At Kognitiv, we provide a benefit where once you reach your 5 year anniversary, we will provide you with a bucket list experience. Our BIRT aficionado and Product Lead, Jen Jensen recently came back from her experience trip to Ireland. This blog post is written by Jen herself and recounts her 

The best way to capture my 5-year-anniversary experience trip is to relay this conversation:

Me to my retreat-roommate Margaret: “I finished my book!”

Margaret: “You can’t be serious!”                                     

Me at the same time, after seeing the look on her face: “The one I was reading!”

The next 15 minutes was the two of us laughing uncontrollably, getting under control, looking at each other and giggling. I may have even snorted, which may have caused Margaret to begin crying as well. Did I mention all of this took place in the early morning hours at the resort restaurant full of somberly breakfasting travelers?  We were overwhelmed with mirth and joy in that moment as we reveled in our newly crafted inside joke. I won’t ever think about or talk about finishing a book without laughing to myself and remembering Margaret and my writing trip to Ireland.

A total of seven writers attended the retreat. We genuinely admired one another’s accomplishments and delighted in learning more about each other. Margaret, from Ireland, was the business manager of her husband’s bustling veterinary practice before she retired. Jody is also retired, but she worked at Apple, Pepsi, Best Buy, and Nike (and was cool enough to know about Workday, since she was the CIO at some of those places). Meghan (pronounced Mee-gan) is a professor on summer break from Minnesota; she started teaching as a second career after selling her chiropractic practice. Jan (pronounced Yan) and Sheila (who is EIGHTY! And wrote the most amazing mini-memoir), hail from Montana, both are also retired, former community college professors. Michelle, from Singapore, is a travel junkie who runs her own private banking firm; she’s not retired yet. Her curiosity about the world and people around her are keys to her success and longevity in a challenging space. As for me, I found it fun to the young pipsqueak again, having spent my first five years at Kognitiv being one of the distinguished eldest.

The facilitator for our workshop was Irene Graham. She did a phenomenal job corralling a roomful of big personalities, getting us to focus on writing based on her framework. Every day she presented us with new tips and ways to build a solidly entertaining and captivating story about ourselves. She helped us see into our own experiences, pulling our observations, humor, and lessons from our memories to the page and giving us the tools to craft them into beautifully worded and powerfully unforgettable glimpses into our histories.

All of this in the setting of the west coast of Ireland. Wild grasses and flowers sprouted from rangy beaches, with the wild Atlantic playing the roguishly handsome main character who might be hero or villain depending on the day. The gusty winds swept puffy clouds across the sky, making the warm days segue into just chilled nights. Each evening boasting the brightness of day until well past 10pm. In case you were wondering how enchanting the experience was, I was also bequeathed the miracle of eight days in Ireland without a single drop of rain. As a person who likes to boast that she single-handedly ended a Southern California drought in 1994 just by moving there, the magic of a precipitation free excursion is nearly enough to make me believe in leprechauns and faeries.  

I told anyone who would listen about the incredible company I work for. Kognitiv Inc. has, yet again, given me something ineffable, something remarkable, something memorable. Thank you, Luke and Mark. Thank you, colleagues who have worked while I’ve written. It was an unforgettable and fabulous experience – truly once in a lifetime. One day I will “finish my book,” and when I do, I will have to acknowledge the contribution of Kognitiv, this experience, and my new writing friends and teacher. And the country of Ireland herself.

As I left, I wrote this to capture the essence of my adventure: 

The ground of Ireland feels like a home I’d never been to but needed to get back to. I long to return already, just waiting to check my bags for my flight to my family. They have most of my heart, but I leave a wee bit in the land of faeries and greenery and pray that heaven looks so good.