That's just one of the comments on the NYT article, "Cities Foster Serendipity. But Can They Do It When Workers Are at Home? Revisiting a theory about chance collisions and innovation."
From the article: "Exactly how these in-person collisions work — how they turn into ideas, then innovation, then human progress — is still a bit mysterious. Tom Wolfe observed 40 years ago that workers in the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry met after-hours at the same bars to trade stories of their progress.... [Some economists today] think of Silicon Valley as having an underlying social network of friends-of-friends, former college classmates, onetime co-workers and the like. People running into one another at the bar or supermarket activate links on that network and begin to chat. The whole point is that these are not planned meetings between people who believed ahead of time that they had something in common they needed to talk about...."
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The world has changed. It used to be that you wanted to be in cities to be around smart people. In today's world, it is the morons who live in cities and you want to avoid them if you hope to be successful.
A person who suffers through commuting is not a resourceful person.
"Tom Wolfe observed 40 years ago that workers in the Silicon Valley semiconductor industry met after-hours at the same bars to trade stories of their progress.... [Some economists today] think of Silicon Valley as having an underlying social network of friends-of-friends, former college classmates, onetime co-workers and the like.."
I become filled with furious anger every time I think I grew up 400 miles from the biggest wealth engine in the world and no one said shit to me about its existence until the late 90s. I got to San Francisco in 1979 and no one was talking about it. I stole my first computer when I found out what was going on. My friends thought I was nuts.
This country can suck big balls, and should be forced to deep throat some really big dicks, for what it makes its citizens endure.
Neil deGrasse Tyson says the store that has someone run up to you and say "May I help you?" sells less than the store that lets customers wander around aimlessly, discovering new things to buy on the way to their purchase.
The daily nerd table breakfast was always good where I worked.
Even if you are in a city, unless you are a guy on the prowl for hot young things, most people are nose-down in their phones and/or listening to music. One might as well be in a silent library (even though libraries have turned into noisy social clubs).
There are many careers that require close focus on computers and/or reading. Some sit in offices or cubes side-by-side with others for months and years without speaking. Serendipity is way overrated, and that vision mostly calms anxious or controlling micromanagers. Goal-oriented meetings and a little training is far more effective than random operant conditioning (i.e., BF Skinner put rats in cages doing random stuff until they figured tasks out).
We need to move to the new tech era. Some people are lazy and exploit remote work, some superficial "butts in the seats" managers sucked at their jobs for decades and still stuck. Some people really truly benefit from avoiding commutes. Only social butterflies and daters in their 20s truly need a new work model.
I think many people these days think that it's possible, in some sense, to know everything in advance. Kids have to decide on a college and a major when they're still in high school. Even younger kids who have some confusion about their identity as physical, sexual beings as adolescence approaches are considered capable of sorting all that out, with permanent consequences, without ever having had a sexual experience besides a crush. Your work calendar is set well in advance and shared among all your colleagues. Your research project, which used to begin with a hypothesis that you'd explore through careful experimentation, now begins with a desired conclusion that you verify through careful interpretation of experimental results. No happenstance can have an unanticipated beneficial - or detrimental - effect; there's no such thing an an unintended consequence. Any such things that occur must have been planned by someone - it's a conspiracy, for good or ill.
In an increasingly atheist Western world, we're getting more and more deterministic, or something. God-shaped hole, indeed.
I've read that Tom Wolfe piece many times, one of my favorites of his. But it's hardly "random" encounters like that straw man commenter suggests. You make contact in the office, not only with colleagues but with people from other companies.
As to this: "My employer pays me to work; if they think wandering around the city would help me work, they can pay for me that time."
How about we flip it and say that if you don't come into the office your pay will be reduced accordingly?
My company believes in and supports networking. They don’t necessarily pay for it, but then I guess that depends on how you think they should pay you and what the pay they give you represents. Let’s just say I feel duly compensated for my time, not that I complained to get that pay. It was more like gratitude for the pay. And the networking works, as we find innovative solutions for tough problems that ultimately allows us to succeed. The success is what allows for the compensation.
That said, I’m able to keep up with my network better when not tied down to an office.
I'm with rhhardin. The research company I worked for for 35 years had offices in 2 big cities. Mine had a company cafeteria, where the lunchtime cross- fertilization of ideas from all ends of the company was invaluable. Not likely to happen at Starbucks.
I'm waiting for the first discrimination law suit to be filed against an employer, for not promoting the stay at home worker.
If you are salaried, you are paid for your productivity and output. If your productivity is increased by interacting with others, then you decide if you want to increase your value to your employer in that way. If you think your employer is a scrooge and would not increase your salary due to your increased productivity, then do the minimum, because they suck at people management and motivation. But if your company rewards productivity and gives raises to people who increase the value of the company, then you decide how much you are willing to contribute in time and energy to build your value. You are your own product, invest in R&D as you see fit.
This country can suck big balls, and should be forced to deep throat some really big dicks, for what it makes its citizens endure.
