Though I don’t hate working in a large, downtown-style office building, I’m now of the opinion it wouldn’t be so bad if I never worked in one ever again.
I currently work in a large, 20 story multi-tenant office building in downtown Vancouver. I’ve been there less than two months. Waiting for elevators is the suckiest part. If you get to the lobby around 9am, there’s tons of people waiting to get to the upper floors. There’s even lineups so that you won’t necessarily get in the first elevator that comes. I can just imagine how bad it is when the rainy season starts and everyone is jammed in there with their soggy coats and umbrellas.
Then sometimes you get these weird looks in the elevator from the rest of the tenants in my building. The other companies that use this building are accounting firms, lawyers, you know, traditional business types. In a typical elevator car, you’ll see men in business suits and ties, women in pant suits and dresses, and then guys in ripped jeans and t-shirts that shows you how to do a combo in Street Fighter 2. Guess who works at EA?
I wonder if the “suits” ever talk about us?
Anyways, I prefer working in two different extremes. One is the smaller office building. The old Backbone office was four floors in a relatively small office building. We had the entire second floor. It was cozy and intimate. Better yet was the small office building that only had one tenant, which was what Backbone now currently has.
The other extreme is the large campus that covers several acres, exactly like the EAC facility in Burnaby. There’s lots of space where things aren’t cramped because that’s how office buildings are. There’s also room for expansion if needed. Because there’s no sharing of space with other tenants, there is a much more cohesive feel to the environment. No running into Mr. Joe Accountant in the elevator.
Anyways, I’m going to bed now.