The trenches: where you build community through work

There is this experience I had last year that I just can’t get out of my head, which usually means it is worth exploring deeper.

See it was re:Invent 2021, folks were just coming out of the pandemic and people were venturing to conferences again. Like every year, I was slated to speak about AWS permissions on stage. After I was done with my talk, someone came up to me to tell me I did really well. I couldn’t believe it, it was a colleague and friend, Scott, from my Accenture and JPMC days. I had known he was at re:Invent and had hoped we would grab a beer one night, but I didn’t know he would spend his precious time listening to me talk about permissions…most of which he already knew deeply about. From there, we headed out for a beer. On our way, we texted the group that Scott and I used to work with to see if anyone happened to also be at reInvent. Ryan replied and came to meet up with us.

What warms my heart to this day is that we haven’t seen each other since 2012 and when we met up it was like nothing had changed. Throughout the night we bantered like we did in 2012, we congratulated each other on various accomplishments, we complained about ridiculous scenarios we encountered over the years, and we kept ordering rounds for one another. The night was filled with laughter, gratitude for our time working together, and genuine respect for the different paths we all took. It was incredible.

It made me ask…how is this possible? Now, going back to 2010-2012. Those were some of the hardest hours I’ve ever worked. But they were with the most fun and talented people. I wouldn’t trade those for anything. I still remember everyone staying in the office 35+ hours to get our first deployment into an integrated environment complete. I still remember staying late to get code to production only to find out we needed a database change, which we didn’t have permission to do. So we all headed to the bar and while inside it snowed hard. We had the most fun snowball fight under the EL tracks in Chicago at about 1am. We were in the trenches together, solving hard problems, working together to get the job done, having fun when we could, and respecting each other for the part they played in the greater project. I would work with any of these folks again given the opportunity. There is something special that happens when people come together and push really to get a deliverable over the line.

More recently, a team in my organization was pushing to get a new feature out. They encountered some bumps the day of launch. I joined their call to get an update and see how everyone was holding up. They were all in a conference room, eating chips, laughing, and working together to fix the issue. I thanked them for their efforts and slowly slipped away. Knowing they too were creating their lifelong community for years to come.

I am all for balancing your work life with your personal life, however there are times when it might be worth diving all in to a project. Those times when your team is in the trenches and coming together to move a big rock forward. Those are when we come together as humans, those are the times when we connect deeply, those are the times when you have fun while doing hard work, and those are how long lasting relationships are made. So the next time you have an opportunity where you get to come together with a team and you might have to push a little harder, consider taking it.? It might just be the experience that provides the foundations for lifelong friends.?