When I was 25, I had a quarter-life crisis and quit my job at Accenture, to work for a controversial travel company, Wicked Campers as a “Wicked Evangelist” (AKA Global Marketing Manager).

You might have read about them in the news (for the wrong reasons!).

When I worked in the Brisbane office, my role was crazy:

👉🏽When we needed inspiration, we’d often pick up a can of spray paint and spray the office walls. 

👉🏽 Sports cars on top: I was admiring the founder’s Porsche, and he handed me the keys. I cruised around town in his canary yellow Targa convertible for a couple of weeks (awesome).

👉🏽 The makers of The Crocodile Hunter even filmed a pilot reality TV series about our workplace (that's when this photo was taken).

There was a ton of drama, frequent fun interactions, and great coffee outings.

Then, I moved to Broome to build up the west coast operations. 

I had the same role, but the environment changed. I worked with one other person (my partner!). 

The role became all about the tasks.  I missed the drama and the chaos of those workplace interactions.

In Brisbane, my discretionary effort was high. I’d stay late, I’d mull over things after-hours.

In Broome, I couldn’t wait to clock off.

I had to find connections, experiences in other places - which meant being more involved with the community. Getting into team sports. 

I think we’re all experiencing this now as we see knowledge-worker roles which were mandated for certain locations, now being global.

Where “going to work” is literally firing up the laptop.

My original question was - How can you build those connections, those “Porsche” moments for geographically dispersed teams?

Then I reflected on it, and thought, is that even possible?

Which leads me onto today’s question:

👉🏽👉🏽 Should it be up to your employer to fuel your connection bucket? 

I’m really not too sure.

Given the lack of connection with the people in your virtual team, I think we must now look at other avenues for filling that space - and not rely solely on our work-mates and office life as the fuel for this.

If we’re working 40+ hours/week, and not getting the connection we desire, we need to divert some of that time to getting more involved in building those local connections.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.

#remotework #hybrid #workexperiences