Working at Webnetism
My background is in Corporate IT, working in a big company for big clients. We had a big flashy HQ in The City (I didn’t work there though. Nobody actually worked there, I think it was just for show), we were listed on the stock exchange and had big ideas.
Consequently I was slightly concerned that, even though I really was looking for a change, coming to a small company after so many years might be a bit of a culture shock.
Was it?
Well, no, not really. We still do the same things: we’re still customer focussed, we still need to deliver and we’re still professionals. Our working practices are not that dissimilar. Sure, by the time I’d been here three hours I’d met everybody in the company and memorised their names (and I am really bad at remembering names, trust me!), but on the whole it doesn’t really feel that different – even in a big company with tens of thousands of employees, you generally only see the same handful of people in your office every day. You just get more emails. A lot more emails.
But there are differences. What really struck me within a couple of days was the range of clients we have at Webnetism. For years I’ve been used to dealing with just a few clients on long term contracts and projects, occasionally dropping in on new projects for a short spell to share my expertise. Within a month of being at Webnetism I’d worked on systems for, ooh, at least a dozen different customers. Things move on much faster here, and there’s more variety.
And I love it.
Yes, the projects here are mostly smaller, and we don’t have so many of those “household name” clients, but believe me when I say we value all our customers just as much. Probably more.
The second stand-out feature that I noticed at Webnetism is just how good everybody is at what they do. It’s nice to be surrounded by friendly people who really know their stuff – instead of people who are satisfied just to sound like they know what they are doing. There’s much more of a family vibe here, everyone is pulling together, and coming to work feels much less like … work. Even if there is plenty of work being done.
So, do I have any regrets about coming to work at Webnetism?
Yes. Yes, I do.
I should have come here years ago. *
* Webnetism didn’t pay me to write this. Well, obviously they do pay me, but you know what I mean …