[reverius42]

Median tenure at a lot of tech companies is around 18 months. If you meet quarterly with your manager, the median employee is only going to meet with their manager 6 times, total! Not to mention people change jobs, and org charts change, so even if you don't leave after 18 months your manager might. How can you build a real relationship with only 6 meetings total?

[aboodman]

Do you people only interact with your manager via 1:1? I was constantly interacting with my boss - design meetings, code reviews, product decisions, whiteboard sessions, in slack, in irc ... he was always around.

I got to know him much better through these productive interactions then awkward smalltalk in a 1:1.

And it kind of make sense to meet privately quarterly since perf reviews are also quarterly and that's the only reason I can really think of for a private scheduled face-to-face.

Of course I could always just ask for a private meeting anytime I wanted, which I guess I did from time to time. But it always for a product reason: a tough tech choice I was wrestling with or similar.

[reverius42]

I guess it depends on the culture. In a lot of work cultures those other meetings are all work, and if you are fully remote (especially while others are not)* then there's no water-cooler talk.

Plus I think the regularity/cadence of it is supposed to provide some psychological safety. Asking for a one-off meeting feels like overkill for a normal 1:1, and yet a little intimidating for the type of 1:1 that you really need to have a 1:1 for (like discussing interpersonal issues).

* I suppose if everyone's fully remote, in theory the water-cooler talk moves to Slack.