Ever since the pandemic started, the work culture at Softescu began to shift from a mostly local workspace towards remote work, and through remote work, towards global, diverse, and inclusive practices. When I first joined the company in 2019 as a junior developer, I used to go to the office to get the help I needed and interact with colleagues. But as time went on, and we all know what happened during the past two years, new names started appearing on the chat. Even without actually knowing much about the new colleagues, we collaborated well and got to learn from each other. However, the "togetherness" was lacking - there was no face to the name! And considering we shifted from local to global, meeting new colleagues was a bit more difficult than just going out for a cup of coffee.

DrupalCon 2022 Prague was just the place for me to put faces to chat conversations. Besides the conference proceedings, the many useful talks, future prospects, and the Drupal community, it was a place to actually meet my colleagues in person. I got to travel with colleagues from the same city, meet our colleague from Africa at the conference, and during the conference, I got to interact with people I work with or have worked with from Asia.

Amazing! I'm not sure how it usually goes, but it's not every day you get to meet the person behind the chat conversation! You get to learn a lot, even about colleagues from the same background as you! I found the whole experience to be eye-opening, positive, and very diverse, and I wouldn't trade it for any other.