Which Office 'Rituals' Disappear Once You Go Remote?

Coffee, chit-chat, occasional office gossip, morning meeting, morning emails – the typical office workday.

And while this description doesn't exactly match up to every office worker's day, they're pretty close to what you'd usually experience. And most importantly, without it, you'd find the same job fundamentally different.

But the moment you go remote, all of this disappears. And you may like that, you may not, but you have to admit that remote work takes away a lot more than just the commute.

And unless you're a hermit, you'll notice that some of the losses aren't too pleasant.

What Disappears First

When you and your team stop sharing the same office, the little routines you never thought twice about are the ones that go first.

Instead of chatting in the hallway, you're all on your own, figuring out how to convert PPT slides to video because that's how you have meetings now – through videos. And it's unbelievable to see how things that are so small have such a big impact on your day and on how connected you feel to your colleagues.

Once those rituals are gone, you need new ones to take their place, or you'll start to see gaps really fast.

1. Coffee Breaks at the Machine (or Smoke Breaks)

Grabbing a cup of coffee is a staple of office work. That's probably because it helps us focus better, but the 'getting coffee' part also revolves around chit-chat, office gossip, and sometimes also getting to know one another better.

That's the part that gets missed the most in a remote setting, and people who work remotely likely quote this as their primary reason for wanting to go back to an office setting.

As an alternative (or think of it as a replacement), you could use remote virtual coffee chats so that you can hang out with your coworkers and get to know new people. This helps build morale and a sense of camaraderie.

Just make sure it all feels natural; when forced, it defeats the purpose.

Similarly, smokers like to gather around smokers' designated areas for their 2-5-minute smoking breaks, where they hang out and get to know each other. If you aren’t a smoker, you’re not missing much.

2. Watercooler Chats and Hallway Updates

Much like coffee breaks, hallway chats are how you learn what's going on without making a big deal out of it.

Remote work removes all those random moments and, with them, easy access to context. The fix is simple – make space for updates.

Some teams use project or topic channels with clear labels. Others post a weekly digest so nobody misses out on any important information.

3. Desk Drop-Bys for Quick Questions

If you needed a quick answer and you were working in the office, you'd go to your colleague's desk and ask them. That doesn't work online, though, and if you ping someone all the time, it's annoying and distracting.

The way around this is creating question lanes/filters (e.g., urgent, today, later this week, end of the year, etc.).

4. Meeting Room Booking Wars

Here's one routine you'll be happy to get rid of.

Remember fighting over the last free conference room? Remote work makes this disappear... Somewhat. You won't need to fight anyone over a room, but you'll have endless calendar invites to handle. And unless this sounds fun, you'll want to keep most updates async.

Share a short pre-read or even a recorded walkthrough.

Save live meetings for real discussions, where you really need that back-and-forth.

5. Endless Slide Decks Presented Live

Weekly deck reviews eat up hours of valuable time, and the same slides get shown to one group after another, over and over.

That doesn't work in remote setups (luckily), especially with time zones. A better way to do this is to record the walkthrough once and share it. People can then watch it when it's convenient and revisit the parts they need.

It saves time and still keeps everyone on the same page.

6. Paper Printouts and In-Person Sign-Offs

With the amount of garbage in the world, the fewer paper printouts, the better.

Besides, digital passing out printouts for comments and signatures was never really ideal in the first place because it takes time.

Digital tools do this better. You can have shared documents for edits and e-signature tools for approvals.

You don't need stacks of paper anymore, and you always know who signed off and when.

Conclusion

While it's nice to dress up from time to time, it's also not bad to work in your favorite pajamas (from time to time, of course).

People like to cling to old routines, and that has much to do with change being something new, and 'new' is well... new can sometimes be a bit scary. And that routine feels familiar... safe.

Different doesn't have to be bad. It's just another flavor of 'normal'.