Seems several of you guys were curious about my office space, so I'll show you a bit more. There are lots of interesting corners in my office, so it might take several blog posts to get through this. But let's start with the actually desks themselves.
We have enough desks for roughly 80-85% of the people in the office because on any given day there tends to be about 15-20% of the people out whether that is traveling, at meetings cross town or home sick. There are plenty of places to 'plug in' even if for some reason you can't find a desk. After 6 months in this office, I haven't heard one person complain that they could not find a place to sit and work. I usually do sit at a desk with a monitor (you can see my set up here in the pic). I am always the first one in to the office as I get in at 7am each morning.
When you get in, you decide where you want to sit. It is a first come, first served situation. Which means you likely won't get the same seat day after day. Although several people try. You could if you get in as early as I do, but what fun would that be to always sit in the exact same place when you don't have to?
I do, however, like to sit up front by the big windows where there is a ton of sunlight. After nearly 30 years in an office (oh god did I just admit that?) I have a vitamin D deficiency. My doc told me I will have to take 1000mg a day for the rest of my life. So I try to find ways to get a bit of sun into my day when I can.
I love these windows. They are floor to ceiling and overlook Herald Square. Across the street are wonderful old prewar buildings, one of which is a mini flat iron shape. I love the architecture in NYC; it is one of the things I enjoy most about this city. I could spend weeks wondering around with my camera just taking pictures of buildings and looking up their history.
The 'corner office' is actually a lounge area (on both sides of the the office). So that anyone can enjoy the view during a meeting. I do love the democracy of that. You can see a few of the lockers I mentioned yesterday behind the lounge. Those are double stacked, so you need to be selective with what you absolutely need to keep in the office. Also notice that the desk is clean as you are expected to pick up everything each night. Well everything, except the monitor and the cords.
The open campus, as they call it here, is an interesting concept and has taken a bit of time to get used to. But I actually do enjoy it most days.
Much of my day is spent in Manhattan at the office. But I rarely show you what goes on there. And while I won't bore you with the 'work' part of that ... I can show you some of our new digs.
About 6 months ago we changed our building location and moved into a a new style of floor plan. It's what's called an 'open floor plan.' Sounds nice, right? Plenty of space, big windows, lots of lounge-like areas. So what's the catch? The catch is that in order to get lots of cool fun common area, you have to give up offices. Wholesale. There are no doors in this place expect those on the bathroom stalls, a handful of conference rooms and the front door to the office. We sit in rows of desks. In fact, we don't have assigned seating. Instead we all were issued a locker (the size of which you'd get at the bowling alley to keep your shoes and jacket in). Seriously, no kidding.
But there are fun things about this open floor plan. Lots of collaboration (aka noise) and people leaning in to impromptu meetings. The entire floor is the length of a New York City block, which makes for a lot of walking in a day. It is really common for people to wear the biometric bracelets to keep track of steps, heartrate, etc. I've heard from several people that they'd made their 'step goal' by noon.
With this week being St. Patrick's the office threw a little party in our beer garden. Yes, we have a beer garden. It is fully stocked with one of our client's products --- beer (from Miller Coors). It is always stocked with beer, so if you feel like grabbing one after work with a co-worker then it is only a few steps away. I especially love the gnome side tables. They make me giggle every time I see them, and they make me think of Christine and Bobbie who seem to have an affinity for them.
To date my blog has been mostly about beads, various travel and history. But I've been doing so much lately at the office, including business travel, that I thought I'd share some of these stories. This part of my life seems to be eating into my beady life, so I might as well show you what is consuming my time lately. Hope you all have a happy (and safe!) St. Patrick's celebration!
