[freehunter]

I started on a remote-only team about 6 years ago. For half of that time our only chat system was a 1-to-1 and you could do group chats but had to explicitly invite people and they had to accept. When we switch to Slack (although Teams or Riot or open source would have worked too) and had always-on chat rooms, things changed dramatically.

Prior to the change, I only “knew” coworkers I had traveled to clients with and spent time with in the same room. Now I “know” everyone who regularly participates in the water cooler chat. We have our serious chat room, our water cooler room, rooms for other teams so we can ask questions, DMs, gif support, everything. It’s really brought us closer together as a team. I couldn’t imagine working remote without a watercooler, all-team, anything-goes chat room.

[janesvilleseo]

100% agree. Working remote for about a decade. When we added slack before the company had teams for our group it completely changed the dynamic for the good. The company added teams right before COVID hit and it’s been a blessing. It has forced the entire company to adapt and adopt it quickly. It worked. I connect more frequently to nearly anybody I need to. I have more water cooler talks then ever.

[Izkata]

Oddly, our shared social chatroom was most active when we were all in the office. Over the past few months it's tapered off to the point where now there's a week gap between conversations.

[ralph84]

Ours has also tapered off over the last few months, not because people are remote, but because they're afraid of being called out for not being sufficiently woke. Easier to remain silent than try to appease the cancel mobs.

[chillwaves]

What would you possibly say at work that would get an accusation?

I've worked in plenty of jobs and this has never remotely been a concern for me, including for higher ed where Title IX is strictly enforced.

Just to be clear, you are claiming that not just you yourself, but also your coworkers are silent out of fear of reprisal?

[oblio]

If I'd have to guess, a bunch of these people were jerks and they hate being silenced...

[ralph84]

Case in point: If you don’t want to discuss politics at work you must be a “jerk”.

[notadev]

I don't talk about politics, religion, money, and most current events. Still have alright conversations.

[freehunter]

Yeah it’s easier to not say hateful things than it is to try to “appease the mobs”. So I guess that means if you’re not talking to your coworkers anymore, the only thing you could contribute to the conversation before was hateful things?

My team has very nice conversations about the weather, our pets, even video games we’ve played or movies we’ve watched. Nothing “woke” about it. If you’re worried about being canceled, maybe try saying something that has nothing to do with politics?