Eat, laugh, code. That is DoW’s Summit 2022 💜

This article was supposed to have a different title and certainly wasn’t meant to reference a Julia Roberts movie. It was supposed to be completely different, full of research results, an outline of psychological portraits of IT workers, coverage of wellbeing topics, and the benefits of introducing workation in remote teams, but…

I attended my first ever workation and changed my mind.

Read some of my thoughts on the DoW Summit 2022.

For starters 😬

Let’s start with the elaborate creature called “Workation” or “Workholiday”.

It is intended to be a combination of work and vacation, experienced alone or with a whole team. This is my first job at a software house, so it was hard to imagine such a situation and my first meeting with a group I knew only from a webcam.

I was not alone in this feeling, although this was the company’s second Summit. 2022 is undoubtedly a year of change for our company, involving the formation of the new Department of Web brand, and a significant team expansion, including my creative department. You could say that I went with strangers to the countryside, away from the city, could it have worked?

It could, and not just because of the beautiful country air or lush green areas around the rented property (although I could safely say that its decor and manner took you back to a techless time) in the Kashubian countryside. The merit of our team and activities helped us get to know each other better and elevate our teamwork.

Discover each other 🤜🤛

To say that we were thrown in the deep end is an understatement. You would have had to see our faces when, upon arrival, we learned that the first task on our calendar was a culinary workshop. It’s no secret that devs like to eat, but do they want to cook?

The room was filled with confused faces and trepidation, especially since the workshop’s central theme was Georgian cuisine. As it turns out, a lot of wrapping, kneading dough, and cutting is perfect for teamwork. Despite not knowing each other, we were quickly able to divide the tasks. Everyone was responsible for a specific section, mixing the meat and seasoning and kneading the dough for the chinkali. The synergy was magical.

We truly had a great time, and although our dishes would not have impressed the MasterChef judges, we proudly sat down at the communal table, eating our creations and sipping wine.

After strong bonds had formed due to either the cooking or the wine, we were curious to see what Lady Boss had planned for the coming days.

And guess what? She locked us in some dingy room with cages! We had to look for some people being hunted by a serial killer who wanted to make perfume out of us!

Did that give you goosebumps? Relax! It was just an escape room. If you want to go through the riddles in half the time, I have a tip for you: take a programmer with you. I don’t know if it’s some superpower or a maximally analytical mind, but they overcame all the difficulties at the speed of light. I still don’t understand how they saw all those clues. Chapeau Bas!

Escaping from the hands of a serial killer made us get to know each other well, especially in a stressful situation and under time pressure.

Thanks to Kasia, our master organizer, each evening, we discussed our day and shared difficulties and solutions that we could 1:1 transfer to our organization, the first of which was a sense of reliance on each other.

Overcooked 🤌

All great conversations start at the table. And eating and preparing together brings you even closer. I took over the chef role with Kuba, who revealed his Pizzaiolo- excellent skills! Who can say no to delicious carbs.

It’s no secret that food was the theme of the whole trip. It’s also a reference to the Department of Web communications. After all, coding has more to do with cooking than you might think. Careful selection of ingredients, temperature control, the right spices, and finally, celebrating at the communal table.

To top it off, we had fun looking for analogies between coding and cooking. Have you wondered what would happen if you make a scope creep of 1000 vegetables while cooking broth, or what the consequences for the dish would be if you let in an amateur who can’t hold a knife? Or do you know what Mexican cuisine and bugs have in common?

We will tell you all about it soon…

Work hard, play hard 🥳

A group trip is an unusual opportunity to work computer to computer. After having coffee and breakfast together, we sat down to work. Given the number of nearby attractions and the temptation of relaxing by the warm pool, the work schedule was quite busy.

Finally, we conducted live brainstorming, discussed the new design of the BracketSpace website, and planned the customer journey on the website. We also made a lot of headway on the release of our note-taking app. Hopefully, by the time you read this, you will have already downloaded a demo version.

Sitting next to the guys and watching them work and ask questions was superb. It was also inspiring to observe how the Seniors mentored the Juniors on our team, and no question went unanswered.

After work, it was time for fun! Believe me, even if we had been there for a month, we still would not have had enough time to enjoy all the attractions of the Ledowo House. The indoor swimming pool, game room (where I think we broke all records in table tennis), sauna, jacuzzi, the exhibition of classic Polish cars, and even a golf course! Our wonderful host gave us novices a few golf lessons. Aiming for perfection on the target is in our genes, in every space!

And that’s the end of it… 🤘

5 days passed by in what felt like a few hours, and we needed to meet more often.

We took a breath and gained strength for the next year, 2023, which will bring even more challenges than the current one.

The original article was going to be titled “Why Workation is essential for remote teams”. And I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t smuggle in some research results at the end. Let’s start by answering the question of why a workation is essential. Hustle culture makes taking care of well-being hard. According to a study by Haystack Analytics, as many as 83% of developers are at risk of job burnout. Some reasons include the inability to implement a work-life balance and inefficient processes in the company. Workation’s version of the Department of Web is a lot of active relaxation and a look at the company’s processes from the inside out and stepping into the shoes of an employee.

I greatly appreciate the importance placed on mental well-being at the Department of Web and the space to recharge creative batteries. Are workations a must-have in remote teams? I believe that nothing replaces face-to-face contact and language resolution, like an atmosphere conducive to open discussion.

And most importantly, now we are not simply members of the Department of Web team. We are work buddies, which is worth more than gold.💜