A huge congratulations to Daniel Bennett who has reached his 5-year Long Service milestone.
We caught up with Dan to find out more about his time at OGL so far…
"I came to work for OGL initially through an interview organised by a friend in the OGL Technical department; the interview was for 1st Line technical support. I had my interview with Stacey and Rachel who seemed impressed with the interview; I also scored high on the technical ‘test’ they give you. However, in that instance I was not invited back for a second interview but I was informed my CV would be kept on file for any future roles. Much to my surprise a week or two later I got a call from Charlie Grant and Helen Cassell inviting me back for an interview on the software side of the business for the Linux Team. The interview was a 2-part process, first a physical interview with Helen and Charlie and then half a day with Nathan Whatley. I felt like the whole process went well and I was offered the position at OGL as a Junior Linux Engineer which I jumped at the chance. From here I have always aimed for the top, I was promoted to Linux Engineer after a year, then after the COVID period I moved onto installations and now I am testing my skills to automate deploying infrastructure using Ansible which is an automation language. I do sometimes wonder how different life would have been if I’d have gotten the job at what is now Wavenet, however I feel much more at home at OGL Software.
I would say my greatest achievement would be putting up with Calum for 5 years (only joking)! I think my greatest achievement would be how far I have come, I came fresh from University to OGL with not much ‘real world’ experience. With that in mind I have taken on any problem no matter how big or small, this attitude has allowed me to grow so much in the 5 years I have been here, and I intend to continue this attitude.
My funniest moment at OGL would be my upgrade for Heron Supplies. I arrived on site and was shown the corner of the office where the server sat, the walls of this corner could be touched with each elbow so there was not much room to move anything at all! I was offered a coffee which I graciously accepted and got to work. After an hour or so I was ready to swap the customer over, I was speaking to Anne to get everyone out of the system so I could do the final data sync and swap over. As everyone got out of the system Wayne (the director) advised that I didn't break anything as he was off home. The swap over went successfully with minimal disruption. Once the customer feedback form was returned, Anne gave some great feedback and commented “We forgot he was there” which was quite funny and a compliment I suppose."
Dan's manager, Helen Cassell added: "Five years ago, in March 2019, Dan joined OGL as a Junior Linux Infrastructure Engineer and it was apparent from the start that Dan wanted to learn and absorb as much as he could from his colleagues. We would often hear Dan asking his teammates to explain incidents they were working on or had resolved so he could understand the steps they had taken. After 2 years, Dan’s drive and hard work, saw him promoted to “Linux Infrastructure Engineer”.
When our Profit4 system was in its infancy and cross-training within the team was offered, Dan grabbed the opportunity to be involved and showed a keen drive to learn all he could regarding the installation of this new product. Today, Dan is the person within the team who is installing the majority of our new Profit4 systems!
Dan’s eagerness to learn and develop in his role continues today, with Dan setting himself time to learn Ansible and looking at ways to streamline and automate our installation processes. With new members joining our infrastructure team in the last year, Dan has shown his abilities and willingness to share his knowledge, and to guide and mentor his teammates.
I look forward to seeing what more Dan can bring to the Infrastructure team and the company as whole in the coming months and years. Congratulations Dan on your (first) 5 years at OGL!"
