VIRTUAL SUCCESS SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO

Re Permanent Remote Work Not Healthy For Companies, CIBC Head Says (Report on Business, Oct. 20): Why does Victor Dodig equate collaboration and interaction with being “in the office?”

I work for an international software company with team members who live in Toronto, Winnipeg, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia and other locations across the continent. We collaborate and interact successfully on a daily basis. We innovate, brainstorm, problem-solve and meet, yet we are almost never “in the office.”

We have spontaneous “watercooler” chats at the start of some online meetings to exchange random ideas or just to keep upto-date with our work friends, an important aspect of a strong, healthy team. The current arrangement is successful and unlikely to change any time soon.

Jennifer Copeland

Thornhill, Ont.

Re Searching For The American Dream? Go To Canada (Opinion, Oct. 16): My reaction to contributor Parag Khanna’s advice to move is to urge everyone to stay.

Stay and learn one’s local ecology. Stay and deepen family, friend and neighbour relationships. Stay and purchase local food and patronize locally owned business. Stay and volunteer for an organization that gives meaning and purpose to life.

We are more likely to create a better world by committing to places we love than by moving to distant cities to chase higher incomes amongst strangers, so we can buy more stuff and thereby hasten the climate crisis.

Nature heals by making greater connections to itself. Society should do the same, in place.

Tom Beckley

Keswick Ridge, N.B.