My employer organized a Zoom meeting today for members of the team I belong to. The goal of the meeting was to inform us of some of the return to work plans that had been finalized to some degree. As many of you know, I worked out of our Burnaby studio prior to the pandemic. As with many companies, my employer underwent substantial changes during the last year and a half. In our case, we had mostly positive changes as we hired more people than we had desks or room for in Burnaby.
Any return to work plans would not be feasible if we intended everyone to return to Burnaby. As such, for the last several months, the company had been exploring relocating teams to another location in the greater Vancouver area. This has now been finalized. My team, when we return to work, will be moving to a new studio space in Vancouver proper. While the building has been leased and the location determined, many other details are still to be ironed out. I can’t say just yet where the new studio is but I can say it is not located downtown but will be very close to it. The new studio will also be well-served by public transit.
Personally, the commute to the new location using public will be longer distance-wise but surprisingly almost the same amount of time. This is because the old location required the train, waiting for a bus, the actual bus travel time, plus walking about 300m. The new commute is all train only and less walking. While I now have a much more reliable car, we’ve been told parking at the new location is essentially not possible since there are very few parking spots.
I’m still processing all this information and deciding what things are good about this new location and what things probably are less than ideal. I will divulge more info as I am allowed.