Welcome to the Yellow Home!!
You may think it’s insane moving from a very stable and safe job to a new one during a pandemic. I couldn’t agree more with you, but sometimes you need to get out of the comfort zone — even if seems crazy — to step up and improve. Switching jobs make even more sense when you have a specific life purpose and see in that new opportunity a chance to achieve that goal.
Probably you’ve already figured out why I’m saying that and yes, you are right, I’ve changed job during the pandemic. I’m writing this article a few days before completing my first month as a Product Manager for the SDC:LX, a tech unit of Volkswagen Digital Solutions which is a company of the Volkswagen Group. By the way, SDC:LX stands for Software Development Center Lisbon.
Following you will find my thoughts before starting, first impressions and my feeling now!
Concerns changing and setting my expectations low
I don’t know if you have ever changed jobs before, but whenever you do it's quite common to have some concerns.
During regular days your concerns could be the reaction of people in the company, the barriers that you will find in the first weeks, if people will like you and your ideas (especially as a Product Manager where your success is 100% dependent on the others), or if your research about the company matches what you see/feel when you start - well, many things.
To make matters worse, we are going through an atypical scenario (Coronavirus Pandemic/2020), where contact with people is lower than ever, almost zero.
We try our best with the available technology but it’s not the same thing. There are no coffee breaks, no lunch together, no happy hours, being introduced to others is hard because you are alone in the dark and all will be on you. In spite of all those concerns I decided that I should go, but as a safe move, I should set my bar as low as possible to avoid painful disappointments.
The reality and the bar soaring
Day one has arrived mobile alarm ringing… I slept very badly on the night before - yes, I’m an anxious person!!! It’s a new universe, just the fact of being a new place there is a lot of challenges, adding to that the remote situation, challenges get higher and higher!! But anyhow, I’m an optimistic person so I have to keep that in mind.
The first day is always one of those where you're completely lost, many things to set up and configure on your computer, loads of information. Mentally, It’s pretty hectic and confusing, mine wasn’t that different, but at the same time, it was amazing being in the office — The Yellow Home — and seeing all the structure there, that moment made the reality bar starting above my expectations!
Besides that, I met my Buddy (person who onboards you in your position) and the Happiness team! You may be questioning yourself “What does a Happiness Team do?” Well, that is as easy as the name says: they guarantee that everyone is happy; but don’t underestimate that, it’s not an easy task, especially in this pandemic scenario. Frankly, they are doing an amazing job!
Their value here is so huge that in my second week I witnessed a tribute from the whole team to them which made me emotional and I understood even more the reason for their existence. They are a HUGE piece of the whole SDC Puzzle and well, a puzzle without a piece is always unfinished!
The bar, remember it… The reality was above expectations already, a lot above!
Weeks past by and the sense of family arrives!
28th of October I will complete my first month here. During these 4 weeks, many things have happened, I met many people (Directors, the other Hub’s teams, all the SDC teams…), HR has made an outstanding job sharing a lot of information.
I was capable of understanding a bit more of this freaking Volkswagen World, which, honestly, is crazily huge!!! What you get while onboarding is just a tiny piece of a worldwide company, don’t even try to understand everything on your first week, month or year. Probably you will fail miserably!
There is one major thing to highlight about these past weeks. A couple of months ago I wrote about my opinion on How to Create a Family Instead of a High Performing Team, talking about having honesty above all, a safe environment to express yourself, a purpose of existence, and having fun in a way that just you would understand. Well, I checked all those items in the first 2 weeks here, and no, I’m not being just optimistic! And I tell you why!
In my second week, my integration with the team was smooth as possible, people treated me easily and I had the feeling that I knew them for a while! I could experience more than one meeting where the team shared with everyone their feelings about working on that product, and here comes the honesty, It was great to see how people are not afraid of saying whatever they had to say and how people react with honesty. Kudos to SDC for that! More than that, the problems raised were solved (Or are being)! Safe environment alert…Kudos again!!
Honestly, since the first week, I had the feeling that I was arriving on a dinner that never ends. You know those where people are laughing loudly about jokes that just they understand, the wine, whisky or whatever never ends, long table with many people walking around, having fun, with sparkling eyes knowing that they are making history!! And I couldn’t agree more, I do have the feeling that I’ve joined a group that is changing the world!! (Purpose and fun, tip for you if you haven’t gotten that yet)
The bar?! I don’t even care anymore!!!!
Conclusions overall?! “Welcome to the Mad House” never made more sense! We are mad, but in a good way, we challenge the status quo, we will always ask you “Why?”, and we don’t care what the world thinks because we know what we are doing is good and has bonded us so far! Give us a challenge and you’ll see what we’re capable of!! (Yep, I have that feeling already!)
As I said, it’s been a month since the dinner has started and I don’t see it ending any time soon! So if you are going to join us, grab your belongings, jump into the crazy dinner in the Mad Yellow Home, raise your glasses and enjoy because the trip has no day to finish, it may be hard sometimes, but I’m sure that we’ll make history!!!
Our team is still growing, check our vacancies and join the Mad House!
