Something that I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is the onboarding experience for our new hires here at Automattic (we call them newmatticians). I’m working on a project to create a new onboarding program for all newmatticians, and I think it’s going to have a really positive effect on all the new folk we bring to the company, and also for our existing Automatticians, because newmatticians will hit the ground faster and more confidently. It’s a win-win.

Today I was talking to someone on my team who had just had a regional lunch recently with some other Automatticians, and she and another person were hired in the last 3 or so months. She told me how they were still super excited to be Automatticians, and they were sort of bouncing that excitement off of each other. I just love that. I miss our in-person time, and I think that when we do get together in-person (not since 2019 for me), it sort of activates this latent I love my job!! feeling that many of us have, but don’t actively experience on an on-going basis. Everything feels new again. Just talking to her about her afternoon with Automatticians (for the first time!) made me really happy.