de.tech.ting

i call this our macgyver period.

it all started with a not-so-little office drama.  we had a funny feeling about our nice digs in union square (yes, one floor below fred wilson!).   we were subletting, had carved out the space in the back right corner as our own…but noticed that, uhhh, the rest of the place was getting emptier and emptier.  so we huddled and quickly decided we needed a new place.  and then our landlord decided he wouldn’t continue renting the union square office at all.  since you can’t sublet if there’s no one to sublet from, the building decided to pleasantly evict us.  of course, all of this coincided with our alpha release #4.

within 48 hours our fearless leader announced it was done:  a new office that was bigger, cheaper and had seven windows, available march 1st.  unfortunately, it was january 27th.  we had another product release coming up, and a board meeting, and no place to work.   enter: the box.  we took a temp office in the helmsley building.  sounds nice, right?  join me for the trip to the box:

it was, in essence, an alice in wonderland office.  or something out of being john malkovich.  i actually didn’t mind it at first…until the connectivity problems.  and the loud day-traders next door.   and the game of musical chairs that meant the last person who arrived had to use a small file cabinet as a desk.   and the loose electrical outlet that sparked and sizzled.  and the lack of any windows which, ultimately, made it feel like we were working at a casino.  and the random electrical shocks from just, y’know, sitting down and touching a laptop.  pretty sure our cto got some free electro-shock therapy.

but, now that it’s my last day in the box… i might actually miss it a little.   it was cramped and crazy, but while we were there we released alpha #5 on time, and made it through another energetic board meeting.

oh!  i was also reblogged by fred wilson.  that’s like a rite of passage, isn’t it?  a blog mitzvah?  it was paul westerberg singing Waitress in the Sky.  after westerberg’s hit by a beer bottle in the middle of the song, he smoooothly slips in some improv lyrics without missing a beat.

i guess that’s kind of what we did in t/s month 8…improv.   minus the flying beer bottle.

improv-ing-ly yours –
andrea