Sayonara 2022 and thanks
As we say sayonara to 2022, I’m putting my feet up and letting myself feel all of the feelings that flood my grateful heart. We’ve come a LONG way since first putting our vague idea of PoliSync onto paper at the end of 2021, and since signing it into a legal entity in June 2022.
I learned early in my career that for the different departments and people in a workplace to function as a cohesive unit, the coordinators and managers of the unit need to understand fully the mechanics and struggles that each individual and department faces. At 22, one month after starting my junior position of account coordinator in the client service department of a small comms agency, I was thrown into the temporary role of creative studio manager, while the actual manager took a six-week hiatus.
“But I can’t draw… anything,” I stammered at the seemingly odd request.
These six weeks turned into a valuable crash course in understanding that some client demands, passed to the creative team through the client service department, went beyond the realm of human capability – even for the incredibly talented, hard-working individuals I found myself managing. I learned to listen to and admire those quiet creative geniuses. I learned when it was necessary for the client service team to push back on unrealistic client demands in order to safeguard the creatives’ space, well-being and outputs.
When I returned to my client service department, I threw myself into the work with a better understanding of and appreciation for the agency’s systems and processes that had been set in place to safeguard and foster creativity. (And I secretly wondered whether the agency’s Director threw all new upstart client service coordinators into the creative studio to teach them this lesson, or just headstrong me). I mustered the gumption needed to reason with demanding clients, and I saw that this produced better outputs and results for clients in the long run, which is ultimately what kept them coming back.
I have thought about this lesson a lot as we’ve laid PoliSync’s foundations. I knew that initially, the founding team would need to shoulder the work of all roles we didn’t yet have the funds to staff, and that the lessons we learn during this time will serve our ability to manage a bigger vision and version of PoliSync in the years to come.
So, my colleagues and I have kept on our desks a colourful assortment of hats, which we swap regularly throughout each day… accountant, administrative coordinator, lawyer, communications director, content coordinator, HR manager, web content manager, workshops director, fundraiser, staff manager, banker, and when there is time, strategist. It has been as much work as we had anticipated, and I am loving it.
We celebrated the launch of PoliSync in September among colleagues, family and friends, made even more special as we were able to time the launch with my parents’ covid-delayed visit. I’m forever grateful for the tools, wisdom and freedom they passed to me and my siblings, which have enabled us to grow into ourselves and to discover our own paths in life.
For the launch location, we chose the building where International Geneva’s heart first began beating. While we had known that Geneva’s 15th Century Town Hall housed the ‘Alabama room’, where the first Geneva Convention was signed in 1864, we hadn’t realised that in that building in September 1872, exactly 150 years prior to our launch, a tribunal agreement had settled US claims brought against Great Britain, arising out of the US civil war.
As I listened to the Canton’s delegate to International Geneva recount this, all I could do was nod, smile, and enjoy the calm, solid, peaceful feeling that comes when life’s seemingly out-of-place pieces begin to settle into a picture far more beautiful than I could have drawn myself.
Thank you to everyone who has supported, encouraged and questioned us during 2022, helping us to dream bigger. Thank you to the founding team, board and advisors who have endured the whirlwind chaos that a start-up generates – especially my co-founder Erica Moret, and team members Naledi Hollbruegge, Jamilah Bahay, Sandra Hart, Maciej Bulanda, Kristina Kunova-Petrova. Thanks to Sonia Tancic at CAGI (CAGI is a truly amazing resource for anyone setting up an NGO in Geneva).
If you have exhausted the Christmas playlists for 2022 and are looking for some fresh tunes for 2023, you can vibe along to our PoliSync launch playlist (a mix of our eclectic team’s favourite party tunes).
Stay safe and see you in 2023!