One of the Wolves

Alright Grandma, I lied a bit. Although it will get nerdy soon — I promise — I had to blog about my first day at work.

I woke up this morning at around 8 p.m. Training didn’t start until 10, but I wanted to wake up early enough so that I wouldn’t have to rush. After moseying around a bit, I had breakfast, got ready, and then tried to shake off those normal first day jitters before leaving the apartment. It was a beautiful day in Manhattan — sunny, with a quiet breeze — so I decided to walk the 20-block span from my apartment to work. The walk was relaxing, but I didn’t quite notice because I was walking a little bit faster than normal. I could’ve walked slower, but I didn’t want to be late.

I got there about 10 minutes early, and noticed five other people all sitting together, each eating complimentary muffins, cakes, and coffee that had been set out to welcome us. Guessing that these guys were the new hires, I decided to sit with them.

The office wasn’t what some would call the stereotypical office. There were no cubicles, and no motivation pictures tacked on the wall. (Here’s a de-motivator, it’s all I could find). The building is a reformed apartment building in the middle of West Village, and the main room — the place where we all congregated after walking up two flights — was a big open space lined with brick. There was a deck to the left of the room, and a kitchen to the rear.

The Open Planning Project — TOPP, my employer — owns three floors in this apartment building. The lower floor is a set of quiet rooms and couches, a bathroom and a few other miscellaneous spaces, where people can work if they need somewhere to go. The middle floor houses the main room, deck, kitchen, and an odd room filled with Roman pillars and random archways. The top floor, the highest floor in the apartment building, holds a bedroom where I would have stayed had I not been able to find an apartment.

The day went pretty smoothly, and was very relaxed. We went over the main layout of the various TOPP projects, from both a technical standpoint and a theoretical vision, and got acquainted with what we we’d be working on for the foreseeable future. The most interesting projects were OpenPlans, an online collaboration tool for community activism, and GeoServer, a project aiming to make a wiki for geo-spatial data (think, Wikipedia for the world). We had lunch at a little Thai place — a place that apparently at night seems totally different — and then got started on the more practical sides of work: computers, email addresses, desks and workstations. After finishing up the technical parts of the day, we spent the rest of it sitting on the deck, getting to know each other and getting to know the feel of the workplace. For those who work in the software industry, I’m told it feels a lot like a startup.

Here’s some great things that I can’t help but mention:

• Work usually starts around 10 a.m. (I can start earlier if I need to).
• Everything’s casual.
• I get free lunch everyday from local restaurants around the area.
• There’s an open work space. No cubicles.
• I get to work on really cool software.

Although the last bullet was the real motivator behind taking the job, I can’t help but appreciate the first four.

Overall, I came out of my first day feeling very relaxed (loving the beautiful walk home through Hudson St. in West Village), and generally confident that I made the right decision. I think I’m going to love working here, and I can’t wait to go back to work tomorrow.

Work