Bigstep Team: Work from Home Edition

While some of us were already familiar with WFH even before the pandemic started, not everyone was used to this model, and had to adapt. We believe our team handled it well, as you can see in the below photos. Enjoy!

“I’m at Sara’s little paw’s disposal for four weeks now ❤,” says Diana Andrei, our Chief Accountant:

Mihail Musat, Director of Technical Operations: “Discovering new ways to work and educate. New ways to adapt to the same business and family, but in a totally new context. We’re staying home, healthy. Grateful! :)”

“I work with Linux every day. The cat, I mean…” says Alexandra Andrei, Business Development Manager at Bigstep.

Catalin Maita is our Storage Engineer and this awesome setup inspired him to write a technical and detailed article on ZFS. Check it out here.

HR Business Partner at Bigstep, Nicoleta Dobre describes her WFH experience: “Working from home hasn’t been a new experience per se, as we’ve all done it before, but social distancing and isolation has. I take each day at a time, keep my personal routines, remain in touch with my emotions & thoughts as often as I can. Luckily my furry friend Alma keeps me entertained and gives me some affection. In her own terms, of course, as any self-respecting cat does. We’re going to come out of the crisis to a whole new world, most things will change: how each of us works, how businesses work, the economy, travel, social interaction and so on. And we’re all doing the best we can to adapt :)”

“Home is where you wear your shorts,

Work is where you wear your shirt,

Work from home is where you wear both :),” says Ionut Oprea, Capacity Planner at Bigstep.

“I’m glad to have a house with a garden. Frequent exposure to sunlight results in increased productivity during the day,” says Monica Streche, Junior Product Manager.

“I think that we should never let a good crisis go to waste. Working from home, I can spend more quality time with my trusted advisor, Loki, who’s always eager to lend a helping paw when it comes to design.” Lucky Silviu Radulescu, our UX/UI Designer!

Irina Baragoi, Business Consultant at Bigstep, says: “I successfully adapted my daily activity to my home office. I am really grateful for the fact that Bigstep implemented the work-from-home-system years before this pandemic. When the lockdown kicked in, I’ve faced the decision with calm and discipline.

I believe that is very important to trust my manager, my colleagues, and vice versa. We do our best to keep our clients happy. We work in the same direction and we keep each other updated about everything that spontaneously shows up. We are always connected through video conferences, e-mails, phone calls, and the internal chat. It was a good thing that all of us were used to work with remote tools. We always taking into consideration the cybersecurity policies, so our workflow goes smoothly and safely.

Now, I share my desk with my pets, Arya and Cotzu. I am very happy that I can spend a lot of time with them. We share our daily duties at the same table: I am working, Arya is playing with the stuffed toys and Cotzu is crossing my keyboard without giving me any warning. This is how a work-from-home-day looks for me! :)”

“This is what happens when you work from home for Metal Cloud and you are also a metal singer,” claims Andrei Antonescu, Customer Service Representative.

Marketing Manager at Bigstep, Cristina Beldie says: “Working from home can be quite boring when you don’t have colleagues around. So I had to improvise :) I still miss my real ones *hugs*”

Marius Boeru’s cat, Cerasela, is wondering: “Watcha doin here? Working hard or hardly working?” We can only trust that our Systems Manager is working hard!

Laura Cernat, Legal Advisor and DPO at Bigstep, describes how well she adapted: “Working from home is the new ‘normal’ for us during this pandemic. From the very beginning, I believed that it would change the way we move, build, learn, and connect.

Nowadays, I am focused on work, friends, fitness, food, and introspection, and all of these contribute to a better focus and performance at work. I am trying to be a good teammate because I believe this is the best way to build a team. I have faith in our abilities to pass this pandemic. The most important thing that helps me these days is to feel more compassionate toward others and myself and to improve the quality of interpersonal communication.

I cannot wait for the day when the pandemic will be over. I will hug my friends. I will return to the pure joy of hiking mountains and spending time in nature. Our economy will recover from the forthcoming recessions.

I am thankful to those colleagues and friends who showed me solidarity and made my working from home easier, less stressful, and challenging at the same time.”

“These days I must say I became quite good friends with my comfy blanket,” jokes Monica Toader, Accountant at Bigstep.

Dragos Baldescu, Technical Support Engineer at Bigstep, enjoys gaming in his free time and, even though he’s being attacked by Jex, managed to write a helpful article on how to setup a private chat server during the lockdown, for gaming or for small business purposes. Check it out here.

Andreea Jakab, Digital Marketer at Bigstep: “When he doesn’t bite or play, Jex likes to open consoles or go incognito. Maybe he’ll grow up to be a programmer!

As for myself, I should’ve been on holiday in Jordan today. I adapted well to working from home, since my job requires me to be online anyway, but I do look forward to being able to travel again, once the threat diminishes.

PS: I still press cmd + L when leaving the computer even when working at home. Old habits die hard :)”

“No air-con needed,” says Alex Bordei, VP of Product and Engineering.

Hope you enjoyed our homemade offices! How do you like these personal workspaces and which one would you trade yours with?!