The Water Cooler Has Moved. So Has Life.

By Michael Beck

Around 7 p.m. this evening, I found myself on the water with my friend Sam Stanovich, sharing a tandem kayak as the sun began its final descent toward the horizon. Sam was silhouetted against the setting sun, his paddle stretched horizontally across the fading light. Our red kayak glided forward, sending two nearly symmetrical ripples across the otherwise still water.

To his right stood a water tower illuminated in deep purple, its reflection so perfectly mirrored on the surface that it looked as though someone had folded the scene in half. Beyond it, a dark line of trees traced the horizon. The last golden light of the evening climbed through warm shades of orange and faded into blue. It was one of those rare moments when everything seemed to arrange itself into a photograph without anyone asking it to.

I took the picture. And somewhere in that moment, I found myself thinking about business. Which probably tells you something about how badly I need to get out of my home office.

I'd known of Sam Stanovich through the hospitality industry for years, but we didn't really start talking until about three years ago. Somewhere in those early conversations, we discovered that we lived about a mile apart, on the same body of water.

"No shit?"

I believe that was the general reaction from both of us, followed by the sort of geographical interrogation normally reserved for border crossings. This was surprising because we'd spent years moving through the same industry, knowing many of the same people, and generally occupying the same professional circles without ever realizing we were practically neighbors

Apparently, we'd been conducting our professional lives with the geographical awareness of two migrating potatoes.

Over the next few years, Sam and I got to know each other better. What started as an industry connection became an actual friendship, the kind where you can spend an afternoon together without either person feeling obligated to mention a business opportunity. We discovered we enjoyed each other's company when nobody was wearing a name badge, checking a conference agenda, or pretending to be fascinated by a panel discussion on operational efficiencies.

I'd been suggesting we go kayaking for a few days because the weather was too good to waste. Sam finally took me up on it. He called just as I was finishing work, came over, and we prepared to head out.

Naturally, there was some business to attend to first.

We had a couple of quick meetings to join remotely before getting on the water. There is something faintly ridiculous about two men preparing to go kayaking while making sure they've satisfied their obligations to the great electronic machinery of modern commerce. We were standing on the threshold of a beautiful afternoon, but first we had to make our appearances in little rectangles and demonstrate that we remained professionally available.

Even after we'd loaded up and cast off, there was one last quick Click call to take care of before we could fully embark. We were technically afloat, which I believe qualifies as having left the office, although apparently not far enough to escape its jurisdiction.

I began to suspect that if I ever do become an astronaut, someone will schedule a quick check-in halfway through the launch sequence.

Once that was handled, we could finally devote ourselves to the important business of going nowhere in particular.

Now, a tandem kayak is an interesting piece of equipment. It combines the intimacy of a small boat with the management challenges of a multinational corporation. Two people are expected to cooperate toward a common objective while operating from different positions, with incomplete visibility and no formal agreement about who is in charge.

In most organizations, this arrangement requires three consultants, a leadership retreat, and a document explaining the importance of trust. We had two paddles.

Sam took the front seat, which meant he had an excellent view of where we were going. I sat behind him, which meant I had an excellent view of Sam. This is apparently how tandem kayaking works. One person gets the scenery, and the other gets a detailed examination of his friend's shoulder mechanics.

Still, we made respectable progress. Neither of us attempted a hostile takeover of the steering operation, and nobody threatened to resign. By hospitality industry standards, this qualified as an exceptionally productive outing.

Then we encountered a crane.

There are certain moments in nature when a sensible person should simply observe, appreciate the beauty, and allow the wildlife to continue its business without interference.

Naturally, I decided we needed slow-motion video.

The crane was flying, the opportunity was fleeting, and we were in swift-moving water aboard a tandem kayak, which is not a platform generally favored by professional cinematographers. There was also the minor complication that the boat needed to be positioned correctly, the camera needed to be aimed, and the bird had absolutely no interest in accommodating our production schedule.

This required coordination.

Anyone who has ever attempted to coordinate two people in a small boat while the current has its own ideas about navigation will appreciate the complexity of the undertaking. We needed to paddle, turn, stabilize, anticipate the crane's flight path, and somehow capture a graceful slow-motion shot without inadvertently filming a close-up of someone's elbow.

The crane, meanwhile, had the considerable advantage of knowing how to fly.

It also had no meetings to attend, no deliverables, and no apparent concern for our creative objectives. It simply went about being a crane, displaying the sort of effortless competence that can be deeply irritating when you're attempting to operate a floating film studio.

