Pascal Driever - IT & Operations

Transcript of the First Moments

Bram Rouppe (B.R.): Hi everyone, and welcome to this new HonesTea Podcast. In each edition, we’ll talk about what

it’s like to work in Cleopatra Enterprise. By having honest conversations

with our colleagues. My name is Bram, Corporate Recruiter at Cleopatra Enterprise, and today I’m joined by Pascal.

And we are going to discuss with him how is to have his job, what he does, the dynamics in the team  and how he contributes his part to the mission of Cleopatra Enterprise. Well, as the name suggests, we start with the question on the label of the tea bag. Pascal, good to have you here. What is your question?

Pascal Driever (P.D.): What does your ideal Sunday look like?

It starts with sleeping in, of course. Sleeping in on every Sunday.

B.R.: Do you often make it late on Saturdays then?

P.D.: Actually, the precursor to the ideal Sunday is a good Saturday. So sleep in and then especially no standby duty. That’s the nicest thing.

And then waking up, cup of coffee, a walk with the dog. And play with my child.

B.R.: What kind of dog do you have?

P.D.: An American Bulldog.

B.R.: And the name?

P.D.: Happy.

B.R.: Happy. How come?

P.D.: Actually he’s from, we had some songs during our wedding. And one of the songs was was

Happy by Pharrell Williams. And that was actually a nice name for a very happy dog. Which we got right after. He is now eight years old.

B.R.: Eight already, does he have any pains? That you can really see he’s getting older?

P.D.: No. He has some flaws from day one. Yeah well, you can see he’s getting older. He’s slowing down a bit, a little gray here and there. But, yes for the rest he is doing well.

B.R.: So generally doing nothing much, walking the dog, and with the little one.

P.D.: It’s always a laid-back dog, so ideal for Sundays. I can also just go out with him Sunday late afternoon.

B.R: To know you a little better, I’m going to call out a few words. And I’d like you to call out the

first thing that comes to mind. So for example, if I say: your dog. You say: Happy. Right. So I wrote down some things. A little bit specific to you. Because I know you a little bit.

So I’m going to read them up now. Ok, let’s go. Cleopatra.

P.D.: Server.

B.R.: IT.

P.D.: Group.

B.R.: Favorite snack. In the office, though.

Taking long to answer.

P.D.: Yes, chocolate.

B.R.: Favorite place in office?

P.D.: My own workplace.

B.R.: Always the same.

Favorite colleague?

P.D.:  Wouter.

B.R.: Wouter, hmm.

P.D.:  Sorry man.

B.R.: Favorite board game?

Yes, painful.

Don’t say Monopoly.

P.D.:  No, no Monopoly.

That’s all too easy. Taking too long.

B.R.: The last country you visited? Except the Netherlands.

P.D.:  France.

B.R.: Favorite TV show?

P.D.:  For now Supernatural.

B.R.:  Best movie of all time? Or you don’t watch movies, that’s also possible.

P.D.:  Yes, I watch movies all the time so. I can’t choose very well. Avengers: Endgame.

B.R.:  Not Infinity War? I do agree with you, by the way, but.

P.D.:  Yes actually they belong together. Yes, I liked the first one better.

B.R.:  Anyway, guilty pleasure song? Last one.

P.D.:  Bodies. Volume at 10.

B.R.:  Another thing I learned about you. Please introduce yourself, who are you? What are you doing here? How did you end up here? Take us with you.

P.D.: I am Pascal Driever. And, I’ve been in IT for about 25 years. I am also already 40. My first IT job was very simple, unpacking a box. That was back in the days the monitors were so big so I could fill my job with that. And I am at Cleopatra Enterprise as a Senior System Administrator. So I manage everything that has a plug. No, what gets an IP address actually.

And that’s actually what attracted me to it. To this position. And I was also a system administrator before that. And I did mostly server management. And here I basically get everything. Except for a small part of the office, helping people, screens, thankfully I don’t have to do that these days.

Also just server management, as well as networking. VPN, so that people can connect to the office. And, of course, just the whole SaaS thing as well.

B.R.: So hosting for clients and globally.

P.D.: So not only our own data center in Amsterdam, but also Azure.

B.R.: Yeah, because can you outline those domains? Because you have the workplace domain?

P.D.: If you really want to separate them that way, then indeed we have the Cleopatra domain and we have the office network. Yes, those are two separate ones. Those are completely separate domains, and for the Cleopatra domain, you can separate in the Netherlands, by region, America,

Australia, Southeast Asia and I forget one. That’s United Arab Emirates. And we host our our application through it.

B.R.: So those are customers who indeed purchase our software worldwide. And who, of course,

must have access there.

P.D.: Yes and it is somewhat latency sensitive, so you actually have to be as close to our application as possible.