The context
As work-life evolved and the remote 1st world grew stronger, we said our farewells to our beloved office and moved to, then, cozier spaces. Our second office in Cluj is indeed cozy and serves to this day for awesome barbeques and gatherings.
But as our team is ever-growing and of course, doubled in size, the cozy garden view office needed an update. More and more colleagues wanted to work from the office on a regular basis and we needed to be able to provide. That resulted in a quick visit to our old office and to our surprise, it stayed the same, unclaimed, and ready to be part of the Rebel experience again.
It goes without saying that, as much as we loved the way it was in the pre-pandemic world, it needed some serious adaptation. The RebelCafé was just the first step to making it a proper space for the Rebels, one in which the changes that we went through, and growth was visible.
Read more about our Café and office changes here.
Right now, we’ll focus less on the space, although it’s really cool, and the decision-making process and more on all the good things, events, emotions, and cherished moments our space has offered and hosted for us.
The Fulfillment & Growth
At RebelDot we came together through a mix of two things, pure luck, or chance, or let’s call it fate and the hard work put in by our People&Culture team to identify the traits that make us Rebels in the hundreds and thousands of interviews that they have. Therefore, some of the things that are important to us as a team are learning and development. In other words, the feeling of fulfillment at the end of the day and knowing that we’re in a constant process of growing.
In this area, we’ve held a multitude of workshops in the past year, on Giving and Receiving Feedback, Public Speaking with local star, Bob Radulescu, and Leadership Training.
The new setting is also the home of our hybrid company meetings which happen on a weekly basis. They are a big part of our fulfillment levels as we openly share all news, be it positive or not, kudos moments, celebrations, and struggles. It’s our weekly 30 minutes of being together, all 200 of us, in an open and transparent setting.
Speaking of moments of celebration, we’ve received our Best places to work award in this hybrid setting. We celebrated this achievement with gratitude and humbleness, all while being happy to be together and excited for the future. Some of the photos from our award ceremony speak for themselves.
We’ve also had a blast hosting one edition of Lean Coffee Cluj where we discussed with the participants all things agile, team management, processes, and challenges! Using the Lean Coffee format, the participants built the agenda by proposing topics they wanted to discuss, and then voted on the most popular ones to debate and share ideas about. We heard from everyone involved, we’ve shared our unique experiences and insights on the topics at hand. We covered a lot of ground, from improving team collaboration to streamlining project management, and everyone left with some valuable takeaways to implement in their own work.
Here’s how it went.
We’ve also hosted a meet-up organized by JSHeroes. JSHeroes is a two-day conference in Cluj-Napoca but also regular tech meetups by JavaScript enthusiasts. They managed to create a community around their meetups of almost 3000 people. It’s been lovely to be able to offer our creative space to their community of which many of us are happily part of.
Last, but not least, between the in-house trainings, some that sadly lack photo memories, outside trainings, community meetings, tech meetups, and so on, our dear space became the home of one of our biggest projects, Rebels Deconstructed podcast. We do miss the setting at our friends at Cirkular who’ve hosted us thus far, the podcast has now a video component to its mix. And with this happening we thought it’d be best to move it to our space so that the feeling the viewer gets is as authentic as possible.
Keep an eye on these deep dives into our team’s core through this link.
The care
Caring for one another is yet another fundamental value that stands at the core of being a Rebel. Caring for our colleagues, our work, teams, growth, our space, and our events. It expands to all aspects of our daily lives. And of course, it expands to others and the world. These past months to almost a year now, Miana Florian joined our team as the new Sustainability Officer as we vouched to do anything in our power to become more sustainable, learn new practices, and create conversations where it matters inside our market to ultimately create communities. One dear project in this direction was RebelDot x velements and being part of the creation of a sustainable collection. We’ve partnered with Adrian Vele, Head of Design at velements, a local hero that creates unique pieces of clothing by giving a second chance to pre-loved items. This is how we’ve created a unique collection of 10 tote bags made from... our team members’ old clothing pieces!
Read more about this one-of-a-kind campaign here.
This office also marked the first step in our journey toward obtaining the ISO14001 certification, reflecting our commitment to continual improvement and adherence to industry standards. We started out by analyzing all aspects of our negative impact and creating a coherent plan to reduce it. Our used coffee grounds from RebelCafé are making their way to local farmers who use them to nurture the soil. We now have improved rates on proper waste collection, we switched to LED lighting for reduced energy consumption, and use filtered water in our office spaces, and green indoor plants to purify the air. Since the reopening of the space, we’ve made additional changes to the bathroom areas to improve sustainable practices which include a washer and drier faucet to replace the paper towels and reduce water and energy consumption.
As you enter our office, you’ll notice a merchandise display with everything that you can find on our charitable RebelStore.
Togetherness and fun
This space became more than a space, a place where we gather every morning for a coffee, or in the evening for a little party (that never killed nobody, right?).
Mornings have a specific hum, one that no one can deny or ignore. The voice of togetherness, stories while sharing coffee, some more sleepy than others, some more excited for a new day than others, Amy (RebelBarista) awaits us all with the same smile.
We’re talking about all this coziness and the unique vibe of our space, but please, don’t take our word for it. But that of the dozens of people who crossed our threshold during Noaptea Companiilor (Open Company Night—local event that allows people outside of an organization to visit it and spend a few hours/ an entire evening in their office).
It was a great experience to be one of the companies who participated in Noaptea Companiilor last Fall. It allowed us to open our doors to the outside world and to spend a day with curious people that wanted to learn more about us, how we do things, and how we are.
If you missed last year’s edition and you do want to pay us a visit, check this page from time to time to learn this year’s schedule and how you can join us.
A glimpse of our openness when you come visit us can be seen here.
As December was approaching, mulled wine and the smell of fir trees appeared in our office too. It was time for a Cozy night at the office. This was an event focused on the things we love, table football, board games, and watching movies. For the movie night, Mircea Bravo stand-up comedian, actor, and personality joined us to watch the movie he produced, directed, and starred in named Mirciulica.
Around Christmas time we always take a moment to celebrate our Rebel families, which means it’s time for Kids’ Christmas party. The space we’ve created here was taken over by loud screams, excited smiles, and a lot of beautiful energy. It’s humbling to see the little Rebels bond and proud parents sharing ideas and laughter while watching them.
Since 2023 started, our team has become bigger and stronger, and the many moments of gratitude have expanded. Many moments of joy marked our team this year, but two big events were hosted in this new hub of creativity fostered by the Rebels, Swing into Spring and Nostalgia Summer Night. These event names are quite self-explanatory, we literally swung our way into Spring and enjoyed a night of DIY cocktails and interesting recipes, games, and togetherness. During Nostalgia Night we celebrated our inner children with a night created to celebrate the 80s and 90s glory.
Keep an eye on us, as you never know what the Rebels are going to take out of their sleeve in the next period, we might surprise you. We know we will. We’re confident and eager to experience more and more together and take precious moments to acknowledge and appreciate the ride so far, while we eagerly await what’s coming our way.
To many more absolutely Rebel moments!
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