The water cooler is a silly place

After the lockdown restrictions from the COVID-19 crisis ended we, like every other company, discussed about going back into the office.

One of the arguments that repeatedly came up in favor of going back to the office was that we needed the ‘water cooler conversations’ back. To the people who thought that was a solid argument the ‘water cooler’ meant the place where we magically find solutions to problems when talking with random colleagues.

Let me tell you right now: NEVER have I solved a programming issue at the water cooler. EVER. I’ve solved more software problems while on the toilet than I have at the water cooler. But there is one place that’s just the best for solving software issues: at my computer, uninterrupted and highly focused, for hours on end.

The water cooler is nice for one thing: distracting you from work for a moment. Most of the times you just goof around and relax; it’s a silly place. Sometimes you discuss something more serious that’s going on in the life of your colleague, but that’s mostly the exception instead of the rule. Very rarely actual work is discussed.

Of course it’s important to interact with your colleagues about other things than just work; the social importance of work should not be underestimated. However, that is not a good enough reason to get everyone back into the office full-time or even two-days-a-week.

The social conversations can also be had online without any downside. Talking with other people works very well online as long as everyone has their cameras enabled. Then for meeting each other face-to-face I would recommend at most once a month, but once every 3 months works fine as well. You should do it every once in a while, but it’s not so important that you have to do it every single week.

Software developers do their best work when they can focus uninterrupted on their tasks for extended periods of time. The office is simply not a good place for that. For me my home office works best, for you it might be somewhere else.

Do you think the water cooler is an important place? What about the office?