As I think about what to write this week, it hits me: this is an in-person week, and I can’t help but feel excited about it. At Nubank, we’re doing a hybrid working model: seven weeks at home and one week in the office. It’s great! You get to meet in person with the people you work with, laugh while guessing new team members height, and spend time together as a team, getting to know each other better.
When the pandemic sent everyone home, we quickly became remote-first. Don’t get me wrong, I love it! Being able to walk my dogs, go to the gym during lunch, and chat with my fiancée while making afternoon coffee are some of the best perks. These changes have transformed many people’s lives, and for most, there’s no going back. But something was lost along the way. The colleagues you used to see every day, the casual chats over coffee between meetings, or just watching the world go by and people on your subway commute, they’ve all become static images on Slack and Jira.
Privilege of remote work
First and foremost, It’s important to acknowledge the privilege of being able to work remotely. For many, the option to maintain a remote or hybrid model isn’t available, and the benefits that come with it, like flexibility, better work-life balance, and the comfort of home, are just out of reach. The ability to seamlessly switch between remote and in-person work is a privilege that has allowed many of us to go through the challenges of recent years while still maintaining productivity and personal well-being.
Becoming Machines
In our pursuit of more freedom and work-life balance, we started living where we work and working where we live. Many people have talked about this, so I don’t want to go on about it. Instead, I want to highlight how often we’ve optimized ourselves—streamlining conversations, tasks, and productivity—until we’ve almost turned into machines. Maybe it was the pressure to rise above a global crisis, or maybe it was our way of showing our presence to the team and company that most of the day didn’t see us anymore.
Interactions that would once start with a shy wave and a casual “Hi, how’s it going? Could you help me with something?” have turned into Slack messages between static avatars, often in an asynchronous manner.
The return to in-person weeks brings some of that back. It’s a refreshing antidote to the overly optimized, sometimes isolating rhythms of remote work. It’s a chance to rediscover the unique dynamics of in-person interaction—the spontaneous conversations and shared experiences—while appreciating that remote work still offers meaningful and efficient connections in its own way.
Be in person in a remote world
Soon, I’ll be packing my backpack as if it were the first day of school. Remote life has its amazing benefits, and I wouldn’t trade them, but it’s also refreshing to step outside, see people walking the streets, have great chats with teammates over lunch, and draw on walls instead of Miros. From time to time, it’s good to embrace the unique energy of being in person in a remote world.