There we were, two experienced hospitality professionals trying to execute a wildlife production in moving water. I couldn't help thinking that we'd somehow recreated the essential ingredients of an industry conference: conflicting priorities, questionable logistics, multiple people offering direction, and a featured guest who refused to follow the agenda.

The current was particularly uncooperative. It had evidently not received the production brief and continued moving water in whatever direction water traditionally prefers to move, regardless of our cinematic ambitions.

The whole operation required the kind of communication that, in a corporate environment, would have been described as cross-functional collaboration under rapidly changing conditions. In a kayak, it mostly involved trying to get the boat pointed the right way before the bird disappeared.

Whether the crane appreciated our efforts is unknown. I suspect it didn't even notice us, which is probably just as well. There are few things more humiliating than being professionally ignored by a bird.

But it was fun. Ridiculously fun. The sort of experience that becomes memorable partly because the circumstances are beautiful and partly because the participants have willingly created an unnecessary logistical problem for themselves.

We had gone out to relax and somehow found ourselves managing a small, highly mobile wildlife documentary.

Apparently, neither of us knows how to stop working entirely. We just change industries.

People are forever talking about work-life balance, usually while standing on a stage in an expensive hotel explaining how everyone else should organize their lives. I've attended enough conferences to recognize this as a reliable business model. First, identify something everyone struggles with. Then give it a memorable name, develop a framework, and charge admission.

Work-life balance is an especially impressive example because it implies that work and life are two separate substances that can be measured and distributed with the precision of a pharmacist preparing medication.

I've never managed it.

Most mornings I'm at my desk around 7 a.m., and it's not unusual for me to still be working at 3 in the morning. I'm building a business, I'm in growth mode, and I've made a conscious decision to put in the hours. I enjoy what I'm doing, although I recognize that my schedule resembles something devised by a prison warden with an unusually personal grudge.

I'm not claiming it's healthy. I'm saying it's where I am right now.

I live alone. I don't have a family waiting at home, and the friendships I've developed over the years are an important part of my life. When you work remotely and spend that much time building something, the people you know through business naturally become a substantial part of your social world.

I often joke that I'm training to become an astronaut. I could spend three months confined to a space station and barely notice the difference. I already spend most of my time indoors, communicate through screens, and occasionally eat something from a package while staring at a monitor.

The main difference is that NASA would probably insist I get eight hours of sleep and perform regular exercise. They have surprisingly strict standards for an organization whose primary activity involves putting people inside metal containers and firing them into space.

My point is that when your office is also your home, your professional relationships become more than names in a contact database. They're the people you talk to, exchange ideas with, laugh with, and sometimes come to know well enough to invite into a small plastic boat.

And this, apparently, is where some people believe the trouble begins.

I've noticed a growing number of complaints that LinkedIn has become too social. Too many personal stories. Too many photographs. Too much discussion about things that aren't strictly business.

According to this school of thought, LinkedIn should be a solemn digital institution where professionals exchange industry insights, announce promotions, and congratulate one another on achieving milestones whose actual significance nobody is entirely sure about. Anything resembling ordinary human behavior is regarded as a breach of protocol.

Now, I'll concede that LinkedIn has its share of nonsense. There are people on that platform who could witness a raccoon stealing a sandwich and somehow extract six lessons about executive leadership.

The raccoon demonstrated initiative. The sandwich represented market opportunity. The trash can was an underserved vertical. By the time the post is finished, the raccoon has founded a startup, secured seed funding, and been invited to speak at a conference in Las Vegas.

But the idea that business relationships should be free of personal interaction is ridiculous.

Business has always been social.

Think about the traditional office. People gathered around water coolers, talked about their weekends, celebrated birthdays, complained about management, and developed friendships with the people they saw every day.

The water cooler itself was a remarkable piece of office equipment. Its official purpose was to dispense drinking water, but its actual function was to provide a socially acceptable location for employees to discuss everything except their jobs. It was essentially a small, refrigerated town square.

Nobody suggested that discussing your fishing trip beside the water cooler constituted an inappropriate use of corporate resources. Nobody demanded that every conversation demonstrate measurable value to shareholders.

Well, perhaps somebody did. There's always one fellow in accounting who regards laughter as an unapproved expense.

But those casual conversations mattered. They helped people know each other. They built trust, created friendships, and gave the workplace something resembling a community.

Now millions of people work remotely. The offices are gone, the water coolers have been unplugged, and the people who once gathered around them are scattered across cities, states, and countries.

But human beings haven't suddenly stopped needing conversation. The social needs don't disappear just because the building does. They migrate.

For many of us, LinkedIn has become the new water cooler. We follow each other's careers, celebrate accomplishments, exchange ideas, and occasionally share something about our lives that doesn't involve a sales forecast.

