My wife and I are from India, and had been living in the United States for 10 years then, mostly in California. While life there was sunny and we had a great community of friends, we had been having discussions on and off about moving to a different country. In our last year there, we became first time parents to a beautiful curious boy. His birth catalysed our discussions and eventually turned those discussions into decisions. We knew of the Netherlands being child friendly and Amsterdam, a technology hub so it naturally became one of our search options, and that was when I learned about Picnic.
The first things I noticed about Picnic were the videos, blog posts (technical and cultural), and ease of access to information regarding moving to the Netherlands. During the recruitment process, the recruiter was more than happy to reiterate all the information in our calls including Picnic’s role and help with the relocation. It gave us a much needed headstart to estimating a timeline. All of the interviewers I spoke to were generous with their time to answer my questions about life at Picnic, and life in the Netherlands. The recruiter’s call with the offer, a few days later, was an exciting day as it was the start of realising our abstract idea of moving.
Moving across countries is never a small deal — my wife and I did it once before, separately, when we moved from our hometowns to the United States. This time we were doing this, together, and with a baby alongside. I can certainly say that Picnic made this process a whole lot easier and convenient for us. They were with us all the way from start to finish. Apart from the usual immigration process for entry into the Netherlands (Visa, Consulate interviews, Passport stickers etc), we had to work out our moving out formalities, and then any bureaucratic processes when we arrive at the NL (Residence card, BSN etc). We had well crafted and documented immigration and expat resources sent to us from Picnic’s relocation team, which helped us tremendously.
And so with a mountain of logistics to figure out, we started our ascent! “Basecamp” (First step) was the immigration formalities, ofcourse! In parallel, we also started planning to wrap up a decade of life in a country (gulp!). We had to work out the lease of our home, consolidate finances, find homes for our car, furniture and household items — all while supporting a postpartum mum and a 7 month old. Picnic was our sidekick in all of this — the open channel with the team regarding our timeline and tasks to wrap up in the United States made it easier to communicate in case any issues arose (and they did!).
Once we received the approval letter from the IND, Picnic provided us with information on the steps that would follow. We started scheduling appointments for having our biometrics collected at the Embassy/Consulate and the MVV (the entry visa). This turned out to be tricky and delayed with no appointments in the Consulate close to our home. While we got an interview scheduled at a different embassy at a later date, this potentially meant delaying my start date. The team at Picnic was flexible with my start date if things didn’t work out in time. As soon as the interview wrapped up successfully, the relocation staff initiated the process of booking the tickets for us and helping make sure our baby ticket and baggage requirements were taken care of.
Then came the lengthy, arduous climb of packing our belongings. We had moved to a temporary stay by this time and had most of our things in boxes. With the crate and packing materials sent to us from the shipping company, we got to loading our stuff. It was set to reach us at Amsterdam in 6–8 weeks. And 3 days before we were set to fly out, we shipped most of our belongings to Amsterdam.
All that we had been preparing for, for the past 2 months, was coming to fruition. It was travel day — the third phase of this climb! After tearful goodbyes to our friends, we made our way to the airport. It’s a surreal feeling and a mixture of emotions that I cannot pen down here, no matter how hard I try. On hearing of our move to the Netherlands, the KLM flight staff gave our one year old the sweetest little letter of welcome and a horseshoe charm for luck — already a lovely start! When we finally hauled our luggages into our cosy room in the hotel, did we breathe a sigh of great relief. We had made it to the summit — we were here!
Picnic had once again done a stellar job in arranging our hotel — lots of fun play areas, lounges, work areas with very sociable and hospitable staff at all times. We definitely felt underprepared for the dutch weather (something like the weather at a summit :P) — for the rain and the wind — even though we were warned.
We had little time to rest as what followed were an avalanche of tasks to settle into the Netherlands. None of this came as a surprise though as Picnic had already provided us with the checklist of things to get done — Getting our residence permits, BSN numbers, setting up bank accounts, phone numbers, health insurance, finding a house, a GP and so on — all while helping clarify the many questions I had. It took us about a month to wrap them up. It also helped to not have to plan for a few things like our son’s health checks and vaccinations as we were pleasantly surprised from the letters we received from the Consultatiebureau (Children’s health clinic) for this.
After the lengthy and somewhat crazy move, I was stepping into the Picnic office for the first time! Onboarding at Picnic was fun to say the least. I met the incredible team members I had been speaking with through the move.They continued to help me and my family through all the formalities to start living in the Netherlands. I also met people from across the company who were welcoming and shared a thing or two about what makes Picnic tick. What struck me the most was the plan for the onboarding — it wasn’t just for the role, but for the company itself. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I learnt not only about the machinery of Picnic’s delivery system, but also got to fulfil and deliver customer orders to homes. The cherry on top was the visit to one of the automated fulfilment centres. It was inspiring to get a behind-the-scenes look at what unfolds between a customer placing an order, and the order landing on their doorstep.
A few months in, it has been fun and fulfilling so far contributing to our customer centric initiatives. I have also been able to work on my personal growth, thanks to the leadership training offered at Picnic. I have also started to learn Dutch and having signed up for the lessons offered by Picnic, I’m hoping to understand a bit more of the language soon. Outside of work, it has been lovely to explore this wonderful country with our little one — the parks, museums, canals, the beautiful city centres — while also playing a small role in Picnic’s journey to become the best milkman on earth.
Proost!
