I hope it will become a tradition that after every year spent with Mediapark, I would gather my thoughts and lay down some of the key moments that have made the year unique.
The last time I wrote on this topic, everything was broken down into months and their key achievements. In this article, I decided to take a different approach by focusing on a specific set of topics: the challenges, the surprise, the fun and the future.
Vamos!
The challenges
If there is no challenge, what fun is there when you look back at the path you walked through? Not much, that’s why I consider it to be totally fine to encounter challenges at work, as long as we keep a cool head and a challenger mindset, it will all become an organic part of the working process, more than that, it might even be enjoyable. Here are some of the notable challenges that I felt are worth mentioning.
Time management
With so many things to do, I could easily feel that sometimes I’m getting lost in the tasks I have to do for the day. I had to learn how to improve my time management and prioritise my duties in an efficient manner. As a tip, I would recommend reading The bullet journal method by Ryder Carroll. I can’t say that I’m using all the tricks mentioned by the author, but I’ve managed to combine some of them and come up with a simplified approach that works well for me. Give it a try.
Normal week.
P.S. Never forget to book your lunch.
Of course, answering emails and Slack isn’t counted 🙃
Recruiting new people
It was clear that the market got pretty hot since the very beginning of the year, everyone felt it, and we did too. It became significantly more difficult to find the right candidates and we suddenly felt that we were in serious need of new resources. In order to improve the situation, we had to intensify our efforts on the recruitment front. With support from HR and every individual branch, we’ve managed to onboard about 68 new Mediapark team members so far. Not bad, but we need to work on doing even better, therefore, we decided to headhunt a headhunter.
Stress
I wish I didn’t have to mention it, but unfortunately, stress has hit me as well this year, and it wasn’t a soft hit. If I am to make a retrospective of the year, I could say that there were a couple of things that caused this pressure and anxiety, such as mismanaged project timelines and budgets, large potential deals that didn’t convert and screwed up the pipeline along with my expectations, heavy workload that made me eat my meals in front of my laptop.
However, it is very important to understand that stress at work is natural and we have to take the right steps in order to prevent it or avoid a potential burnout. We all know a simple solution, take some time off. If taking a vacation is too much of a luxury at some point in time, long weekends might work as well. So go ahead, book that Friday, and switch everything off for the next 72 hours.
It’s always good to have a backup.
The surprise – Mediapark Cambodia
I am extremely proud to say that we’ve managed to scale the Cambodian team up to 12 people, diversify our stack, and extend it from web to app development and QA. We have kicked off operations in Phnom Penh and started to have local sales.
But all this didn’t come for granted, this is the result of great work put by an excellent manager and the support of Mediapark Group. I’m especially thankful to my former Cambodian colleagues, Vireak and Sievly, which have been a part of this since the very beginning of 2017, you guys rock!
Here’s Dilip giving an official start to our operations in Phnom Penh.
The trips
It was July, time to pay a visit to my colleagues in Copenhagen, where we have our newest office. They say that there’s only about one month of hot weather in Demark per year, and guess what, I arrived right in the middle of it.
Work was intense and hot, hot cause it’s a rare thing in Demark that a building would have aircon, and our office wasn’t an exception. Nonetheless, the workplace was cozy, the coffee was perfect and my colleagues were just amazing.
I have spent there about two weeks and I can clearly say that I’ve had the best local guide to take me around and show me the nicest spots in the town, as well as the best places to eat. Veronika, big thanks to you!
Before the actual pictures from Denmark, I just wanted to mention how much I missed flying!
Beautiful Copenhagen.
Stole my heart from day one.
To us “Drink responsibly” means don’t spill it.
Extra calories with a view.
My cute danish style apartment with no aircon.
The fun – Monthly Team Reunions
In Moldova, we decided that 2021 will be a year focused on fun and spending more time together, therefore, every last Friday of the month, we’re having a “Team Reunion”.
It all starts with an office gathering where we go through the results of the past month, we check the projects that went live and of course, we’re welcoming the new Mediapark enthusiasts.
Hold on a second, where’s the fun? Well, the fun comes in various ways this year: Latino parties, cinema nights, laser tag, carting, hiking, you name it. Here are some of the great moments I managed to capture before getting too busy.
Fast & Furious 9 – what a nice comedy!
Even when not together, we’re still together.
May the friendship win.
Of course, saying that because I’m not on the podium 😐
Costic’s face after shooting his PMs with laser tags.
Is it badminton or goodminton?
The future
With a great team behind, I’m committed to further push the limits and work on making Mediapark the company that you want to either cooperate with or be a part of.
I am thankful to everyone and hope that our common vision will make us stick together for long.
They say that every great article must have a clear call to action. Well, for those of you reading and not being a part of our big, international family, I would really encourage you to consider it, whether you’re a rookie or a skilled ninja, we’d be more than happy to have you on board. Write us!
Till next year, cheers 🙂