lol, those mythical magic moments collaborating in the abstract, you never know where they're going to happen. It could be at the water cooler, or over that off color patch of carpet over there.
Honestly, most of my work experience has been those mythical magic moments just led to a decrease in morale. As a remote worker I am not as invested in the company, and that's a feature, not a bug. I'm doing my job, I'm actively looking to do it well, but frustrations I can't control feel further from me.
I remember distinctly overhearing our internal devops at one place (that was pretty fragmented) talk about how their mandate was to get people only 80% of the way there, that the teams were responsible for getting 100%, and it pissed me off no end, since one of the reasons my department was doing our own devops was that there was no way to take what the devops department was putting out, and leverage it to get to what we wanted (i.e., no path to go from the 80% they provided -> 100% of what we needed). We had tried numerous times to talk to them about it, but they wanted to decide things in isolation and tell us what to do, rather than listening to us. I tried figuring out who was in charge of that group and reaching out to them, and managed a meeting, and they heard and acknowledged the need and agreed change was necessary, then nothing happened with it. Etc. None of that helped my morale, and I ended up leaving that company, not because of that, but because of a number of places where I simply could not affect change.
As a remote employee though? Don't care. As I said, that missing cultural buy in is a feature, not a bug, and it benefits everyone involved. I'm still raising concerns, still trying to reach out for solutions, but invariably when the business prevents me from fixing things I'm not stressing, and am so less likely to leave.
yah I can see that as a feature. Reminds me of stories I heard from people at google who preferred the contractor/contingent-worker lifestyle over permanent employees for the sake of avoiding all the HR rigmarole and office politic drama, perf review busywork, etc etc that adds questionable value to ones career.
