My Sweden Days – Meeting Clients, Having Fun and Lot More

I was really excited to visit our client Zmarta for the second time. I look forward to working in client location as it offers both exciting and challenging experiences.

One of the reasons that I love to work in Bridge Global is the opportunity that I get to interact with my clients on a daily basis. With this visit, I would be seeing each one of the in-house team member face-to-face with whom I talk or chat daily via Skype or Slack.

One of my colleague Shiji was also with me this time. Two of our other colleagues Jino and Haseena joined us during the last week of our visit.

A Rewarding Experience

When I went to Sweden for the first onsite visit, I had spent more time in learning the system and setting up some internal part of our project. That really helped me to get deeper knowledge on my project.

This time, for the second visit, I spent more time interacting with our Product Owners (PO) and understanding more about the business. We followed 8 am-5 pm working time, which is not much different from what we follow in Bridge Global.

I had pleasant surprises this time. I could meet one of my colleagues in the marketing division with whom I only had Skype chats for the last 2.5 years. I had not even seen his pics too. One day when I was talking with one of my colleagues, he came up and addressed me by my name. When he introduced himself, I was shocked and excited. I felt really happy with the meeting.

We also got a chance to meet our sales team, who are also using the systems that we developed. We got a complete walkthrough of the system and were mutually benefited by clearing doubts.

These experiences are indeed delightful as we can see how our clients are using the system we developed and the functionality we implemented and tested. We get an opportunity to explore more into our system and make us realize how happy and easily they use the modules we developed.

Fun Time in Sweden

Most of the evenings, I and Shiji had spent our time walking around the city and cooking some food at our accommodation in Ängelholm. One day, my colleague Jonas invited me to join the gym with him. Jonas and another of my colleague Tom accompanied me to the gym. It was a great place with lots of workout equipment and a swimming area. I got my personal trainer Tom Bro. That evening was one of the best I had.

Well, then came the much-awaited weekend. We spent our first weekend in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. We had spent much of our time walking around and exploring the beautiful city. We visited Feskekôrka, an indoor fish market in Gothenburg, which is also a great tourist destination. We also visited Gothenburg University and went for a city tour. On the second day of the weekend, we explored some of the scenic islands. During this trip, I made friends with a tram driver, who visited many countries. He suggested us some of the must-see places in Gothenburg and guided us in his tram too.

We spent our second weekend at the party destination Copenhagen. We went for a city tour enjoying the beauty of the capital city of Denmark. We got a chance to visit the brewery of world-famous beer Carlsberg. On the way back from Copenhagen, we visited the famous 16th century Kronborg Castle. But unfortunately, it was closed by the time we reached. But still, we walked around it and admired the beauty of the majestic construction.

Goodbye Sweden

Our colleagues in Sweden made our last week a memorable one by showering us with warmth and love.

Our account manager John visited us the next day after he was back from his vacation. We went out for lunch with all the staff of IT department. Though we are used to having spicy dishes back here in India, I really enjoyed the less-spiced Swedish delicacies. I got a chance to taste the less peppery and delicious real meat.

We all went for Ice Hockey on the same day. I was seeing Ice Hockey for the first time. When the game started I understood how dangerous the game was, as players were running over hitting each other. Wow! That was a wonderful experience indeed.

We got an impressive farewell and some wonderful gifts on our last day. The best one was a card autographed by all the colleagues. One of our colleagues Milad wrote a few words in Malayalam, and my bestie Jonas made the card with his signature word ‘Epic’.

Finally, we bid adieu to all our lovely colleagues in ZMARTA with the hope of seeing them all again sometime soon.