Today we will take a look at one of the major disadvantages of the modern working world that we are currently creating: the ever decreasing direct and non-purposeful communication, for which the smoking corner is - or was - a prime example.

Nobody wants to go back to the days when people really smoked in the office. One or the other will also remember the cognac swillers in the executive offices. All this had a certain glorious decadence, but no longer really fits the times and the requirements of occupational health protection.

From a communicative point of view, smoking in the office really has no added value - it only became a communicative all-round weapon when smokers were banished to the smokers' corner. Because all of a sudden you were standing together in random groups for a limited time and doing various useful things besides actually smoking:

  • Voting and decisions
    One of the most frequent greetings in the smokers' corner was: "Nice to meet you here, I wanted to make an appointment for ... / I wanted to talk to you about ...". And then in 5-15 minutes everything relevant was discussed in sufficient practical depth (no one has anything with them because you never know who you will meet) and decisions were made. Everything that is so modern today was actually already there: agile, timeboxed, stand up, no information overkill but focus on the essentials, people over process, ... Of course, you don't know who you will meet. But with 3 smoking breaks on 5 days a week, you can always easily get 15 decisions off the table, for which you would otherwise need various emails, meetings and whatnot.
  • Cross-level communication
    In the smokers' corner, everyone from trainee to boss always stood together in an egalitarian way. They chatted, got to know each other, built networks, bummed cigarettes and sometimes only afterwards did they find out that it was "Big Boss" himself, to whom they had just discussed their personal theories about the company's development in a very relaxed way. And "Big Boss" would never have used that negatively against anyone, because that would have meant that in future he would have had to spend his smoking breaks alone.
  • Gossip
    Officially unpopular. But the lubricant of a workable corporate culture. 'Nough said.

And today? We are health-conscious and the smokers' corner has largely been abolished. And viable replacements are not really in sight. The smoothie bar is for sharing healthy food. At the coffee machine, any conversation is stifled by the swishing and shredding and hissing of the fully automatic machines. And no one likes to just stand around in the corridor.

The whole thing is not made any easier by the fact that we are working at different times and places and have fewer and fewer opportunities to really meet. Our technical possibilities don't really help either - if I set up Skype or team meetings with the topic "Just like that", almost everyone declines and the random composition of the smoking corner team can't be achieved with that either.

So what to do? Honestly, I have no idea. Simply doing without it is one solution and for voting, decision-making, cross-level communication and gossip we need to develop other mechanisms. But somehow my feeling is that it's not the same. But more smoking again? In the corporate interest, so to speak? Not really.

I don't have a solution. But maybe there are others who feel the same way and have good ideas? Then always bring them up - it's always worth a discussion.