Howdy from Durham,

Welcome to the 2 new subscribers from last week.

Today, we’re talking about the social expenses we pay due to remote work.

Remote work killed spontaneous bonding in the workplace.

Remember those small little run-ins with folks that you sorta, kinda know?

Examples include:

• Exchanging pleasantries with the delivery guy who stops into the mail room each day

• Bonding with the janitor who’s wearing the hat of your favorite sports team (RIP to the Super Bowl hopes of my Philadelphia Eagles)

You take some time in your day to exchange good vibes, get a brief perspective into a life that’s different from your own, and carry on about your business.

Here’s the issue: remote work doesn’t make room for those types of brief, spontaneous interactions. I’d argue they’re more important to the health of our communities than we realize because they make others feel seen.

Why it’s an issue with remote work: these days, if you want to meet with someone, you’ve got to put time on their calendar (and you better be darn sure that the meeting has a a clear path towards productivity).

Here are the remote rules of the road: if it’s not worth a meeting, it better be an email. If it’s not worth an email, it better be a message via Slack. If it’s not worth a Slack message, you better keep it to yourself.

Who wants to hop on zoom for an aimless meeting? No one. Who wants to embark on a lengthy commute to head into an office environment that’s devoid of life? Once again, no one.

Given these parameters, how the heck do you make spontaneous acquaintances through a zoom invite? You don’t.

I mean shoot. I’m not sayin’ that being intentional with each other’s time is bad. Certainly not.

I’m just sayin’ that there is such thing as being productive to a detriment in our society. We’ve forgotten the massive, positive ripple effects of small, kind interactions with strangers and acquaintances.

Our constant focus on transactional exchanges of value within our individual, digital bubbles makes it harder to get to know the folks that, despite being in the periphery, play important roles in our lives.

As a result, we are decreasing our sense of belonging (which is ironically lowering levels of productivity - the primary variable that’s being optimized for by our remote rules of the road).

There’s a running phrase online when talking about teamwork. It goes a little something like “maybe it wasn’t about the money or the goal (aka the transactional pursuit of value), but it was about the friends we made along the way.”

It’s hard enough to make friends in our Zoom/Slack/Email purview. Worse yet, it’s even harder to make acquaintances outside of it.

There is no technological innovation coming to help us solve this problem. We need to engage in an age-old, proven tactic.

We need to get to know our neighbors.

After all, what’s the point of optimizing for productivity if we lose our sense of community along the way?

The bottom line: if we’re willing to block time for zoom calls, we need to be willing to block time to get to know members of our community - those that we see on our screens and especially those that we don’t.

What I’m paying attention to:

The most heartwarming thing I read this week

The chess match unfolding between Google and Microsoft over AI

GIF of the week:

Thanks for reading

What are your thoughts on remote work’s effect on our relationships?

Reply and let me know!

Josh

P.S. Let me know what you think about the new email design

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