The most expected week of the year so far has come and gone so fast that it feels almost cruel.

Automattic’s Grand Meetups, team meetups and now Division Meetups were always highly anticipated, at least by me. Working remotely was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my professional life. But we are not islands. We create bonds with the people we work with every day. Even over Zoom and Slack, but the best way to strengthen these bonds is by meeting in person. It does not have to be 3 times a week. At Automattic, we’ve been doing it between 2 and 3 times a year and it works really well.

The thing is, the pandemic came and these meetups had to be suspended for obvious reasons.

But now they are back. After 3 years we finally had another Grand-meetup-ish. It was not Company-wide, but it was division-wide, and even though I left with a feeling that something was missing, I don’t have words to describe the feeling of being back.

Spending a whole week in Vienna seeing people I haven’t seen in a while, meeting new people, creating new experiences, inside jokes, team dinners, having meals with people I don’t know and finding out about what they do, how our roles are connected, putting the faces on some names I interact on Slack but never over Zoom. Discussing projects, retros, and planning. Sitting at the bar exchanging Obsidian Workflows.

And not only that. The parties, staying up late playing Pictionary or talking about silly stuff. Breakfast with the other Developer Apprentices, lunch with the Brazilmatticians.

It is always a week to remember. The post-meetup blues is a real thing and it’s hitting me hard. I’m still enjoying the company of a few colleagues on our ski trip for now, so there’s that.

The batteries are full again.