Icebreaker with Alex Vulovic

Welcome to our newest edition of Icebreaker, our employee spotlight series! At Arctiq, we value our diverse and talented team, and we believe it's important to shine a spotlight on the amazing individuals who make our organization thrive. In this series, we'll be showcasing the unique stories, experiences, and talents of our employees. Get ready to meet the faces behind our success and join us in celebrating the incredible individuals who make our team truly exceptional!

Today, we are breaking the ice with Alex Vulovic, Solutions Consultant. He's been with us for 1 year and 4 months.

1. What's the coolest thing about your job?

Every day is different. I do a lot of different things, but ultimately it’s synthesis: absorbing information from a lot of different sources and fitting it together into an approach that solves a problem. It’s sort of like being one of those fish that breathe by swimming, forcing water through their gills. When they stop swimming, they stop breathing. I’m constantly being asked to tackle different problems, and I have to keep learning each and every day.

2. What's your favourite hobby outside of work?

For the last couple of years, it’s been “conlanging” – constructing languages. I have a couple of friends who are avid linguists and we spend a remarkable amount of time arguing over things like vowel inventories and which particles best convey a particular tone. Conlanging’s a great hobby because it can be both creative and rigorous: on the one hand, there’s a whole world of linguistics out there to dive into, and on the other, well, you can be as zany as you like. I once refused to use b, p, t, d, and k, just because (bonus points if you see what they have in common!)

3. What's the best advice you've ever received?

“You get what you measure.” 

You’ve probably heard it before. To a lot of people, I think it’s a paean to better data: that you can get better outcomes through better measurement. To me, it’s a reminder not to ignore things you can’t easily quantify. You can’t measure the value of spending time with family, or colleagues you like, in dollars, but ignoring that value is always a mistake.

4. If you could switch roles with someone for a day, who would it be and why?

Honestly I really just want to swap with an academic from about two centuries ago and get my name on a theory people will remember for centuries. All the easy ones were taken a long time ago and I don’t have time to do a PhD!

5. What's a fun fact about you that most people would not guess?

Many years ago, a friend compared me to a hedgehog – adorable but occasionally prickly on the outside. Since then, I’ve collected quite a few hedgehogs of all shapes and sizes. They remind me that being prickly isn’t something you are, it’s something you do; that we all do it sometimes; and that the best way to handle prickly is with grace.