Pretty narrow view. First, it's not "outside of work". What was described _is_ work. Second, it's 10 days out of the year, not 365. It's not meant to replace or displace any other recharging you might engage in. And, wow, maybe work with people you could consider friends?

> First, it's not "outside of work". What was described _is_ work.

Then even worse -- I want to be working during the workday, and living my life outside of that. Not working for ten-day stretches, unless there's an external deadline to meet and there's simply no choice.

> Second, it's 10 days out of the year, not 365.

The post says it's 10 days a day "several times a year" -- assuming that's 4-5 times, that's an entire two months away from my normal life, which I enjoy too much to give up a whole sixth of it.

> not meant to replace or displace any other recharging you might engage in

Then, once again, no thanks -- going 10 days without any recharging with my friends/family is simply not my idea of a good time.

> maybe work with people you could consider friends?

That's the thing about work -- your coworkers are generally chosen for you, based on their professional skills -- not chosen by you, for their personalities.

If you become close personal friends with some of them over time, then that's wonderful. But how on earth are you going to expect someone to take a job somewhere where their coworkers are friends? That would be an incredibly privileged position to be in, which very few people are lucky enough to be in. If that's your case, then I'm very happy for you, but don't extrapolate to most of us.

Amongst other things, your comment implies that we choose coworkers based on personality not on professional skill. That is not the case.

> Amongst other things, your comment implies that we choose coworkers based on personality not on professional skill. That is not the case.

Actually it is. There are plenty of folks with the professional skills, but only a few are "worth" working with.

It's not narrow, just different. We're not all 20 something's with free schedules.

Once you have kids and become involved in their lives, something like this goes from being an enjoyable vacation-like work-bonding experience to ridiculous pain-in-the-ass to schedule time away from family requirement.

That isn't to say that it can't or shouldn't be done outright, but that like anything, it should be done with regard to the people and personalities on your team's best interests at heart.

I appreciate this kind of trip and culture is not for everyone.

But I worry about the stereotype you project - we're not all 20-somethings, and I think even our 20-somethings would object to you thinking they had anything like "free schedules"!

I totally agree with your comment that anything like this needs to be done with regard to the people and personalities on your team.

Trust me, once (if) you have kids, you'll realize how free your schedule is!

If / when I'm sure I'll be surprised by myriad things. I'll post again then :)

I have wife and kids, definitely not 20-something anymore, and work at a global company (i.e., not startup). Last year I spent 120+ days on the road.

While I respect that some people may not accept they have to travel for work at all, I don't think the stereotype of "only single 20-something with free time would do it" is valid. And 10 days, a couple of days per year is not really unreasonable.

If you love what you do, make it happen. If you don't like, then quit and go work on another place where travel is no req'd.

It's definitely not for everyone.

However, one of the reason this often works for small startups is that we hire our friends. From among my friends, I find the people whose abilities I know best, who I trust the most, and who I'm confident I can work well with. Thus I hire friends, thus I am happy spending time with them.

But yeah, I've worked plenty of places where spending 10-15 days in another country with my coworkers would've been a nightmare. And once a small startup becomes a 50+ person company, this gets really really hard to do.