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APRIL FOOLS

Sure… twice in one day!!! Shoulda saved this one for next year.

April fools! Good one :)

I’m going to call #aprilfools on this one – if it’s not a prank, then my regard for 37Sig just dropped big time. The fact that we’re finding out the same time as the employees is a sure-fire bet it’s a prank.

FINALLY .

It is a unisex, one-piece, uniform that is functional and minimalist, just like our apps.

Is it an April Fools joke? Please, tell me it’s a joke.

We can’t be fooled by David this easily…

This post brought to you by Comic Sans.

If you had quit after time zones you might of had me on this :)

Classic.

Ton of stuff in this post should’ve warned you: meetings on Monday, Wednesday AND Friday? Not in Jason Fried’s house.

Calling Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News, or Twitter “lazy mode”? C’mon, man. Whatever.

And i heard they also sealed an agreement to use ASP .NET MVC from now on. Finally, 37 signals is getting real!

This must be an April fools thing.. The dress code thing is just too much.. haha!

i’m glad you guys have finally seen the light. i assume you’re adding a ten-person IT group as well?

... we’ve experimented with holding two-hour status meetings every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Nice touch.

If this isn’t an April Fools joke, then it’s the biggest embarrassment of 37signals of all time.

Their entire premise is that working remote (which implies staying small) works.

But every organization gets to a certain size that forces you to change your organization and become “big”.

Since 37signals now has nearly 30 employees, they are getting to that point and are having to implement controls

I expected more. You should have made a post speaking to how much you love RSpec and Cucumber, and have dropped Test::Unit.

:)

You forgot to mention the VC investment :-)

HERP .

@Micah, I wonder what gave it away? It couldn’t have been thbit about a 37signals uniform. ;)

I propose that you call this new process “Getting Unreal”.

You should probably hold an hour long pre-meeting before your 2 hour status meetings though. It really helps to boost the team synergy.

I think a prank involving a new app that sounds plausible but is overly complex.

Am I the only one who would love to see a Threadless-designed 37signals uniform?

I was half way through this before I realized it was a prank.

I was actually thinking that some of your workers wouldn’t make the move and then I might have a chance to work with you!

Well played my friend, well played.

LMAO . Good one.

Thanks for all that you guys do to keep advancing the thinking in these areas.

Glad to see 37signals is keeping true to their mission.

Since I basically do whatever 37signals does, I would just like to officially announce that effective immediately, Robot Mode LLC is instituting these policies.

Where can I buy this 37signals “Threadless” onesie you’re talking about? (remember, sell your by-product!)

I would really like to see that uniform. Truly well played.

I almost believed this. And more strangely, I felt pity for this company and wanted to respect them even more for admitting the reality and willing to adapt. But fortunately, it’s April Fool’s joke! (, isn’t it?) Thank you for reminding us that ideals of 37signals are still so much alive and strong enough to fool me! Thank you for this fun post which cheered me a lot after being stressed for my work.

It’s not a prank, I found out that I have to make the move right now.

FFFFFUUUU

april fools day. ... damn..

Nice. I think you could also mention: Venture Capital investments in 37Signals and migrating all your app suite from Rails to php.

Sure, April Fools, but that sounded like most every other “normal” company I’ve come to know, honestly. Didn’t know 37s wanted so hard to finally become, um… corporate. :)

The best April Fools are the ones that require a double-take ;-)

Come on, can someone from 37Signals verify if this is a joke or not? I am about to lose some of my utmost respect for them. Please, save yourself!!!

Well played, my friends, well played.

What’s NOT funny is that most companies, for the most part, DO think like this.

Sadly, your April Fools joke here is the reality at my job… minus the chained iMacs. We have custom-built PCs with celeron processors and Windows XP. :-(

You totally got me, though I did tightly furl my brow at the “no lazy working.” It wasn’t til the dress code that I let out a huge sigh of relief. That was a good one, Sigs.

About had me until the dress code. That’s what gave it away. I could completely understand the first point being real though. I work with a team across different time zones on a side project right now. It is tricky to sometimes have all of us on skype.

Haha nice one!You got me!

Well played sirs. I almost burned my copy of Rework.

April Fool’s Day notwithstanding, the HR stamp of approval and corporate non-disclosure speak are nowhere to be found in this document! And, by the way, even the most uptight corporations have jeans day at least once a week. I think we should form a committee immediately!

