A few years ago, work felt chaotic. We had just migrated to Ex Libris’s Alma in the middle of a pandemic. We’d gone through multiple interim Deans. Several people had retired or resigned in the department. I had become Director of the unit I’d been a member of for eight years—a job I’d received no training for and one I had to do while working remotely. And I was onboarding a new staff member.

It was… a lot. Especially all at once.

I had been the last new hire in the unit and, as I said, I’d already been there for eight years. I spent a lot of time working on onboarding documentation, trying to make sure I’d covered all the bases.

But when my new teammate started, I quickly realized I’d taken for granted the relationships I already had with my colleagues—relationships built over years of in-person work.

This new hire? She was brand new to my team, brand new to the university, and brand new to New York City.

It was a lot for her, too.

On the advice of my life partner—who works in tech and had been working remotely for years, long before the pandemic—I decided to try a daily co-working hour on Zoom. It’s a time when anyone on the team can show up for questions, work chat, brainstorming, or just to work alongside each other.

It’s not quite a meeting but, in the beginning, it sure felt like one. It was awkward and stiff. None of us knew what to do or how to act. Were we supposed to talk? Stay silent? Look busy?

But persistence paid off. Though I stressed that attendance was optional, I vowed to show up every day. Slowly but surely, we figured it out and settled into a rhythm. People opened up. We reviewed support tickets together. We supported each other through losses. We read through release notes. We laughed. Some days we worked in silence for half an hour, and that was fine, too.

This shared space is now how we start every day. It’s when the whole team gets together—sharing progress, swapping tips, troubleshooting problems, and usually making each other laugh. It sets the tone for the rest of the day. Attendance is still optional, but everyone shows up.