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365 Days at Avature, a Year Working With Friends

November 9, my Ava-anniversary. A year at Avature, 365 days. This date reminds me of so many wonderful moments, so much that I’ve learnt. In that beautiful storm of memories, I was remembering my first days, my first day indeed. A group of 10 people, all with different dreams and expectations, starting our onboarding process together. We had the typical newbie fears. I believe that whenever you start a new work or stage in life, butterflies in your stomach come alive! We all feel somehow lost and, since we are new, we generally don’t know anyone. Maybe that’s the common feeling that joined me to my group, the Star team.

We were 5 people, 4 from Consulting (Juanchi, Fede, There, and myself) and one from Product Marketing (Franco, who later left the company). We were requested to put into practice some lessons we received in the onboarding and we were encouraged to work in groups. We needed to configure a workflow for our “client” (actually a fake company Cecilia, our onboarder, made up for the training). As we didn’t know exactly what to do, we decided to try working together. We set up a meeting, the first Star team meeting and we didn’t know it! We tried to make the exercise work and it actually was OK, even if it didn’t completely work. We had such a great time together that I suggested: “What if we leave this meeting as recurrent?” We didn’t have anything to lose; we had time, we were not assigned to any projects yet, we liked each other, we were new and going through the same situation. And that’s how our story started, with the official Star team members:

  • Fede, Implementation Consultant, the first Avaturian in Neuquén! He loves sports, the mountains, trekking, and even enjoys jumping from planes!
  • There, Implementation Consultant in Buenos Aires. She is glam and fancy, Mother of Rabbits! She loves plants, the sun, and enjoying cocktails on her balcony.
  • Juanchi, Implementation Associate in Córdoba. He is so calm and peaceful, everything you need to have as a Consulting teammate. He loves dogs, Frida is his soulmate. His special skill? Alfajor maker (we still haven’t tried them).

From then on, we started meeting every Friday to share our lives. For the first calls, since we didn’t know each other, we just selected random topics to talk about. That was a nice way to introduce ourselves and get to know each other.

As weeks went on, we became friends and the best part of this was that we knew we weren’t alone: we had each other going through the same feelings. Even though Consulting is one of the biggest teams in Avature and it is organized in smaller teams depending on our managers (which we didn’t share), we still kept our bond and strengthened it throughout this year. We were and are there for support, for company, for laughing, for learning. That’s also how the Star team became “famous” at Avature. We knew we had something special.

In our wish list, we always had the expectation to meet in person, all together. Spoiler alert, we haven’t had the chance yet, but we did meet in pairs! Fede went to Buenos Aires twice and met There; Juanchi came to Mendoza, where I live, and I visited him thanks to a trip we organized to Córdoba (we like to call it the “Ava-roadtrip”). Also, I visited There in Buenos Aires. These moments were so beautiful! We had always been meeting in calls, so we barely knew we had legs. Hugs, laughs, wine, food; we shared wonderful days we will keep in our hearts forever.

This group of people has been part of my year, along with a lot of other amazing and challenging things I’ve gone through. This Ava-year has been so wonderful, so many people I got to know, so much love I received. In that list of things, my last 6 months were special as well. Among other things, I joined the Buddy program, where you get assigned a new person joining the company to be their support and guide them through their first 3 months. You become your buddy’s go-to person! And that’s the intention, to give new people a warm welcome and to become their reference in a friendly mood. Ana was my first, and Valentina my latest. I learnt so much from them, and I hope they found me a useful tool to go through their first months as well.

So how does this Buddy program connect to the Star team? Well, back when we started at Avature, we didn’t have the program—or at least we didn’t have it “officially”, because we did build our own support group: the Star team! Now that we do, and as a buddy, I encourage people to connect with their onboarding teammates and look for support in them. That's what we did, and I can certainly say it’s a win.

I believe it is very important to take care of new people and encourage them to bond with colleagues in their same situation. I hope every buddy leads their buddy to find friendship while working because, if we are sharing one third of our lives, why not make friends?! It just makes our work funnier and we, for sure, stay happier.

So thanks to all my new friends at Avature, you have all become part of my life and for that, I will always be grateful to this company ❤️

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