As good an argument for Libertarianism as there might be out there.
I agree with others who say that in person work is necessary for high performance in professional fields, it is vital in manufacturing and construction management. If you have been working in the same functional area for a time, 15 years, you may not need as much contact as others, but how are the new people supposed to learn the fine points? You need to be there to show them a trick if they walk by your door and complain about something not working.
If you go to work for a white shoe law firm, how are you taught to act like a god of law? By personal example, I would expect.
Only social butterflies and daters in their 20s truly need a new work model.
The early 20s need exposure to the old salts, though. I know I had older people in my sphere in my 20s who I learned how Not to do things.
My fortune 500 company, spread across the globe, during pre-covid times, would do quarterly development meetings. You interacted mostly with the same people you did day to day, however you did expand your reach during lunch and dinner meetings among other teams. It was a great networking event.
It was suspended during Covid and then canceled all together for cost cutting purposes. Now the development doesn't happen, now the 6 degrees of separation doesn't happen. It results in friction in day to day activities. It results in non-accountability among different teams. It allows someone to "hide" in the gears of the machinery.
But that of course wasn't modeled in the spreadsheet, when they decided to cut the travel costs.
I always said that instead of sending us to a big corporate HQ type building they should send us to nicer "vacation" type climes. It increases participation, and you develop those relationships that are necessary in making a large organization actually work.
Save money on the offices, spend money on the travel. But then I'm just a cog in the machine.
My commute was often the best part of the day, but I commuted by bike and train. I met a girlfriend via serendipity on the commute, although mostly it was trying to stay safe through buses and bums and shit in San Francisco. And the kids were often committing suicide by train which is terrible for the commuters. Now that its gone I really miss it!
We have passed the point of no return for the office. It makes little to no sense in the future of work. The term ‘destination’ is not going to win people over. The sooner large organisations realize this the better. A holiday is a destination you may travel to. A glass and steel building trying to be a place to hang out feels like the last roll of the dice for companies and landlords who are yet to accept the reality of a remote-first, work-from-anywhere world.
Better and larger-scale thinking is required on this topic. Redesigning old office layouts is typically only of interest to leaseholders and commercial property owners. Turning unused office space into homes for people is one area that requires better investigation. Larger areas include completely reimagining the future of cities and much more intelligent longer-term thinking in this area. Most of the current thinking feels very short-term and desperate attempts to lure people who have little to no interest in the old way of working.
You don’t need the bat after work. Just the break room and cafeteria work if people are there.
"I'm not going to suffer through 5-10 hours of commuting each week in hopes that I'll have a random fortuitious encounter at a bus stop or coffee shop."
I'm not going to suffer through 5-10 days of tracking each month in hopes that I'll have a random fortuitous encounter with a gazelle.
We live like kings. Big, stupid kings.
"Mine had a company cafeteria, where the lunchtime cross- fertilization of ideas from all ends of the company was invaluable."
I've worked for companies with cafeterias. At one, the President would walk up to a table, tray in had, and ask if he could join them. One day, while sitting by myself, he walked up and asked that of me. One of the most interesting conversations I have ever had.
Meeting up at the bar after work on Friday isn't exactly a chance meeting
This country can suck big balls, and should be forced to deep throat some really big dicks, for what it makes its citizens endure.
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Crack wants all to be Kamala and aspire to be VP?!
A soft economy flushes this shit away. When the flow US treasury slush funds slow to only a fire hose...
The young people out creating the relationships will be far more valuable to society than the stay at homes. I'd bet the farm on it...
A serendipitous moment happened when I drove home from work one evening. I was stopped at a red light when a Mexican woman working in California illegally, plowed into my car leaving considerable rear-end damage. I'm not a fan of serendipitous commuting moments.
Some people choose a (hard) quit at 5 pm. Some people choose to NOT network during or after formal office hours. Some people choose to NOT accept challenging assignments. Some people choose to NOT learn greater knowledge or skills on their own time. Some people choose to provide minimal effort.
Some people are stunned when they fail to be promoted or retained in hard times.
VP Harris won't like the solid circle of this Venn diagram.
We humans are social creatures and we will find ways to be social starting with the time not spent commuting. Working from home allows shuffling schedules to permit extended mid-day lunches with friends, morning coffee after getting the kids off to school; afternoon time at the gym.
Lets ask Ann -- how is working from home working for her?
so, let's talk about Ivy League Educations
The famous Harvard students i know: Bill Gates and Zuckerdude; both used Harvard for EVERYTHING it was worth..
That is: The Networking. Then they dropped out; because an actual Ivy League degree was WORTHLESS.
IF they'd been attending classes remotely because of covid.. Would we EVER have heard of them?
I don't know; maybe.. But One THING is for sure; The actual classwork was NOT the thing of value.
Now let's do WORK.
IF i'm doing a WONDERFUL job, from home; WHO will know about it? My boss.
Will other bosses at the company know about me? Not at ALL.