I’m leaving to pursue other interests. …

Ugh, it’s true – I worked for a great small internet company, and had the same thing happen to me (minus the uniforms) last year. I think its mostly corporate laziness, as they got more productivity out of me working remotely than I ever gave them when I was on-site in the office, pulled by everyone for pointless 2-hour status meetings…. (rolls eyes)...

Only when I read David use the buzzword bingo favorite phrase “Best of Breed” did I get the joke. I’m that dense, sad to say. Up to that point, I was this close to tears.

Someone let the gullibulls out of the pasture.

And I also heard that 37signals is relocating all customers to the Chicago area.

Brilliant. You had me there up until ‘all sat round the kitchen table’. The disclaimer is hilarious :)

Although, I’m sure there is some truth in the data security angle you come from there – especially where massive databases of confidential client information are floating around the ether.

I think the commenters suggesting this is a joke just because today is 4-1 are off base. One of the underlying points of REWORK is to be flexible and admit that something isn’t working and then having the courage to move forward. The leadership just realized that absolutely everything unique about the business that made it distinct and successful stopped working about 5 days ago. These new policies take courage. This couldn’t possibly be a joke, could it? ;)

Haha, you totally had me for the first couple of paragraphs

Two hour meetings 3 times a week = Foolish

Locked down to office computers = Foolish

A Non-virtual workplace = Foolish

Either the Dream had died or it’s April First!!!

Hey….

Glad you’ve come at last to the well-known best practices. It speaks profoundly of your business coming to maturity.

Chained iMacs were the best touch for me. Thanks for a good laugh. :)

Are these news related to this? http://ontechies.com/2011/04/01/37-signals-gets-vc-boost-again/

Welcome to the enterprise!

Yeah, right! But sorry, it’s just to much out of your philosphy.

To my shame I read 3/4 of the way through that post before I remembered the date…

Pretty funny, but I was listening to a “This week in startups” interview with Joel Spolosky of Stackoverflow (google it), and he said something along the same lines, minus the uniforms. We’re moving everyone locally, it used to work, but now, not so much…

Loved the “all sitting at the kitchen table” bit… although the unisex one-piece uniform came a close second.

Sounds just like my days at EDS .

Wait, didn’t

Please, please, please do a mockup of the uniform. That would be kinda awesome to see.

Where can I order one of those uniforms? I need new pajamas.

At first I thought WTF ? Please say it ain’t so. Ok, ya had me punked for a few minutes.

Come on guys! I am sure you made that ground breaking decision ONLY after Jason saw the new 37signals Company Handbook Applicake made with our game-changing instant company handbook generator:

http://instantcompanyhandbook.com/

Jason, David – does it mean we’re already helping you take 37signals to the next level? ;-)

Excellent, I believed it 5 seconds

You got me :)

SNARK SNARK SNARK

I was reading this and a tear came out of my eye…!!! Then i realize it’s April 1st..

Hehe, didn’t believe it after the meetings bit. If the guys have worked so well so far then why change it :)

Unfortunately, I believe our CFO would think these are great steps forward, Ugh!

Just bought and started reading the Rework book for inspiration and saw this headline. I couldn’t believe it true so started reading the comments. Forgot it is April Fool’s!

How could you do this? My husband and I like working from our home office in Vancouver!

Glad to see you guys have finally grown to a point where you need a true corporate culture. My only question is when does Hawaiian Shirt Friday’s start?

It’s about time you started to take your business seriously. A couple of suggestions, standardized hair styles. Crew-cuts will eliminate the distraction of hair in the face, combing, etc. Also implementing a mandatory physical fitness regime will reduce healthcare costs. Nothing like brisk 5-mile jogs every morning at 6AM to increase productivity.

You should also start charging for personal calls and switch toilet paper to single ply, except in the partner only washroom of course.

APRIL FOOLS !!!!

In Spain fools day is on 28th december. It took me some time to figure this out. The uniforms part helped. Still scared.

Best joke I’ve seen today. It didn’t hit me until half way through : )

This is less believable than Basecamp on floppy disks.

Funny. You should have had a uniform made and posted a picture of @DHH in it.

I want to think this is a joke. If not, I could never believe in u again, I mean. I admire your work and the way you think guys but this change is so so dramatic that sucks!

