Sage is an organization filled with outstanding communications professionals who bring a diverse background of experience and expertise. We leverage this depth of knowledge through our Sage U program, an all-learn, all-teach model, to assist our team’s continued growth.

Today, our Sage U Fireside Chat Q&A series features Syed Ali, Syed is a controller on the HR/finance team at Sage Communications and has been with the agency for 15 years. He discussed his fascinating background and journey to Sage, sharing the valuable lessons he learned along the way.

Q&A highlights:

Walk us through a typical day for Syed at Sage. What do you do daily? 

My average day starts with a call between me and my team, discussing open issues with anything going on within finance and HR. From there, I address emails that come through and work on various tasks throughout our day. Something that is unique in our case is that we’re usually working in future periods, on all the things happening ahead of time so that operations continue to run smoothly.   

As a person at Sage that interacts directly with almost every employee, that’s a unique element of your role. What’s the best part about that, and are there any challenges with that as you branch across the different parts of the agency? 

Usually, I’m one of the first people new employees interact with when they join Sage. I really enjoy that and have a passion for doing new employee orientations. I usually try to tell new people about our organization, our history and Sage's culture.  

I’ve always felt Sage is a place I belong to — I always try to convey that Sage is a place where you can have a bond within the organization almost immediately. I’ll usually ask them about their supervisors, and I give them tips on how to bond with them. I’ll give them examples of our many employees that joined right out of school and are now Sage leaders. I try to show all the positive things that are possible here.  

Another thing I always reference — and this is very important to me — is that when you start a new job, it takes time to create a relationship with your work. It can’t happen in one year; it takes at least two years for those bonds to develop. When I have a problem, I reach out to my team members. Yes, I’m dealing with co-workers, but I also have a very personal bond with these people. Because of this, it’s a lot easier to come to solutions, so I try to emphasize that.  

How have you been able to form the bonds you mentioned, and what advice would you give to others? 

It’s hard in the beginning. People have different personalities and they don’t know how seriously you take responsibility. It takes time to develop trust. One thing that stayed with me is, “all of us believe in the good in people, not the worst.” If you look at the world that way, it helps you.  

As a young person growing up and trying to understand the world, I learned that I always wanted to know how other people feel about me. What you see inside of yourself is what others see. If you feel good about them, chances are they will feel good about you. So, it just takes time to develop relationships. You have to allow for relationships to mature. 

How has overcoming hurdles in your professional and personal life prepared you for your career? 

In my position, to deal with day-to-day issues and still maintain sanity — it’s a challenge. There have been times where I stayed up and worried about things because I felt the burden of everything. I learned a meditation technique that helps me — I ask myself if the situation will matter in two weeks. If it doesn’t, then I don’t stress about it. Another is that kindness and respect go a long way. People always remember how you make them feel.  

What is your favorite thing to do on your day off? 

I have a bizarre hobby. I chase freshly cut trees on Craigslist, find them, take my trailer up there with a chainsaw, cut those pieces of wood, bring them home, chop them, and season them. That takes place from late spring to early fall, and my neighbors laugh about it.  

I’m like a squirrel chopping all this wood. People think I’m crazy, but I’ve learned from my family members that my great grandfather sold wood to the village and was a woodworker, so I tell people maybe this is genetically inherited. I don’t know what it is about chopping and following wood, but I do bizarre things when it comes to that and I enjoy it.

Syed Ali is Controller at Sage Communications.