I provide reflections on my experiences of face-to-face grading over the last 9 years. I was motivated by the lack of engagement by students with written feedback, and that face-to-face marking provides faculty with a less isolated and less alienated marking experience. The key tools included Google Sheets booking forms, a face-to-face meeting, providing a model paper/s for students to read while I marked their work, and providing feedback in a dialogue, where students were asked to reflect on what they learnt from the model paper and verbal feedback. I address concerns about bias (gender, ethnic, class), validity and reliability, and also faculty workload.