Working long hours is bad - bonding is good.</text></item><item><author>bluefirebrand</author><text>As long as I still have a quiet, private office and don&amp;#x27;t spend an hour+ per day in traffic and am not expected to give up evenings for &amp;quot;not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics&amp;quot; office happy hours, I don&amp;#x27;t care where I work.&lt;p&gt;Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven&amp;#x27;t been happier with a job ever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Taylor_OD</author><text>Yup. Ever after 5pm work thing I&amp;#x27;ve been &amp;quot;rewarded&amp;quot; with is still work. Even if it&amp;#x27;s more fun than working at my desk its still work. I&amp;#x27;m not able to do with that time what I want. It&amp;#x27;s only a reward if it is replacing work. And really it&amp;#x27;s only a reward if the amount of time that it is replacing is taken out of the sprint planning.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day if you take a weeknight from me I&amp;#x27;m going to be annoyed at best and upset at worst. If you take a work day from me, or part of one, but still expect me to get a full days or work done we will both be in a bad position.&lt;p&gt;I get the intention here. I used to be a people manager and I planned lots of things for after work. But I stopped when I realized how difficult it actually made things for many people and people with kids.</text></comment>
<story><title>What if remote work didn’t mean working from home?</title><url>https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/remote-work-not-from-home</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>geoduck14</author><text>Regarding the Happy Hours:&lt;p&gt;In 2019, my team would occasionally need to work long hours or would deliver something awesome. I would reward them with HH and dinner&amp;#x2F;late meal. It gave me a chance to say &amp;quot;thanks&amp;quot; and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t do that anymore! I&amp;#x27;ve don&amp;#x27;t virtual HH, but it isn&amp;#x27;t the same! I would REALLY like a virtual solution to &amp;quot;bond with your team&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;say thanks in a meaningful way&amp;quot; - cost be damned.&lt;p&gt;As a side note, politics suck. I really like WFH. Working long hours is bad - bonding is good.</text></item><item><author>bluefirebrand</author><text>As long as I still have a quiet, private office and don&amp;#x27;t spend an hour+ per day in traffic and am not expected to give up evenings for &amp;quot;not mandatory but really you should show up to play politics&amp;quot; office happy hours, I don&amp;#x27;t care where I work.&lt;p&gt;Currently working from home gives me all of that and I haven&amp;#x27;t been happier with a job ever.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>conductr</author><text>&amp;gt; It gave me a chance to say &amp;quot;thanks&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Me&amp;quot; is the key word&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; and for us to bond over the challenge we overcame.&lt;p&gt;That occurred already. It happened through the process of overcoming the challenge.&lt;p&gt;I get the intent, but your people probably just want to rest and get some of their time back.  If you must celebrate, do it during hours. I typically did offsite lunch time activities pre-COVID. Now it&amp;#x27;s more gift driven and individual. I made up award systems like the high school &amp;quot;most likely to ...&amp;quot;.  If someone renovated their masterbath, give them something that is specific to that as a thanks. Find out if they prefer public or 1:1 gratitude</text></comment>