Glenn Dufraing joined Teal partners in the beginning of November. He wrote down the diary of his first week with us. Enjoy the read!
Hello, my name is Glenn Dufraing and I've graduated over a year ago. I'm currently working as a consultant for Axxes and was looking for an interesting project. Teal Partners was looking for a .NET developer to work on a new application. The company appealed to me for being so young and driven.
After an exciting digital conversation with Jeroen and Jelle van Teal Partners I knew I wanted to work here! Fortunately, Jeroen and Jelle were just as enthusiastic as I was. I could start the week immediately after the interview.
Since I'm starting during the corona period, I cannot go to the office. Fortunately, nowadays, this is no longer a big problem, and we can start up digitally. I am informed about the project I will be working on: we will build an application for our customer based on an old access database. The team welcomes me, and everybody introduces themselves by telling something about their interests.
After that, the current application is explained via a meeting to bring me up to speed. The application manages projects and charters where approval must be given by the right people. Various functionalities such as reading Excel files and a mail system should be implemented. Quite an assignment, but fortunately, Teal Partners has experienced developers available who are willing to help! After the meeting, a teammate and I configure my computer, so starting the following day will be a breeze.
Today is my first day programming. In the morning, we discuss the tasks for today and what we did yesterday. I am lucky the team started working on the application the week before. This way, I can adopt the style of the current code. My colleagues regularly ask if everything is going well and help me when necessary. My first task is to import projects through an Excel-file. I manage both the back and front end. I am also introduced to the other colleagues at Teal Partners via Slack. Everyone is amicable. What strikes me most is the openness of the bosses and colleagues. They try to inform everyone about what is going on in the company. I look forward to seeing them in the office soon.
What strikes me most is the openness of the bosses and colleagues
The day starts with a daily meeting that discusses what they did the day before. Everyone takes turns sharing their screen, so the whole team knows what everyone is doing. You can easily jump in or give tips so work can be done faster. Today I got stuck in development, but this was quickly resolved through pair programming. My first task is now completely finished, tomorrow I will start on the next!
My next task involves providing output for the imports I managed previously. We agree with the team on how we will approach this. A TealBuilding has also been announced today for a few weeks from now. It's going to be completely corona-proof because we are going to do a virtual beer tasting! We will get an explanation of the different flavors and some snacks that go with the beers. Then we continue with a quiz. We'll close the day with some games such as Among Us. I really like that such events are organized. This ensures that I can get to know my colleagues even better and 'see' everyone from the company again. It's also great that I can participate immediately. I was also asked for my sweater size. Feels to me like I'm not seen as external, but really 'part of the team'.
Today is the last day of my first week at Teal Partners. It was certainly a challenge because it was all done digitally. But all went very well! My colleagues did their utmost to make me feel at home here, and we took full advantage of the digital meetings. On the last day of the week, we tried to finish everything we were working on. We helped each other out where necessary. Normally they stick around at Teal Partners on Fridays for a drink. But this will be for another time. I am looking forward to the coming weeks at Teal Partners, and hope that my trajectory continues to run as smoothly as my first week. It was a blast!
