Office Hours Review

If I had an FAQ on this site, it would have 1 question: “How is Office Hours?” Everyone who asks me about my blog asks about it, and I’m sure there are lots of curious people who are too shy to ask. Now that I’ve moved out of Seattle and Office Hours is over it’s a good time to retrospect.

At risk of sounding overenthusiastic, Office Hours was an outrageous success. It made my life (and hopefully others’) substantially better. Everyone should try it, especially less outgoing people. The rest of the review will be more balanced, but I don’t want the more obvious problems to dissuade anyone else who wants to copy it.

Office Hours was inspired by doing problem sets with friends in my dorm where there was a fair mix of chatting and quiet work (I rarely went to actual office hours which may explain mine bear little resemblance¹). It was meant to be a casual way to keep up with friends and stay on top of writing shortly after moving to Seattle (when I frankly didn’t have too many friends at all). I also thought it might be a good way to meet any fans of the blog (spoiler: didn’t happen). It ran on and off for most of the time I was in Seattle, depending on when different friends were free and remembered it existed².

While it diverged slightly from that original vision, it succeeded in tricking me to hang out with friends more. Over 2.5 years, I’d estimate around 10 unique people have shown up to an Office Hours. Sometimes there was only 1 guest but more often friends brought friends and there were 2-4 guests. That’s approximately way more than I normally make plans with friends.

When it started, people (including me) did tend to have things to work on. There was a regular group and plenty of work and conversation. Over time, some people got the vision more than others and there was more talking. I also had fewer active projects to work on and didn’t mind the change.

People would show up in waves. They would come every week for 2 months and then not at all for a few months. Sometimes that day of the week didn’t work for people, and sometimes the season was more amenable to it. No one wants to leave their house in Winter, and in the Summer they want to be outside. I always thought about turning Summer Office Hours into a picnic but never made it happen.

The biggest problem was scheduling. I foolishly thought that I would stay in every Office Hours night, and anyone could show up at any time. That worked when I didn’t have much to do, but as soon as my calendar got busy, I couldn’t keep the day open, and then people had to ask in advance if I’d actually be there (this seemed fine. Another thing I learned is that “standing invitations” don’t work very well. Some people will always need an explicit invitation, and everyone confirms that they’re welcome³). I set up a public calendar, but no one really paid attention to that. Easier to ask me.

I was also a little shy about reminding people of the invitation in person. Especially when I invited people who don’t read my blog, I found it very hard to communicate that they were welcome every week, whenever they were free and wanted to come. I didn’t want anyone to feel obligated or like I was really begging them to come rather than reminding them for any time in the future.

The main strength of Office Hours was in its simplicity. I hardly had to do anything as the host. I didn’t promise people much company or entertainment⁴. It must have been more effort for my guests because they had to leave their houses. It taught me that hosting can be much easier than I usually imagine it. I never would have hosted parties or play readings if I hadn’t done all of these low-stakes gatherings before.

It feels a little silly to say that a benefit of holding Office Hours was friendship because, well, obviously. It was kind of the only benefit, and it’s sufficient. But it was also a good reminder that there’s very little correlation between how much I think I want to see people and how much I actually like seeing them. That’s why I would recommend it to people who aren’t very outgoing. They’re more likely to benefit from the commitment mechanism of it all, and outgoing people already see their friends enough.

Office Hours was enough of a success that I would consider doing it again with no changes or recommend it as is, but there’s a lot of room for improvements or variations. Hopefully I will try one or more of these once I get settled into DC.

The biggest change I would consider is limiting Office Hours to seasonal runs. This idea comes from a blog post I read recently on pop-up newletters⁵. Seasonality offers many of the same benefits for Office Hours. Mainly it lets people come consistently without committing to coming indefinitely. The start of a new season provides an excuse to reinvite. Seasons also allow for variation and themes and more experimentation. I can also schedule around when I have a project or want to do a lot of baking.

Those themes could be a book club with some quiet reading time and discussion or arts and crafts. I would also be very curious to mess with the timing. I did a whole evening once a week, but maybe it would be possible to have a writing group that met for 1 hour every day for 1 week with the goal of writing and getting feedback on 1 short story or essay.

With hindsight, I’m glad strangers didn’t find my blog and come to my apartment. I would still be curious if this format could work to meet new people if it were at a third place⁶.

Finally, I owe a big thank you to everyone who came to Office Hours and really everyone in Seattle who came to my apartment on strange and vague invitations. You all really made Office Hours what it was and I greatly appreciate you all.