A couple of weeks ago, my manager suggested we get together with a few other folks in New York for a couple of days of intense work. I like to travel for holidays, but when it comes to travelling for work, I truly dislike it. It breaks my workout routine, my food routine and overall, makes me feel physically bad to change timezones twice in one week. You risk getting sick in the process, also quite common when you get people from different countries together.

I flew UK to NYC on Tuesday morning and flew back home on Thursday night, landing Friday morning. The work we did was nothing short of amazing, we achieved a lot, and I got to meet a couple of team mates that I see really rarely and meeting with colleagues was great. So despite all my complaints about work travel, the week was highly useful to get us all aligned and moving in the same direction.

New York City in August is really hot and stuffy, and one morning it rained a lot at 6am, when I was set on finding some food to have breakfast early (sleeping in the morning the first couple of days is challenging). Had to find breakfast, eat it and pack to get back, so I ended up having to pack a bunch of drenched clothes...

This is one of the things that folks that started working remotely during the pandemic may not have nailed down yet, and why some people struggle to work remotely more than others. Working remotely requires meeting in person every now and again to build trust. If you bring the teams together twice a year, this makes work easier when everybody goes back home. This is challenging at times because travel is seen as non essential and an easy way to save money by many. Well, the hidden benefits of engineering travel is real, in my opinion.

I had planned to take some of my sewing with me to do on the plane, but decided against it last minute. On the way there I read a book and browsed the internet a bit (the plane had surprisingly solid wifi). On the way back I slept through the entire flight. Didn't miss the sewing at all.