[gremlinsinc]

Why not just do like a 3-4 day retreat to "bond" every 3-4 months?

Or even monthly have maybe a 2-3 day mini-retreat work a day or two on-site and do some after-work bonding for those who are staying in hotels, etc... I mean if it's just about bonding. I had pretty good bonding with an agency I worked with and we'd do once a year retreats and it was really nice to hang out with the team, then go back home and hang out in slack.

[chillel]

because people have families, and parents can't just bounce on their children?

[kevinmchugh]

The parents I know have their lives greatly complicated by commutes and having to ensure childcare while they're in transit to or from the office.

[techsupporter]

As a parent, a five-day-per-week commute has many more opportunities for something to go wrong than an off-site I know about a month in advance that lasts for three nights.

Every single day, lots of things have to go right: dropping off has to be at a defined time (whether school or daycare, most activities have a predetermined start time unless the kid is very young, which mine isn't any more), then I have to get to work from the daycare, then I have to hope that nothing blows up during the day requiring me to stay longer, then I have to hope nothing blows up on the trip to daycare, and so on. I'm very fortunate that daycare is on a transit path for me because my family doesn't drive and transit around here is usually more reliable than driving.

Working from home for the last 15 months has been a godsend. I don't have to deal with any of those oddities. My spouse and I have traded off who takes a few days off every few weeks or so to be "on vacation" with the kid, or we sync up and take days off together to just veg at home as a family.

If you tell me I can skip the bullshit commute and only have to plan child care around a retreat that is booked a month, or even a couple of weeks!, in advance, I will gladly take that trade. Even if it's a "bring your spouse" kind of thing, I can get a set of grandparents to train or fly in for that time (or even go to them).

[ghaff]

Yes. And I's argue that some semi-structured time to exchange ideas, come up with ideas, "bond," etc. with everyone on some scale of team and even guests from other teams is probably better than bump into you conversations that often aren't going to happen with people on other floors, in other offices, and even on different continents.