Seeing the world as ORTEC’s Implementation Consultant (3)
By Blog

The two weeks at the client in Fortaleza were a success and we got everything we wanted to know. Luckily the people responsible for their IT systems did speak English, so I was able to ask them the questions myself. The cool thing about working together on the same project, if the atmosphere good, you start to work as one team. This team has one goal and that is making the implementation of our software a success. Having this kind of vibe is the difference between a tough process with a lot of frustration, and an easy and fun partnership where there is also room to get to know each other. For us this meant that we were able to have a Friday night tour around Fortaleza with our client. As you may remember Fortaleza is all about beaches and night life, so our tour mainly involved seeing several different restaurants and bars around town.

So now I am back in our own office in the district of Flamengo. It is a small office consisting of two teams, one working on analyzing soccer games and one working on software implementation. My team roughly consist of fifteen persons and I am the only non-Brazilian within. Luckily all of them do speak English, making the communication in the workplace so much easier. Because everyone is between 25 and 30 of age, we have a lot in common and a lot to talk about. Therefore, being the only non-Brazilian does not really matter. Because the things I like, do, and face in life are more age related then bounded by cultural differences.

One of these differences is the daily lunch ritual. In Holland we like to be (and therefore eat) as efficient as possible, so if we do not eat our bread at the desk, we go out for a walk and we want to be back within 30 minutes, 45 minutes tops. This is an absolute no-go in Brazil, lunch is important and easily takes up to 2 hours(!). Daily we go out and have lunch in one of the Brazilian dinners around town. Then you either get your food from a buffet, or you order it a-la-carte, and it shall be a warm lunch! I thought I was going to miss the Dutch sandwiches, but I have to confess that I really like this way of having lunch. Because this is a regular way of eating out, prices tend to be around the same as you would pay in a canteen in The Netherlands. So for me, I would not either consider having a sandwich the coming ten weeks.