Team Building in the age of Smart Working
November twenty twenty-two, my adventure at Open Gate begins. After a month, I take stock for the first time and I cannot help thinking about how much working habits have changed.
At the start of the day Google Calendar reminds me of the scheduled appointments, around ten I join my first (of many!) Meet.
I carry out my daily activities: I write posts, create illustrations, plan the company newsletter… All of this, I do in the comfortable and cosy living room of my own home.
To some of you, remembering the endless weeks spent between the office, meetings and Milan traffic, this will sound like a dream. Others might see in it the perfect plot for an episode of Black Mirror. Still others will feel they recognise their everyday life. Whatever your opinion, this is the world of work today.
In giving my point of view, however, I have to take into account an important aspect of my company's policy: the Open Gate family puts a great deal of care into sharing activities.
Each working from our own homes, we risk losing each other, no longer feeling that comforting sense of belonging.
In addition to get-togethers outside working hours, such as go-kart races, company dinners, weekends at the spa or at the seaside… we like to meet up in the office a couple of times a week. This encourages dialogue between colleagues and creates the pretext for the proliferation of new ideas, which spring up spontaneously in front of all the delights that the office coffee corner has to offer (on my first day in the office I did not hesitate to have breakfast with an excellent Taiwanese oolong tea which, I must admit, gave me just the right boost for the rest of the day).
I am starting to doubt, however, that the real reason we go to the office so willingly is really linked exclusively to "work" reasons.
In fact, on top of everything described above, there is what I will call the "intern's luck": by this I mean the legendary vintage arcade game dating from the Sixties, positioned between the table football and the access to the terrace. Whether you were big fans of Mortal Kombat II or opted for a less gory (so to speak!) alternative such as Metal Slug, it matters little. In that cabinet there is a vintage paradise of games!
Personally, I keep insisting on looking for Pacman and watching vintage video game tutorials on YouTube (here I am once again relying on Google!). Maybe one day I will manage to understand what my gamer colleagues are saying. Until then, I work perfectly well as a referee during the endless table football matches on coffee breaks.
