Elsewhere - iameven.com
Waiting for the new office last week, I worked from café's, libraries, and elsewhere.
Pexip
Since 2014 I've been working at Videxio, that recently changed. My work place is not something I've written a lot about. There is just the occasional mention. Videxio merged with Pexip late last year. The new name is Pexip, and Videxio is no more. Internally this is sold as Pexip 1.0 and Videxio 1.0 being history, and Pexip 2.0 is the new hotness.
Part of the Videxio strategy has been white labeling. We've sold our services through partners, branded as our partners. Pexip has been a bit more bold and visible. Their recent collaborations with Google and Microsoft meant the name has a bit more gravitas. I'm still not a huge fan of either name and always have to spell it out when telling people about it.
"I work at Pexip"
"Pexit?"
"No, there is a P at the end"
"Pexib?"
"No, P-E-X-I-P" ― pretend conversation, but close enough
New office
The company more than doubled in people for us Videxio folk. Neither of the offices was big enough to fit all so we got a new one. Around 300 meters from our old one, and maybe 1 km for the Pexip people (Magic people, Voodoo people)*.
They are quite shiny and big. We all got new adjustable desks. There is coffee, carbonated water on tap, soda fridge, too much snacks. Other than adjustable desks we already had those things at the old office though, but now there is just more. There are meeting rooms named after famous scientists and computer engineers. My suggestion for a room named Rosen, after Nathan Rosen, was chosen. Probably because of my joke about keeping an open video call to the Einstein room. Like an Einstein-Rosen bridge.
In between leaving our old office and getting the new one set up we had a week where we could work from neither.
Romantic
I'm not much of one, but I have some romantic ideas. Working from café's was one of them. I'm saying was. Part of the plan for this week in limbo was for me to maybe kill the idea about it being romantic. Oslo might not be the best city for it either. A lot of the café's are quite small and crowded, plus the wi-fi is crappy. Maybe I just didn't find the right café. When I did find a good one I ended up drinking way too much coffee.
The good parts:
- Being out among people and just observe life is a good feeling.
- Moving between spots left a lot of room to just think about problems.
- The fresh air helped.
The bad parts:
- It can be hard to focus.
- I spent a lot of time finding the next spot.
- I ended up not feeling very productive.
- Many temptations in the form of snacks and pastries.
I didn't completely kill the romantic idea of it, but I do have a more realistic picture.
* Keith Flint died last weekend, random prodigy reference in his honour.