I woke up feeling a bit anxious, the kind of feeling you get when you know your code ran yesterday but somehow stopped working overnight. My mind was already at the office before my body even left the bed. The Vue Laravel setup was still giving me small heartbreak, and honestly, I hadn’t eaten since last night. That alone told me things were serious.
Today, I wanted to get to the office earlier than everyone. Maybe if I stared at the code long enough, it would start feeling sorry for me. At Circle, I hopped into a van. The driver was on a personal mission to stop at every possible corner between here and Dzorwulu. By the fifth stop, I was questioning my life choices.
When I got to Npontu, the office was calm. The AC hummed softly, and you could hear quiet taps of keyboards from early birds already deep in thought. My supervisor had told me the day before, “Azongo, please finalize the integration by tomorrow. Remember Stephane always says, “if I need something now, it means I needed it yesterday.” That line has become something of an office proverb. It sounds funny, but it really captures what Npontu feels like: goal-oriented, intentional, always pushing you to think ahead.
So I opened my laptop and started where I left off. For about an hour, I wrestled with a stubborn API that refused to return the right data. I went through documentation, asked for help in the Dev channel, and even watched a YouTube tutorial that looked suspiciously like it was made in 2015. Nothing worked. I sat there for a moment, in defeat.
That’s when Kofi, one of the senior engineers, passed by my desk and asked, “You look like you’re fighting your ancestors. What’s wrong?” I laughed and explained. He leaned over, scanned my code for five seconds, and said, “You’re missing one line.” He added it and everything worked. Just like that. I sat there, humbled.
He didn’t tease me though. Instead, he smiled and said,
“That’s why we ask. That’s why we share. Feedback doesn’t kill your flow; it keeps it moving.”
That’s one thing I’ve come to appreciate here. At Npontu, there’s this push-and-pull culture. You push to do your best, but when you’re stuck, someone always pulls you up. You’re never really alone. You’re just expected to keep showing up, keep learning, and keep asking the right questions.
By the end of the day, my code was running smoothly. I sat back and watched the screen beaming with smiles. The stress from the morning had quite melted off. I thought about how much I’d learned in just a few weeks, not just about platforms engineering, but about urgency, teamwork, and feedback.
Before leaving, I packed up my laptop and glanced at the note taped on my desk. It read:
Collaborative problem solving over individual heroics!
I smiled and nodded in agreement.
