[ProxCoques]

> Overheard conversations are a gold mine of knowledge sharing, many an interesting idea has come about because, "I couldn't help but overhear...".

Not only that, but looking back on my early career I feel I learned a shedload just by sitting in an office surrounded by people older than me talking about work, about life, etc. I learned what was acceptable, what not, how people handled issues that arose, how to basically operate in the world of "work" in a wider sense. None of that would be possible now. Not that I'm pro working from offices - but something will change because of it long-term.

BTW this also reminds me about office printers back in the day (circa 1998 this was). They ALWAYS had a massive pile of uncollected printouts around them. I learned so much from just rifling through stuff there. Emails, always emails (who prints emails? loads of people apparently) with stuff about other employees, clients, costs, money, opinions. Then there was PowerPoint printouts too - projects you didn't know where happening, kite flying of all kinds. I know the words "gold mine" are a cliche, but until they had "secure printing" systems, this was my world.

[wlonkly]

If you use Slack, occasionally take a look at the channel list sorted by "most recently created".

[ProxCoques]

If you're an admin on Slack, you'll know that upwards of 75% of all channels on a given system are private.