Here at reinteractive, I feel very privileged to have access to some of the most awesome and talented Rails devs. I still have much to learn and through flowdock, our group chat app, I am regularly treated to some great tips and techniques as our devs uncover new and clever ways of doing things.
Last week, for example, I learned that the plural of corgi is corgwn. Yes, I know that sounds totally random and not at all useful, even at trivia night. But it is a great example of the wonderful culture we have here at reinteractive.
As you may know, we all work remotely. We only get to see each other face to face every other month at Team Day in Sydney. The rest of the time, we stay in touch with weekly team meetings via GoToMeeting, daily standups on skype, and Flowdock. You would think that might make it difficult to form real friendships and build comaradarie but you would be wrong. Very wrong!
To offset the fact that we can’t look across the room at a colleague, we are encouraged to use flowdock as a way of showing our comings and goings throughout the day. We also use it to discuss our various projects (with a ‘room’ dedicated for each), get assistance if we are struggling with something and, of course, share cat gifs.
I mention cat gifs specifically because, as a crazy cat lady, I am the host of Kitty Tuesday. It is a free-for-all where the entire team share their favourite cat gifs. One of our colleagues shows the day’s gifs to her young son and he has declared Kitty Tuesday his favourite day of the week! :-)
This is in stark contrast to the tightly-regulated Corgi Thursday. Our resident corgi man, Glen, treats us to a parade of animated corgi gifs that he has carefully curated for our viewing pleasure. The gifs are released on a strict schedule of 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, and 4.29pm (immediately prior to our 4.30pm team meeting). There is hell to pay for anyone who dares post a corgi gif, or any other gif for that matter, on a Thursday. Glen will issue them with a ‘corgi foul’ and they will be suitably chastised in the team meeting.
There are other themed days that are embraced with varying degrees of participation. A few members of the team enjoy KFC Friday, much to the disdain of our more health-conscious peeps. But it is all done with affection and good humour.
Don’t get me wrong, we work hard. We fit into a four day week for our clients what most people do in five. And we spend our fifth day actively learning to become better at what we do. We take our job very seriously. But we also place high value in creating a fun and welcoming culture for everyone and a big part of that is the everyday banter on Flowdock.
Working remotely for reinteractive is anything but isolating. Every morning I enjoy signing in and reading the conversation I missed. Often I find myself laughing out loud with the silliness of it all. When a new team member joins, they immediately become part of the conversation. By the time we get to meet them in person at Team Day, they feel almost like an old friend already. But we always have room for new friends.
We are hiring: if you are a Rails or Angular developer, become part of our awesome team. Send your details to our HR Manager Kate (work@reinteractive.com) and come join the fun! (especially if you are on Team Cat :-))
