The Pioneers in the IAM Community
This is the story of the InAllMedia Bahia team, one of the oldest teams in our Community.
Last Friday I had a virtual Meetup with them, having lunch in this new normality, but in a way it is something that we’ve been doing for a long time as we are globally distributed. We enjoy it working remotely as it is a way to connect great talents who otherwise could not be joining forces to give the most of them.
The team and the Community of Bahia Blanca, are a big family that is getting bigger even outside of Bahia! Not only because of the members that joined for the first time, but for the people who started working with them based in other cities but feeling part of their spirit!
They grew old within the Community, had their children, moved to better homes, celebrated their successes and got comfort in their not so good times… “We are going to retire here,” Ale Vazquez said, Project Manager of Sony team. And that’s the general feeling of being part of something they are very comfortable and happy in.
Bahía Blanca is a port city in the southwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The city is known for being one of the capitals of basketball in the country, and also for being a great part of our community.
How it started
Around 2012, the pioneers, Andres Asteasuain from Santiago del Estero, with Alejandro Vazquez, Luciano Mayor, Nadia Wainer and Eugenia Jocano, were the foundation stone.
Time went by and the number of members was going up!in no time! And suddenly I realized that they had a couple of foreigners as part of Bahia when they were based in other cities! first Diego Echeverria, born in Bahia but raised in Carhué and now living in La Plata (cities of Buenos Aires as well). And secondly Ivan Guevara, a “Tico”, who escaped from the capital, San Jose of Costa Rica and now he lives in the mountains -45 minutes from the paradise beaches, a real envy for the rest of the team.
The funny stories
I enjoyed so much Sony’s team memories! Especially when they started talking about the deployments that had to be done overnight until dawn…
One time when Nadia was pregnant and she had a particular issue with the smell of coffee, she could not be near coffee… A “small” problem for the rest of the team, who could not drink coffee when they needed it most!! And yet, everyone left the caffeine aside because “we are all for one and one for all”.
Another time Ale brought his beloved “empanadas of Chucho “, (Chucho is a type of fish in the area), that he caught when he went fishing (way to go Ale!!). The team said that the aroma was not the BEST 😂 and considering the name of the fish, dinner was not looking very “fancy”… maybe if he would have told them that the “empanadas” were made of Norwegian salmon for sure they were going to be remembered as the FINEST DELICATESSEN!
Another deployment night while waiting for testing results, a few of them decided to take a break and go to the Chill Out room but… when they put one foot outside the elevator the alarm went off 😱. As the noise was unbearable they ran downstairs to talk to the security guard to find out that he was new at the job (first day!) and had no idea how to turn it off. After a while trying to figure out how the security guard resolved it. What a night!😉 (by the way, deployment to PROD finished smoothly… with no issues. CONGRATS guys!
Keep rocking together
It was very rewarding to see them go through memories involving their personal lives and their professional achievements altogether. I believe that Great Teams are not made overnight, and once they find a real synergy it is very difficult to break it apart.
It is not easy for me to define them in one word or one sentence, but if I have to choose one, it would be: this Community is a really one big family.
