OnTheGoSystems, Fourth Annual Conference September 2016. Paphos, Cyprus
October 12, 2016
We all work remotely and get together once a year to meet in person. We invite you to read below about our last Annual Conference, in Cyprus.
Monday 7.30 AM. Argentina – I leave home, together with my colleagues Laura (COO & HHRR) and Otto (WPML support).
Tuesday 9.30 PM – 32 hours later. Cyprus – we arrive at the hotel, at last!
Wednesday 9.00 AM. Hotel- Work. Helena (Administrative Assistant) arrives. She lives in Paphos, for her it was just a 20 mins’ drive.
Thursday 11 AM- Official start of Annual Conference. As more people start to arrive, I approach the first-comers to greet them. Mohamed Eisa (Toolset support leader) tells me very lightly “for me it was just 1 h. flight from Alexandria” (“lucky you!” I think). On the other hand, Arnold from Colombia (ICanLocalize developer) mentions like 5 flight stops (!) and the different travel stories go on and on…
No wonder traveling was what we mostly talked about as we all entered the hotel. Being a global family, we all had different distances to cover and we all wanted to hear about it: our real-life connection had begun.
In spite of the long distances, we were all happy to meet again and meet others for the first time. We spent 4 work-and-fun-packed days together.They were intense, as we had to make the most of this opportunity to work together, keep up the support work, attend sessions, and enjoy the summertime in Paphos. We connected in real life as much as possible and complemented the virtual bond we have during the year.
Through the different sessions, we discussed good practices to improve our products and service to users; we were inspired by the personal stories; we discovered wonderful things about our colleagues and our daily work. The photos below speak louder than words…
Personally, I talked to everyone as much as I could, and I learned some very interesting facts. Did you know that?
-Selena (Systems team) has a passion for knots. She cannot resist when she sees one, she immediately wants to undo it.
-Ankit’s (WPML support) native language is called Marathi, from India.
-Bruce (Senior developer) has practised Tai Chi for 20 years now.
-Peter (Marketing) was almost late for his own wedding (yes, the immaculate Peter!)
-Arnold was actually looking for a job for her sister when he submitted a job application with us.
-Dario (Documentation) met his wife at the concert where their bands played. He was a front-man and she a live painter.
-One about me: I love to dance and can spend hours non-stop (I was aware of it before the event, of course, but thought of sharing this, in case it went unnoticed while in Cyprus :)
What keeps amazing me is that we all come from very different cultures (as cliché as it may sound) and still, we all enjoy the time we spend together, respectful of the other’s traditions and manners. This makes us a wonderful team and, like Vincenzo (WPML support) told me over breakfast on the last day, this shows what a good job Laura and Amir do in picking the good candidates!
We are already looking forward to our next Annual Conference and eager to try new things to get even more out of our time together.
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