What happened when my fully remote company met IRL for the first time ever
In May and June, I hosted retreats for my company, Bobsled Marketing, which is fully remote. We flew the US employees to Boston, and the European employees to Athens for two days each. In most cases, they were meeting their colleagues (and me) for the first time. Here’s what happened.
1. No-one was a real ‘surprise’.
You might expect that there might be some double-takes or that people would feel weird hanging around a bunch of strangers for two days. But these people have shared a lot of experiences together — not just work projects, but photos of vacations and families, new babies, personal jokes, accolades and failures. So everyone felt like they knew each other already, and we slipped right into a groove.
2. No-one’s parents really understand what they do.
Most of us had stories of how poorly remote work is understood by those around us. I shared how a friend’s spouse was convinced I was a drug dealer. Another colleague who left KPMG to work for Bobsled said that his mother still thinks he works there. In a funny twist, my own parents were in Athens at the same time, and got to meet our European team. I think they know what I do :)
3. Exploring a new city together is a cool way to bond.
This year we visited historic cities, although Athens has a couple more thousand years of history than Boston! Still, we got to experience places that were new to most of us, together. In both places, we did walking tours to show us some historical sights. And of course, sample the local food scenes.
4. Americans eat breakfast. Europeans don’t.
I’m a big breakfast girl so naturally I made sure there was a crowd-worthy supply of groceries for each event. Turns out that for our European team, turkish style coffee is the only acceptable consumable until lunchtime. So hey, I learnt something (and took a lot of bacon home).
The afterglow of the company retreats is still in effect. Many of us have ‘known’ each other for 2 years or more, but there’s something different about meeting face to face and breaking bread.
Still, there is a reason why we are a remote company: we all have full lives to lead and would rather be spending time with our families or on leisure activities than commuting several hours a day. So at the end of the 2 days, everyone left happily, but more connected than ever.
I hope you enjoyed this peek into life at Bobsled! If you’re interested in joining our team, we have several open positions advertised here: www.bobsledmarketing.com/careers
