People @ Proxiad: Gabriela Damyanova, Technical Support Level II
Meet Gabriela Damyanova, Level 2 Support Specialist! She is a curious, ambitious person whose teammates describe her as ‘an incredible professionalist with a creative side to her.’ Learn more about her work and her passion project that aims to raise awareness about pollution in our new People @ Proxiad interview.
You currently work in technical support but your background is in an entirely different field. Could you tell me a bit more about your education?
My upbringing and education have nothing to do with my current job which is funny because it proves once again that your work and education can be totally different and one can still manage to find his own way. Nowadays, I observe that this is more common than actually following the predestined path after university that depends on what you studied.
I studied in Toulouse, France. My specialty is Foreign Applied Languages (EN, FR, RU). Mastering different languages for me was essential ever since high school, and it proves to be handy, as without linguistic knowledge I would not be here today. Foreign languages are my foundation not just in the workplace, but in life too. I would not have gotten any reliable or well-paid job, let alone technical, nor would I have been able to have greater work opportunities without having studied exactly what I had chosen even if it was not even remotely related to the tech industry.
You started your career in Proxiad as a Level 1 Support Specialist and quickly moved onto Level 2, which requires a bit more technical knowledge. How did that happen and what qualities of yours do you think helped you transition to your new role?
That is right, I started at the beginning of March 2020 as a level 1 Support Specialist in our Mailjet team. A year and a month later, I moved to Level 2 Support. To be clear here – I had zero technical experience back in 2020, but I was hired because I was a promising candidate.
What helped me from day one in being successful and invested was the highly technical training I received for which I will always be extremely thankful. It was well structured, rich in product knowledge, and covered many areas that were new to me. It gave me such a boost to step into the job fast, that I was impatient to start working already. I was very motivated to catch up quickly and to perform at my best, not only because this is my attitude towards all my endeavors – especially when I am not experienced, but also because I found the project intriguing and the product thought-provoking.
Because I was invested in performing and delivering results in terms of quotas and targets, I put in a lot of extra effort but frankly I enjoyed this period of time so much. If I have to compare the dynamics in both teams, it is quite different, the goals are not the same. At my current position, I had to adapt to working more in-depth, at a slower pace, all the while learning so many new technical things and trying to implement them in finding solutions later on.
Regarding the transition to my now not very new role – I believe that my desire to deliver results, my ambition to progress at what I do and not stay at one place for too long were key. I was transparent about what I wanted to achieve in Mailjet and luckily an opportunity came at that time, so I took it. I still have a very long way to go as the tech world is so vast that 1 year feels like a grain in the sand.
What’s something that you find special about Proxiad and want people to know?
So far Proxiad has been able to give me the most welcoming and warm work environment that I have ever encountered. The way it operates, expands, and progresses but yet still remains focused on its employees and their well-being is what makes this organization special in my opinion. The word “work” implies having to deal with challenges, and often “who you work for” means having to deal with even greater ones, but this is not the case here.
I am not trying to sugarcoat things, I just genuinely appreciate Proxiad for what it is and the values it holds dear. It will soon be 2 years of me being part of the company and honestly, there is not 1 single disadvantage that I can think of. This is pretty special considering that today companies like that are harder to find, even harder to think they exist.
And finally, I know that you have a passion project that’s connected to the environment. Can you share what it is and what inspired you to start it?
This particular passion of mine revealed itself when most needed (for me). Just last summer, I came to the realization that being successful in whatever field I am in at the moment would mean absolutely nothing if I am not content with the world around me.
When I was enjoying my last summer holiday, I was just overwhelmed and quite honestly angry that I see garbage and piles of microplastic around me: on the beach, in the water, on the sidewalks.
One of those sunny days, I simply used a few empty cups to gather whatever plastic I could find around me in a radius of 1 to 2 meters. Here is the thing about how much we (humans) pollute – the more I dug, the more waste I found, the more rubbish I gathered, the further I went and it never ended. In this short period of 10 to 15 minutes time, I was able to collect so much that to me it made a difference.
This is how the idea of My Cup of Garbage came to life. Wherever you are, no matter what you do outside, you can always pick up the trash you see and put it in your empty cup.
Why cup?
Because in the very beginning of this initiative I was primarily practicing it on beaches in Bulgaria and abroad, and all I had was an empty cup. This does not mean that I limit myself to a cup. Especially in Bulgaria, sometimes I need huge bags to gather the waste in that one spot I am but I always have one cup with which I start.
It is so simple, not time-consuming, but at the same time rewarding in the sense that you leave a space in a better shape after you. I believe that the right people will get inspired eventually, if not by McoG, then by someone or something else – it will be still amazing as the bigger picture eventually will be seen by many more people.
Essentially the goal with My Cup of Garbage is to let people know about it, to even make it a trend or better – something people find necessary in the name of a greater Earth. The environmental crisis is so complex that I cannot even begin to list all the factors in play, however, what I can do is be more responsible in every sense of the word. On a daily basis, I try to do very simple things that reshape my surroundings, not only my life choices and attitude towards this particular issue.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” Lao Tsu said, Ga Bi just uses it to come to a poetic closing end.
