Locked in here with me

My company BlockLabs organized a long weekend for the team in Lisbon. Everyone got their own room at the Epic SANA hotel. Sounds fancy. It kind of was.

Settling in

I’ll be honest, I was a bit nervous going into it. I’m fine with my colleagues on a screen but a full weekend of socializing is a different game. But it turned out to be a really good time. Got to meet friends I’d only seen through webcams, put faces to Slack handles, and just hang out without an agenda for once.

The gyro diet

I more or less sustained on gyro kebabs, beer and gin & tonics for the duration of the trip. Not proud, not ashamed. It’s a company trip, not a nutrition seminar.

Five stars, allegedly

Here’s a hot take: five star hotels are overrated. I swear the shower beam at the Epic SANA didn’t hit as well as the worst one I ever had in Sweden. Breakfast was good though, I’ll give them that.

The cleaning ladies provided some comedy. One time I was in my room minding my business, eating a gyro by the window, and they just walked in. My pants were tucked away in my luggage so I was standing there in my underwear looking at the view while they went about their business like nothing was happening. Another time they knocked just to hand me a chocolate. No cleaning, just chocolate. I appreciated that.

Bar crawls and Rorschach

We did bar crawls in costumes. I went as Rorschach from Watchmen by Alan Moore. Hence the title. The full quote from the comic goes:

“None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me.”

Felt appropriate for a weekend trapped in a hotel with coworkers.

The headache and the maintenance

By day two I got hit with a brutal headache that came on late at night. Not alcohol-induced, just one of those ones that shows up uninvited and stays way too long. Had to weather through it.

One night I also had to stay in the hotel room to do some site maintenance work, which was a bit dull while everyone else was out. But what can you do. The sites don’t fix themselves.

In the end

I had a good time. It’s easy to overthink these kinds of events but once you’re there and the gin is flowing and someone’s dressed as a superhero stumbling through Lisbon, you realize it’s just people being people. And that’s fine.