When they ask my boss how i am, he's NOT going to say: "GOD! he's AWESOME, you should snatch him up"
I'm glad that i'm retired, and i'm SUPER glad i'm not a new employee.
HOW is a new work from home employee going to know? That THE LAST THING IN THE WORLD you want to do; is work on Dick's team.. Because He's a DICK??
How do you get watercooler gossip without watercoolers? How do you know not to accept a transfer to Dick's team without the gossip?
"I stole my first computer when I found out what was going on.
No wonder you were kept out of the loop.
"Lets ask Ann -- how is working from home working for her?"
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Meade making up reasons to walk by as she writes...
“Better and larger-scale thinking is required on this topic. Redesigning old office layouts is typically only of interest to leaseholders and commercial property owners. Turning unused office space into homes for people is one area that requires better investigation. Larger areas include completely reimagining the future of cities and much more intelligent longer-term thinking in this area. Most of the current thinking feels very short-term and desperate attempts to lure people who have little to no interest in the old way of working”
Starting to grapple with the reality is that big cities are obsolete.
We are in Las Vegas for a bit. We occasionally hit a grocery store a couple miles away. My partner asked me if I knew why there are always food oriented businesses in a corner there. It’s because her brother-in-law, 40+ years ago, was making bagels there, and selling them to all of the big hotels/casinos. It still had in the infrastructure for cooking and baking. The relevance of that is that it is very hard converting unused office space to homes because it lacks some of the essential infrastructure. That old bagel manufacturing place has the plumbing, electrical, gas, venting, etc for cooking and baking. Here we live in a high rise hotel, built from the ground up with the needs of a thousand families built in from the ground up. I wanted to put in a washer/dryer. Nope. No drain or exhaust close. In most office buildings, the bathroom facilities have been spread out, and don’t mostly require the drainage of showers. Hundreds, if not thousands of showers, possibly all draining at once. Not enough water capacity either. Insufficient 110 volt power, and no 220 volt. Venting for every toilet and bathroom. Etc. It’s not that bad putting it in up front, but very hard to do later. Friend from growing up, a PhD civil engineer, has been teaching this sort of stuff to budding architects for nearing 40 years now, and in his view, the aspect of architecture most often done poorly. (They like the fancy buildings, but the required infrastructure bores them). I recently had a garage built, with a single bathroom, washer, dryer, etc, and was amazed at how complicated the plumbing was, including what had to be put in before it was framed. My point to this long diatribe is that the cost of converting many office buildings to residences is likely to be cost prohibitive. Better to tear it down, and start from scratch.
Neil deGrasse Tyson says the store that has someone run up to you and say "May I help you?" sells less
If he made that claim, he's an idiot. That compares Wal Mart, to a large furniture store. I dont need information on the vagaries of peanut, and underwear. Figuring out the ins and out of leather vs cloth couch is a hole different ball game. I buy almost all my hardware at the TruValue because the same people are always there and always help me get the right parts. Menarads is down the street, but their employees know less than I.
I assume deGrasse is firmly in the ACGC camp. He's an entertainer pushing the leftist narrative.
If your productivity is increased by interacting with others, then you decide if you want to increase your value to your employer in that way. If you think your employer is a scrooge and would not increase your salary due to your increased productivity, then do the minimum,
I learn more because my job becomes more full filling. I feel better. It all your motivation is a paycheck, you live a miserable existence. I spent the last 8 years of work, searching for the best part time jobs. Retired and have two independent contractor jobs. Not for the money, but because its a challenge and makes me happy.
"Mine had a company cafeteria, where the lunchtime cross- fertilization of ideas from all ends of the company was invaluable."
In the 1980's I worked for a division of News Corp with offices in the old NY Post building occupying a square block on Manhattan's East River. There was an executive dining room on the 6th floor where Mr. Murdoch and a broad range of senior execs would congregate and discuss the launch of FOX TV, Wapping and other bold ventures.
There was also an employee cafeteria, on a lower level tucked beside the 3 story high printing presses that turned out 7 editions a day where Mr Murdoch would often prefer to dine ... laughing and mixing it up with the 24 hour newsroom staffers and the union workers in ink stained coveralls and sailor hats fashioned from that days newspaper.
Stimulating times.
About 7 years ago I got a promotion that involved me getting booted from my office (owned by another group in the company). My new org couldn't finagle another local office for me so said I could have a cubicle or work from home. I chose home and it is awesome but the downside is I made tons of friends and acquaintances in the office and zero from home. All my contacts are from around the country and the world. No one local. I definitely miss having an easy pool of people to grab a drink, go for a hike, ski, or play golf with. You need to work harder. Join clubs, get phone numbers of people you randomly meet doing activities. Drive plans rather than just tag along.
Also, one of my friends met his wife at a bus stop.
I was just trying to persuade my brother about this.
1) The five minutes before and after a meeting are where a lot of professional development happens.
2) The people you really need to talk to are the people you don't know you need to talk to. How are you going to run into them if you only talk to the people you already know you need to talk to?
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