1st of July 2015 marked an important day for WisdmLabs, because that was the day we branched out to a new office in Pune. 😀
Yayy!! *applause* *cheer* *woohoo!!*
The day began at 7.30 in the morning when we all had to assemble at Thane to depart for Pune. It was going to be a 4 hour journey and we didn’t want to be late. But as usual we had stragglers limping their way to the meeting spot and making excuses.
Finally, our bus wheeled away at around 8.20 for Pune.
Along the way we had to pick up a couple of colleagues from Kharghar. For those of you who do not know where any of these places are- they happen to be in the same time zone. Of course one of our colleagues in Kharghar (*ahem* *Tahseen* *cough*) thinks differently.
Her watch was running 20 minutes late!
Finally we had everybody on board. I’m not sure if it was the sheer pressure of being in charge of breakfast or the sudden urge to stuff everyone on board with food, but the-usually-serious Shreyas Mulgund turned into a parasitic ‘vada pav vendor’ shoving vada pavs on everyone.
The rest of the journey was fun. Music blasting. Amateur singing. Shreyas still pushing vada pavs on people. 😀
We eventually reached the new Pune office somewhere around 1 in the afternoon.
On a Sidenote: Why new office? Why Pune?
We had always planned on opening a new office in Pune. But that plan was for sometime later in the year. The initial plan was to open a new office in Thane itself. However, after having spent a lot of time hunting for a new place in Thane, the management realised that maybe opening a new office in Pune would be quicker option after all.
The timing was great. We had a few new recruits from Pune, who were going to be brought on board from July. We had a little over a month to find a place and set it up.
Finding a place in Pune was the easy part. The difficult part of course was managing the new place.
But thanks to Dhawal “Fix IT” Bargir and Sumit “Sir” Pore we had it all under control. Dhawal undertook the role of managing the new office and Sumit was in charge of training the new joinees.
The Get Together in Pune
On reaching the new office, my jaw hit the floor. The place- if I had to describe in one word- was Awesome!
It’s located in one of Pune’s popular areas, and is quite spacious.
All of us headed for a tour of the place. It was 4 floors high! We were awestruck. This was one of the very nice offices I’ve been in.
We then quickly had an informal introduction session. With nearly 30 of us introducing ourselves, I’m sure the new joinees did not remember any of our names at the moment. :-p
Our founder- Rohan then took stage and spoke for a while. He mostly discussed our culture, WisdmLabs’ journey so far, and made the newbies feel at home.
We interacted with the newbies over lunch. One of the new guys- Ketan- imitated a movie star. He was spot on!
The journey back was filled with mixed feelings. It was good to have met the new people, and to have spent a great time with everyone. But it was sad to leave friends behind.
The Year Looks Promising
This year started off well. We grew quite a bit in numbers (hence the need for a new office). Our experience with Easy Digital Downloads plugin got us added to their EDD Trusted Consultants list.
We have been rolling out new plugins, and have been working on two new hallmark products:
- Edwiser- A WordPress-Moodle Integration plugin: This is our attempt at integrating two platforms WordPress and Moodle, so as to increase the capabilities of the Moodle LMS.
- Documake- Document automation plugin: This plugin is our first ever SAAS based product. It aims at automating document creation, using data entered in an online form.
Now, by mid year, we have introduced a satellite office in Pune. And that’s just the beginning.
There’s a lot more planned- more plugins to be built, more people to be brought on board and more hills to be conquered! 😀
If you’d like to be part of our awesome team here, be sure to checkout our Careers page.
That’s all from me for now. Until next time! Adios and happy weekend.
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