The little big company with the huge heart

February is a drag. Maybe like me you have already experienced profound failure on following-up with New Year’s Resolutions. Instead of “taking yoga” I ended up “severely injuring my back”. Ah, c’est la vie. Sometimes it’s harder than other times to be positive, and when it’s hard to be positive it’s even harder to be grateful (another one of my New Year’s Resolutions). The good news (or bad news if you’re making excuses for your negativity) is you can practice gratitude from wherever you are, in whichever state of mind or body you’re in.

Pythian exists because of the people who work here. This isn’t a commentary on the Company’s success, the Company’s Brand or Culture, but rather the actual employees who make this place a great place to be, by doing one thing: practicing kindness.

This building is full of people who are going out of their way on a daily basis to:

a) be generous with their time (and their baking)

b) offer support to a colleague in need

c) tell a joke, take a joke, share a laugh

d) provide you with directions when you inevitably become confused and disoriented on the 5th or 6th floor.

Thankfully I have the life and work experience to know that this is not the norm. Something special is happening here. People are supporting each other, providing personal and professional insights, and I must say that while technical genius is the grease that allows the wheels to spin, there is a ton of emotional intelligence being exchanged by a ton of people, all the time.

If you wouldn’t characterize your experience here in the same light I encourage you to wander around. Get lost looking for finance and smile with the Accountant who keeps chocolate in his desk. Tell someone in L&D about a new hobby you’ve taken up and she might just tell you she’s proud of you. Stumble into the IT room and ask an inane question about your new cell phone that you can barely turn on, it will be met with patience. Tell our CRO a joke, the driest you’ve got, or a dad-joke, he’ll love it.

Talk to our CEO about heavy metal, art, poetry, books (highly recommended points of interest if like me you started here not ever having heard of “Unix”). Ask our VP of Transformation where the printer is, seriously he told me three times and I still don’t know so please also let me know when you know. Tell one of the DBAs that you’re learning French and then avoid them for the next month or so because you’re too nervous to say anything beyond “je ne comprends pas”.

I’ve been given hugs, have given out hugs, one of my colleagues actually made me lunch a few times when I was moving places and my life was in disarray. There are a lot of smiles here and they are contagious.

Happy to be here with all of you. Thanks for being kind.

Interested in working for Pythian? Check out our open positions.