Sandy Qiu
Enjoys puzzles with chocolates, music on a rainy day.
Actually, chocolate is good with everything, especially when shared with friends...
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We just moved office to a new building this Monday. Because the company is growing so quickly, this is already the 3rd office since I joined less than a year ago.
It seems like every time we moved, the worse the building situation is.
Our team is expanding quickly. We will have 3 FTEs and 2 interns joining in the next two months. But the new place we just moved to does not look like there is much room for more people. Our team is put in the same “team room” as another team, having 5 people there in one room. The room feels crowded, either too warm or too cold since there is no window anywhere, just walls all around and a door at one corner. They are planning to put 2 additional people in the same room.
Really? How did whoever that was who measured the room to say it was a 8-people room in the first place? The team room is about the same size as 4 cubicles right outside!
I don’t mind open office; in fact, I like open cubicles. It increases communication. Having people in a dense room is a different matter. The air vent in the room is always very loud, hissing. Without the air, the room is too warm. With it, everybody has to put headphones on to block out the hissing. Now try having conversations over that noise, and try to be the other people who aren’t part of the conversation and don’t have headphones on. I don’t mind people talking there, I just wish there’s a better office environment in general.
Another problem of the current office is that, usually I like to keep my ears open for other people’s discussions so I can learn, or to contribute. With the noise all around, I had no choice but to put on my headphone full time. I can’t hear any discussions any more.
There is no natural light inside the team room. Inside, we cannot tell if the day is getting dark or not, if we are the last in office or not. As a result, everybody stayed later than usual this week.
It’s kind of strange that we have just been there for 3 days, but so far, I have heard more complaints than praises, even about the bathroom and elevator. Maybe we are spoiled. The first office when I joined was on 10th floor, overseeing Seattle downtown, had a great view of the Space Needle. It was very nice, but maybe we did not appreciate it enough and therefore we are damned now.
What is the use of complaining and venting? Well, we sure are hoping to move to somewhere better, even if it just solves some of the problems, such as having proper office space and enough desks for our about to be expanded yet again team.
Good thing about moving? Cleaning and tossing things away. What not to like? Rearranging furnitures, reconnecting computers, and losing one whole day packing/unpacking/rearranging/getting equipment back online. Deadlines approach at the same rate, completely ignoring the fact that we have just lost a working day being unproductive.
Life goes on.
My old blog was hacked, twice, in a matter of two months. It was probably hacked by different people, at least resulted in different behaviors anyways. I tried saving it, but in the end perhaps it was better to start from scratch. It was from an old, old version, updated and updated over and over again. Who knows what other kind of vulnerabilities it has.
Fresh start. Hope you (accidental reader) will enjoy it. =)
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Life plays game on us sometimes.
Over a year ago, company changed the dress code, forcing me to shop for shirts. But I was lazy to iron them, so rather than owning like 5 shirts and iron every week, I got about three weeks worth of shirts, so I can do laundry less often. I never ran out of them, and almost never needed to iron them all at the same time.
Then I got sick, then life got busy. I was close to running out of non wrinkled shirts! I piled up the little mountain of wrinkled clothes, ready to iron them all for once and all.
It was then that I realized, I did not have enough hangers for all shirts! I never hung them up all at once I guess. Sigh.
I finally ironed about half of them, depleting all my hangers.
This morning, when I finally was able to put on a wrinkled free shirt, I suddenly realized… I just switched team; I do not need to wear ironed shirts any more!
Doh! Now where are my non shirt clothes? And.. What am I going to do with all the flat and some still-wrinkled shirts?
I heard it’s already spring break, or that it is coming. I don’t know which.
I used to look forward to the 3 breaks. The Summer break, the Winter break, and Spring break, though Spring break was always too short, Winter break too cold, and Summer break too hot in AC-less classrooms.
Now, seasons mean absolutely nothing to me. Hm.. maybe especially in Seattle
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/seattle_weather
There is always some kind of deadline for some project. There is always more chores to be done at home. There is always more TV shows that I “want” to watch but not enough time. Sometimes I wonder why we only have 24 hours a day. If God can slow the Earth down a bit so we can have more hours a day, do you think there will be even more deadlines, chores, and TV shows? Or perhaps everything will be in slow motion..
I always think owls look like humans with beautiful eyes. Hm.. maybe more like beautiful aliens with mysterious and hypnotic eyes.
