Where is this music coming from all the way to the Mezzanine? Chief Saab? 90s? Who else would it be if not Mushi, the Head of QA, but today we aren’t going to talk about QA (a challenge, since we share the floor and we won’t have it any other way! We’ll get to it another day) today, is about a day in the Production Department, the first department you see as you enter Big Immersive. A floor that’s peaceful and chaotic at the same time. One moment everyone’s gaze is stuck on their screens and the next moment it’s a party. Production department is where all the communication happens. From communication between the company and the partners, and between the company and the customers, we handle it. Other than that, the HR department, Quality Assurance, marketing and brand management, CS (Customer Support) it all happens in production.
Starting from CS, which is led by Mughees (Customer Operations Manager), a friendly guy who loves McDonald’s, and has quite a lot of achievements under his belt in his nearly three years in Big Immersive. You’ll usually find him trolling other team members or on his Insta sending food photos, memes and dad jokes to his teammates, when he isnt working, supervising team or running to and fro to the Art or Dev Department. “Nabeel (CEO BiM) once said he’s seen no one else make such quick progress as me. Well we were alone, and he had pointed at me, so I guess he was talking about me? Right?” wonders Mughees ‘almost’ confident xD when I asked him about his most valuable achievement in the company. His go-to person is Warda, and they have been great friends all along.
Speaking of Warda (Producer), she’s sitting in that fancy corner of the floor in her own little world, wishing that they let Keanu Reeves play live action Batman (hell yea!!). Warda has been representing Big Immersive at various panels and platforms, Women in Games, Riot Games, +92Disrupt, Epic Games to name a few. One of her jobs here, as a Producer is handling all the artworks from indie artists from start to finish until its LIVE, and communication, and support once the asset is live on the website. You can go to Warda any time and she will give you all the attention unless she’s onto something super sensitive and/or confidential. Her go to person on the floor is Mughees (AWE!!)
Not too long ago, Ayla Shahoor (Jr. Associate Producer) came onboard, petit, pretty and friendly. Her day usually starts by allocating rewards (to the customers on our partner marketplace (The Virtua) as well as making sure that the asset launches have no issues (and sneaking some Netflix time in between). Then comes our ‘undercover cop’ Saad Ali, the very first time I saw Saad in that mustache, that’s immediately the first thing that came to my mind (took me no more than 0.001 seconds). Moving on to his actual job, “I come in and set up my system after saying my hellos. Then I see if there are any unanswered emails. If there are, I send replies. If there is a withdrawal request, I complete the withdrawal form, and forward it to Qasim, who then forwards it to the Finance Department. Then I go about checking transactions. After that If we have any transactions that are stuck in processing. After I am done with my daily task, I relax a little, have tea, and watch something on Youtube” says Saad, when I asked him to describe an average day here. His go to person too, is Mughees! All in all, Saad seems to be enjoying his job, he’s mostly minding his own business but “he likes to discuss politics and current affairs”, as told by Waqar, which brings us to our Project Manager Waqar, who is hands on at his work, he keeps a track of our work and its progress, makes sure everyone is able to do their jobs without any hiccups, and provides guidance with a lot of patience, whenever needed. Waqar (other than whining) likes most people on the floor and has a ‘pal’ for everything, he goes to the gym with Mughees, likes to have his lunch with Mateen, discuss current affairs with Saad and car and bike modifications with Qasim. Waqar is an interesting fellow who has a memory or a daily ritual that he shares with everyone (except me =P )
I know Nafey (or that he existed) from way way back but my first interaction was when I was approached by a confused but friendly guy, concerned about his recently adopted cat, Boots. Nafey is the ‘Chandler Bing’ of Big Immersive, we ‘know’ he’s a technical writer, but most of us don’t exactly know his actual job, Mughees wants Nafey’s job because he always seems super chill. But that’s not me making stuff up, don’t look at me, I am only the reporter here! I asked Nafey what’s a day like on the Production floor “I see my fellow products walking around, making jokes, playing music, and discussing the most important task of the day (what to eat?). I find my desk clean and ready for some work. I turn on my laptop and go through my emails… I find my tasks and am ready to get some work done- but wait! I’m… I’m being distracted… distracted by the things that I HAVE to search and read on. That dragon ball super chapter just dropped too! GOTTA READ THAT! And so I do that, then I eventually get to work. Then I blink and everyone disappears… they’re either on the 2nd floor or the 3rd, working… and so I use that time to stretch in my seat. BUT WAIT! someone just said my name! Who is it!? And so I search with my eyes, up and down, left and right trying to figure out who called me but it turns out that they were calling our COO whose name closely resembles mine… and then the clock strikes 6:30 and I pack my bags and go home.” Interesting indeed. Nafey also did not know who Sameen is, until, not very long ago, he asked ‘who’s Sameen?’ and we did not judge him for that (oh we did).
About Sameen, the “Cool HR”, she thinks if she weren’t an HR here, she would be in the Art Department getting scolded by Asad xD When Sameen is not checking emails, calling, or solving employee issues around the office, you’ll find her on the Production floor, sitting on one of our desks talking to one of us (everyone is her friend here), or she will take me and Maheen out and we will have our “Sad Girl Hour” as pointed out by Nabeel a few times. Or we head out to grab snacks. For someone who is always bombarded by employees with concerns, Sameen looks very calm and she handles the work pressure very well. She loved the surprise birthday planned for her, Nabeel and me (that was so cute you guys!) and when I asked about her go-to people in the office, it was Rafeh (COO), me, and Maheen (Eeee).
There’s half the people in the Production department to go and we are nearing 1500 words, let’s take it to part II
Until then!