And somehow this has become controversial.

I find that especially peculiar in hospitality, an industry built almost entirely around the principle that people enjoy being treated like people.

You can be serious about your work without treating everyone you meet like a potential invoice.

We've become so accustomed to measuring business performance that we've started applying the same thinking to human relationships.

We network. We cultivate strategic connections. We develop mutually beneficial partnerships. We discuss relationship capital, professional influence, and return on investment. It's a wonder we haven't started issuing quarterly friendship statements.

Imagine receiving an email from someone you've known for fifteen years informing you that your friendship has been placed under review due to declining engagement metrics.

"While we value your historical contributions, your responsiveness during the third quarter fell below established benchmarks. We encourage you to improve your conversational availability and demonstrate greater alignment with our recreational objectives."

There would probably be a premium friendship tier offering priority responses, unlimited weekend access, and complimentary emotional support during normal business hours. Naturally, the free version would include advertisements.

I have plenty of professional relationships that remain professional, and that's perfectly fine. Not everyone needs to become a close friend. Sometimes you work together, respect each other, and move along.

But I've also developed friendships throughout hospitality that have become an important part of my life. People whose successes I celebrate because I genuinely care about them. People who support me when things get difficult. People I can call without having to invent a business reason.

Some of the most interesting, generous, and entertaining people I've ever met came into my life through this industry. I've learned from them, laughed with them, and occasionally gotten into just enough trouble with them to make the stories worth telling without requiring a lawyer to review the manuscript.

Hospitality has given me a career, but it's also given me a community. And I refuse to believe that a friendship becomes somehow less legitimate because it started with a professional conversation.

Not every relationship needs an ROI. Sometimes a person is simply worth knowing.

Which brings us back to the kayak. There we were, two guys who originally knew each other through hospitality, floating around on a beautiful evening without an agenda, a meeting invitation, or a single PowerPoint slide. Admittedly, we'd needed a few remote meetings and a Click call to get to that point, but eventually the corporate world released us into the custody of the local waterways.

The sunset was spectacular. The purple water tower reflected perfectly on the still surface, and the sky seemed determined to demonstrate that it could accomplish more in ten minutes than most corporate marketing departments manage in a fiscal year. I took the photograph, and I thought about how easily I could have missed it.

There was work waiting at my desk. There always is. My to-do list has developed an alarming capacity for reproduction. I cross off three items, and five more appear, apparently having mated somewhere in the cloud. I've considered separating them by department, but I fear they've already unionized.

I could have stayed at my desk. Sam could have stayed home. We'd both have been perfectly productive, which is to say we'd have spent the afternoon doing whatever it is we normally do while the sun performed an extraordinary light show for an audience consisting primarily of birds and people with better time-management skills.

Instead, we went kayaking. We talked, laughed, paddled around, attempted to direct an airborne crane in a wildlife film it had never agreed to appear in, and enjoyed a few hours that required nothing from us except being there.

As I've gotten older, I've begun to realize that the people you meet along the way often become as memorable as the things you accomplish. I've spent years building businesses, pursuing ideas, and working toward goals that matter to me. I enjoy the process. I'm not about to renounce ambition, buy a pair of sandals, and begin referring to myself as a spiritual consultant.

But there's a difference between working hard toward something meaningful and becoming so absorbed in the work that you forget to participate in the life you're supposedly building. The latter would be a spectacularly stupid achievement, particularly if I managed to accomplish it ahead of schedule.

So when I see people sharing personal experiences on LinkedIn, I'm inclined to give them some latitude. I don't need every post to contain a leadership lesson, a measurable business outcome, or a call to action. Sometimes somebody simply had a good day and wanted to share it. And sometimes the people who make those days memorable are people they originally met through business.

That's been my experience in hospitality. The industry has introduced me to people who've become genuine friends, and those relationships have enriched my life in ways no spreadsheet could begin to explain.

Sometimes professional connections become business opportunities. Sometimes they become friendships. And sometimes you discover that a guy you've known of through the hospitality industry lives a mile away, you spend a few years getting to know each other, and eventually you find yourselves sharing a kayak while the sun goes down.

Two guys who met through business, discovered they were practically neighbors, and wound up in the same boat. Which is an expression normally reserved for financial collapse, organizational dysfunction, or situations where everyone involved has made a series of regrettable decisions.

For once, though, being in the same boat was exactly where we wanted to be. Nobody was sinking, nobody was blaming management, and we had no strategic plan, no performance indicators, and no intention of measuring our return on investment. We even managed to paddle in roughly the same direction.

Frankly, I've attended industry conferences that accomplished less.