Going out with the office

This may not be much of a post, but I thought I would cover some of the social events we have in the office.  This is not to say that we have social events beyond the office, all social events are within or related to office business.  This is usually the only reason I will not eat lunch or dinner prepared by myself.  There are two kinds of eating events:  IN office and OUT but the most fun events are within the office.  I've been around for two full meals and a lunchtime snack.  

On Fridays in the office we've had two meals prepared by our own staff.  I will get a mass email asking who's interested in lunch and for a donation of three euro.  Following this one of my co-workers made some couscous with pesto with some good veggies a fruit salad and bread.I will always spend three euro for a meal like this.  Another day we had "poisson puttanesca" which is a take on an Italian dish with a lot of tomato and olives baked with some fish.  I don't often go out for lunch because I don't' want to spend the money, but it is a lot of fun to have lunch in the office.  For a snack one day someone actually made Crepes with brown sugar and lemon.  This stuff was all very good for morale during a tough week.  Finally to break things up a bit we celebrate each Friday with FRIDAY BEER or wine... this is when I get to try the worst beer in Belgium and work at the same time.  I have actually gone out to lunch and dinner once with the group to celebrate the finish out a big deadline.

One more social event that wasn't food related but still a lot of fun was a valentines day prank.  Some of the employees that have been around for a little while thought it would be fun to pull a prank on the Copenhagen office and one of the dorky, awkward employees.  Every single person in the office was "required" to create a loving valentine and mail it to this employee in Denmark.  I spent my time writing semi-erotic Haiku's for a few of my co workers cards.  My prized piece of niche writing was based on a card someone made with some dinosaur cookies:

In the Ancient Past

A horny Triceratops

Primal Love and Lust

This is how we show our love to our sister office.

My Office pt. 1

I didn't post yesterday. My original goal was to create a habit of blogging every day, after I finish dinner and walk upstairs. I arrived at my apartment at 4am, and didn't feel like cooking dinner. This means my whole routine was broken. Because of this missed day, I want to make it up to you guys by putting up some real information about my job, office, and working life in general.

Right now there are about 13 employees with a pretty wide range of nationalities: 3 Americans, 2 Irish, 1 French, 2 Belgian, 1 Portuguese , 2 Italian, and 1 German. I think I'm the only one that can not speak French, but the office functions in English. Most of the people from will slip and communicate in their native language, with French its not so easy, Dutch on the other hand is great. I can usually guess my way through Dutch via hand motions and similar Germanic syllables. I'm not confident enough to answer phones yet... what if the person who's calling only speaks French? What if it's the principle of the firm and he has an important task that I'd rather not do? Too many unknown variables for me to feel safe.

I've told you guys about the laptops. First arrivals usually grab the better computers, but there is inevitably some swapping later in the afternoon or night when people realize they don't have all the software they need and someone else is using the best computer in the office to listen to itunes while sketching on trace. We have an office network that is very well structured and contains a "bible." A quick read provides all the information you need when starting in the office in Copenhagen... which is as useful as it sounds for the new BXL (Brussels) employees. Everyone communicates in the office via email and Outlook. I don't have to know any ones email address because I can just allow the network to pick the correct one based on their first name alone. Passive aggressive tendencies flourish in a system where you can send an email to the entire office about the trash by using "BXL" as your recipient.

That brings me to my position in the office. I am a member of the GRO team, and the irony may not reach many of you, for some it exists as a wonderful inside joke. We are working on a large scale housing competition for the town of Gronigen in Holland. The photo at the top is of a model built in the past week, and it represents 100,000 square feet of housing. I am on a team with the design architect of the firm, and the two Belgian guys. Every single day we set up images of what we've completed and make a daily report to send to the Principal of the firm. He (usually) sends a one line reply that gives us another days worth of tasks to figure out.

I have also been placed on team "Office Look." This team is headed by the Portuguese guy and also has another American. We are in charge of documenting the office and deciding if we need more storage, a different layout... any office infrastructure related things. Last week I changed light bulbs for an hour. Finally, I am on a two person rotating "Slick Office" team. There are 7 of these in the office and when it is your turn to be in charge of "Slick Office," you make sure the kitchen stays clean, the garbage and recycling are taken out. You are also in charge of dusting the models. There is a lot of work involved in the office.

I've realized the depth of difference between this office and my last, and probably many other offices of both architecture and otherwise, that I should probably take a little more time and separate these posts a little. I may continue tomorrow... I may talk about chocolate. There's also a 90% change I'll be starting work in Belgian time and ending work after east coast time folks. Not only is there a big milestone presentation on Thursday for GRO, but "Office Look" is in charge of building new tables for the office on Thursday. Wonderful.

Work... Day 1

So I made it through my first day.  No worries, just the first of many 12 hour days I imagine.  They believe in teaching through doing... which is a cliche that works pretty much everywhere.  I was tossed onto a project and had to take charge of the entire digital site model.  It wasn't a bad days work, and everyone on the project team had some say in different portions of the project.  I liked how included everyone was in the process.  I also had some fun new intern jobs, like building boxes for transporting mail.

A few nice things about this place.  No one has a computer.  This is because there is a locker full of laptops.  Every morning you come into the office, grab a laptop from the locker, find a seat at a team table and start your days work.  No personal physical space, no personal digital space... I actually liked it.  There was also some computer trading through out the day, at one point someone didn't have rhino and another didn't have illustrator.  There the trade comes in. 

I meet my boss for the first time Wednesday morning... 8:15 AM.  Oh yea, he's not around too much and my project team was scheduled for the first slot out of his two hours.  We also have to go through a process of documenting all the physical and digital work done at the end of each and every day to send to him so he has an idea of whats going on.

There is a well used coffee machine... but no waffle vendor near by.