How do you say goodbye to your coworkers of 3.5 years when you’re scattered all over the globe and none of you is in the same physical location? Last week, I sent a text to my husband, “My co-leads are going to have going away happy hour (via video) in the evening on Wednesday March 14. I imagine it could go for a while. Will that work for you?”

He replied, “Of course that’s fine. Weird… But fine 😉”

It’s times like these that being distributed is hard. We can’t get together in a pub, with the ambient sounds of end-of-workday chatter, mugs thunking on a bartop, chairs scraping across the floor, laughter at the other end of the table. We can’t sit next to each other and clink glasses as we raise a toast. We can’t hug each other when it’s all over.

But we make do. On Wednesday…

I’ve worked with Automattic, makers of WordPress.com, for three and a half amazing years. The company, and its faith in me, have transformed me. A leadership coach recently encouraged me to start a learning journal to jot down all the things I’ve learned the past few years. I was astonished by the list, which included successfully leading a distributed team that spans hemispheres, speaking in front of large audiences, organizing events, and, along with 14 of my co-leads, helping scale the processes and operations of a globally distributed support team of more than 120 Happiness Engineers.

An opportunity fell into my lap a few weeks ago: an opportunity to join Support Driven, a small company that exists to serve a growing community of Customer Support professionals. At first I didn’t consider it. I had everything I wanted at Automattic: smart and funny coworkers, freedom to learn and grow…