On directories
I have Discord, Messages, Signal, Slack, and WhatsApp on my phone. Five different apps, just for chatting.
If you’ve worked in a remote role, you’ve used a tool like Slack to chat with your coworkers. A few years ago — when a lot of us realized that we’d be working remotely for a while — there was an influx of thinkpieces about the importance of building relationships in the workplace. My last two jobs were fully remote, full-time positions. We had virtual happy hours! Fireside chats! But sending direct messages to colleagues — little jokes after meetings, pictures of pets, adventures from the weekend — was always the most reliable way to connect.
At its core, Slack is an interactive directory: a list of individuals and channels. It's everyone you'd need to talk to at work for roughly 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, neatly organized in a little rectangle. A virtual hangout spot, with a predetermined list of people on your screen. But once you close your laptop for the day, your Work Directory becomes peripheral. It disappears into the background until tomorrow. And after you switch from work mode to life mode, a different list comes into focus: your Life Directory.
Unless you work at a tiny startup, your Life Directory is probably smaller than your Work Directory. It includes your closest family members, maybe a significant other, and a few of your best friends. The modern workplace asks us to blur the line between our careers and identities, so naturally, we put a little extra effort into work relationships. And our Life Directories shrink.
This dynamic struck me after I got laid off. I watched my Work Directory disappear on the screen in front of me. Who did I lose touch with once I started that new job? Who do I usually text? I reckoned with just how much smaller my Life Directory had become. And I know I can’t be the only one who feels this, especially amid widespread layoffs. The current loneliness epidemic doesn’t help either.
I'm calling this the Directory Dilemma. It’s the challenge of maintaining connections in a world of disjointed directories. While you might use different tools to reach different groups — WhatsApp instead of Slack — the modalities are the same. It’s all chatting.
I decided to break a self-imposed invisible barrier and talk to more people. Different people. I reached out to friends from previous jobs and contacts from college. (And you can do this, too, by the way. Even if you have a job! It turns out we’re actually allowed to do this!) We’re all still here, and we love to hear from each other. It’s incredibly humanizing to reconnect with someone you've always admired but fallen out of touch with. To learn about what they've been up to, to share stories, to ask, “Wait, where are you living these days? Are you still playing guitar? How’s your sister?”
On the surface, this is one part of a broader conversation around work-life balance. Maybe you have better boundaries and a bigger Life Directory than I do. Maybe you need to keep your Life Directory small — work is demanding, and the kids have doctors’ appointments. But the Directory Dilemma exists because it’s universal to some degree. Everyone with a job has to oscillate between these two lists: your coworkers, and everyone else. And it’s more pronounced in a remote work environment.
I want to make clear that this is not a dig at remote work. I love remote work, and I’ve progressed in my career because of it. Ideally, my next role will be a remote position. I wrote this to remind myself (and you, maybe) that we’re in control of our directories. We have full agency over the ways we want to connect with each other and how we prioritize our relationships. You don’t have to let your job dictate this — like I did.
At the risk of sounding hyperbolic and clichéd: authentic, personal connection has never been more important. So if you’ve been reading this and someone’s come to mind the whole time, send them a message. Maybe they won’t answer. But maybe they will.
I’m shifting away from directories, and instead toward community. 🌱