I really hope this is a joke! Otherwise, I won’t ever read about u again.

I knew when I read the headline this had to be AF’s! Nicely done guys.

Wow. This basically describes a company I used to work for….ha!

I cannot believe of that.

Believe it or not, I work for an employer that has adopted all of these policies. They’ve even forced everyone to use iMacs and expect 99% uptime from their employees. Only they’ve used cubicles rather than kitchen tables. This has resulted in low productivity and morale – not to mention high staff turnover.

So thanks for the laugh – I needed it.

2 hr meetings were the first red flag, well done :-)

Would love to take a look at that uniform you had in mind – “unisex, one-piece, uniform that is functional and minimalist” ... Just for the fun of it :) ... Any sketches or prototypes? :) Happy Fools day!

LIKE ! Chicago is so cool!

Maybe all of us who use 37signal should get one of those unisex uniforms to wear as well. April fools! Very funny!

Awesome, you’ve had me for a bit :)

he he he… Yes. And the beatings will continue until morale improves!

About time!

nice you had me good on this. for like ten minutes i was thinking what a mistake these guys were making and then it hit me that it was the first.

I’ll admit, I fell for it. I was rather heartbroken, but I fell for it. The one-piece uniform and working around the kitchen seemed like crazy ideas, but I still fell for it.

Actually I clicked through to see if there was a picture of the one-piece uniform, I was picturing a mechanic jumpsuit personally…

You guys did good!!!

If you could see the look on my face when I started reading…

You did get me! Nicely done.

I fell for it too… It was almost believable :-)

I would be quite concerned that so many people fell for this.

Oh boy – you had me for the first two paragraphs.

I was going to say: “Nice job for admitting that the situation has changed and what used to work no longer works.”

Now I’m just going to say: “You got me. You got me good.”

And here I was feeling sorry for all the people that would have to pack up and move to Chicago.

Cheers —Phil

LOL , it took me about 3/4th down the post before I realized it was posted on April Fools! LOL , this was truly amazing

You got me… almost. Well at least until around the third paragraph. Or I think it was the dress code: from the guy who wears jeans and t-shirts to speeches (which is cool, actually).

You got me! The only thing that got my attention were iMacs chained to the desks :)

The uniform thing triggered me army memories. At some point I felt like conscripted and had a small scale stress attack. Totally fell for this

The “chained to desk” bit triggered my bullshit alarm. Had me up till that point!

The unisex one-piece uniforms sound like a good idea though. I’d happily wear one if it means not having to decide what to wear each morning. Even my current “top of the pile” dressing method presents too much choice.

That and all nerds secretly desire a world like in Star Trek.

I see what you did here.

Nice one :-) Didn’t fall for it, but it was fun.

Nice prank. A new book called “Gettin Rework’d” with just 12 pages inked with some demotivational drawings would have been a nice prank too. :)

Sounds like my workplace ;-)

Got me too, I was hooked until the dress code. I might have been primed – just today I was musing with someone else about how your recent growth and the new office might affect other aspects of how you run your business.

I wish you all the best on your journey, and hope that we don’t find out as we go along that there are good reasons why big corporations are the way they are. I hope you can keep proving myths wrong.

You got me in third paragraph. If you could see the look on my face when I started reading…!!!

While I was reading I felt like my entire future career is gone before it starts. Felt like all these REWORK advices are falling apart like Berlin Wall. I was shocked, especially while I’m always talking to my friends, colleague and family about how all companies should REWORK their work and ……………

I was this close to tears. Nicely done! :D

Didn’t notice the date and started reading. “6 hours of status meetings? That’s 15% of work time”... WTF ? “Chained down”, “no more lazy mode”... what is this? Then I got to “dress code” and thought “wait a minute… what’s the date on this”. Lovely! :D

You got me till the “sitting around a big table”. I’m so dumb… Great post.

It’s sad that some people reading this won’t even get the joke. ;-)

just got rework. was about to go burn it. lol

Seriously :D Got me all the way to the end (dresscode).

Nice one :D

Phew. Got to nearly half the article before the chuckles set in. Nicely done!:)

nice one dhh. u r still the sexiest hacker alive on earth.

What is funny is that this came through on my google reader feed today (4 days late) so my April fools radar was disengaged… making me an easier mark.

Don’t laugh…these are pretty much the exact rules for the company I work for. Very corp America.