David Söderberg

A week in Cyprus with Novu

2022-09-17

Five months have passed and half of the company trip to Cyprus have almost passed... I am writing this on a boat trip and enjoying being with my colleagues and the view is amazing. When this is published I might be on my way back to Sweden. But let's start from the beginning...

After 11 hours of travel I finally arrived to the hotel and met all my colleagues that I have never met and it was awesome to finally meet people that iI have never met and what can I say more than that they are amazing in so many ways.

First evening at the hotel was amazing we had a great dinner with a head waiter that was amazing.

The day after was the first full day and I woke up and realised that I was going to present today, after a few minutes of adjustments I headed down for a breakfast that is like a two part breakfast. First part is cheeses and hams together with bread, second half is a small menu with a lot of different egg dishes. We started with a welcome talk with info about the week on Cyprus and in Limassol. Then it was my time to talk about productivity and how I try to accomplish that. Then we had lunch and we did go through the roadmap. After that it was time to head out on the streets of Limassol with a guide and the city is really nice specially the old parts.

Second day already and the hardest day for me because we was outside like all day and I am not used the brights sun and the heat. But making food together instructed by a local guy was really nice even if it was to hot sometimes for me. This evening we did eat at a what felt like a popular place even for the local people and we ordered metze which basically is a lot of food.

Now it is Sunday and usually this is my lazy day and it started lazy for me because I did not go to beach, instead I stayed at the hotel with two of my colleagues and did some small work things... We had a quick lunch and then we headed out for a boat cruise which was amazing, it gave me a huge feeling of freedom. My biggest fear was that it going to be hot but cause of the wind and the boat moving it was not, instead it was just perfect for a guy like me coming from the Scandinavian countries.

Monday and a new week starting, we started it with talking about what values we have inside of Novu and then we talked about personas. After lunch we had a R&D workshop and it was great, I think we need to do more of those kind of stuff... That evening we had a nice snack and beer session together in the lobby of the hotel and it was really nice to have something more relaxed.

When I am writing most of this post Tuesday was yesterday and it was a very interesting day with communication, marketing and product workshops.

In the evening we headed out to get asian food in the end I ended up having baous and buns and they tasted good. Then we did go to a bar for a few drinks, a few people and me stayed a bit longer and had ice cream from Israel before we headed back to the hotel.

Last full day togther at Cyprus, the morning started with another small session about communication and then we talked about Hacktober fest and many otherthings that will happen in October... Last but not least we had a discussion session about improvement on our agile process.

After lunch we took a taxi to center of Limassol to get a tour with a lot of food. It was great but the biggest problem was that the guide talked Hebrew sometimes and the whole team told her to speak engligsh so that I can understand her. After like 4-5 time she talked Hebrew I honestly stopped listen to her. The night at the hotel most of us stayed up a bit later then previous.

Thursday, today have been tough for me not because of the heat or because people do not speak a language I understand sometimes. No because I knew I had to leave the people that feels like a family to me... We did eat breakfast togther in a seperated room and it was great, hard not feel emotional sometimes during people speaks about us as a group or about the week we have had togther.

At 13:00 I had to take a taxi to the airport where I am writing this from and it was not easy (emotional), I was lucky that the driver was very social so we spoke the entire way to the airport.

In my last post I wrote "people that are amazing remote must be even more amazing IRL right" and let me tell you I was not even close to be right (amazing is not enough to describe them), the people I have had the pleasure to spend a week with and it is hard to go home and seeing these people more then online becase I feel as if we really connected during this week. With that said I hope I soon will see most of them in Israel in a couple of months. I have learned a lot of being in a company where all of the people care about everyone and about the company. My view on Novu members is that they are in Novu not because it is just a work it is something much larger and something that every single one of us is putting everything into.

I know there will be another offsite as this next year and that I will go to Israel soon but this will leave a feeling of emptiness. Do not get me wrong, I am not sad or anything, it just a feeling that tells me I had an amazing time and now I am going back to normal that feels a bit boring, but I know we need it to enjoy weeks like the week I just had.

A door that I like to call Novu opened almost 10 months ago for me, this week have opened alot of doors between the members of Novu and the door for the future of Novu is wide open.