Do you like the people you work with?

I sure do. And it makes a big difference to the quality of my work experience every day.

I was reminded about how important that feeling is today after returning from our company outing.

In place of our typical work day (although I’m not exactly sure what that is any more) we spent the day taking part in the great American pastime of summertime baseball. No, not playing. We went to Citi fields to watch the Mets get beaten (again) by the Nationals.

It was a beautiful summer day. We had great seats in the Champions Club and we got started drinking beer and enjoying the plentiful buffet by 12:00. By the time we left the stadium it was nearly 4:00 and we all felt like we were on vacation.

Many nice words were exchanged in the post-event emails that flew about. (And a few zingers about one particular person’s love of cupcakes.) But the words that struck me as most meaningful were these, “It was nice to hang with you all outside of work. Ya’ll such awesome people.”

When you feel that way about the people you work with, it’s a good thing. A very good thing.