You’re a UX Designer? No way. The startup I work for is looking for a UX Designer. Or, I should say, a “UX Grenadier.” Someone who can “drop crazy bombs down the hatch of traditional user analytics.” That’s actually a quote from our job ad. Pretty wacky, huh? Well, that’s only the beginning. Let me tell you just how quirky and unique the startup I work for really is.
First of all, there’s the workplace itself. It’s not some drab office with gray carpet and fluorescent lights. It’s a loft with exposed brick everywhere. And I mean everywhere. The walls? Exposed brick. The floors? Exposed brick. The ceiling? Exposed brick. The toilets? The filing cabinets? The windows? It’s all brick, and it’s all totally exposed. Even the dividers between our PODs are exposed brick.
Oh, sorry. I sometimes forget that our unconventional naming conventions don’t always make sense to people on the outside. My bad. PODs are “Productivity-Optimized Desques.” Not desks. Desques. D-e-s-q-u-e-s.
By spelling it differently, we’re able to free ourselves from the negative connotations that the word “desk” carries in today’s corporate culture. Desques aren’t prisons where we’re forced to toil away for eight hours a day. They’re positive places. They’re where we have a couple beers and make crafts on Craft Wednesdays. And where we have a couple beers and sell our crafts on Craft Fair Thursdays. And where we have a couple beers and disassemble the crafts we bought on De-Craft Fridays so that we can put all the pieces back into the craft supply pile for next week, because it was never really about the crafts, you know?
Also, just to be clear, desques aren’t desks. They’re ping-pong tables. Exposed brick ping-pong tables. An artist in Detroit builds each one out of bricks from buildings that’ve been knocked down, so they’re all a little different. Our CEO went out there just recently to visit the guy’s studio and watch him work. He told us all about it last week at Beer Tuesday, which is when we all come together at the end of the day to have a couple beers and just chill.
He’s cool like that, our CEO: always friendly, always down to Earth, not your traditional stuck-up businessman. Which makes sense considering he didn’t even study business in college. He studied horticulture. Until he dropped out, at least. After that he wrote songs and jumped trains for a while before it hit him: he belonged in the technology industry.
But of course, you’d know all about this if you’d read his profile in Tech Weekly’s “30 Under 30” or Startup Magazine’s “40 under 40” or The Journal of Innovation’s “50 under 50” or Digital Online’s “73 under 73” or InfoBlog’s “Several People Who Are Doing Pretty Well When You Consider How Old They Are.” But he doesn’t let all the exposure go to his head. He’s still the first to show up for Beer Tuesday and the last to leave.
Oh, and by the way, Beer Tuesday is actually every Monday. That’s an inside joke. We have a lot of inside jokes.
And you can be in on them too. All you need to do is apply. A word to the wise, though: don’t submit some boring old cover letter and resume. We look for people who really have fun with the application process. Like the woman who applied to join our team of In-Yo-Face Interface Specialist by sending a crossword puzzle where all the answers were different job skills she had. Seriously, we would’ve hired her in a heartbeat if anyone had been able to solve the “contact information” clue.
Or the guy who applied to be a Web Development Soothsayer by uploading a video of his mom talking about his skills and experience. She was so cute and funny, stuttering through all the advanced coding languages he knew and whatnot. In fact, we loved her so much that we decided to hire her instead of her son. And it’s worked out great. She really gives our web development team the outside perspective that they were missing.
So yeah, if you’re interested, let me know. I’ll put in a good word for you with our CEO next time we have a Wiffle Weekend. That’s when we all get together on a Saturday or Sunday, have a couple beers, and play Wiffle ball. Although, honestly, I can’t remember the last time we actually played Wiffle ball.
Tags: humor, sean adams, silicon valley, startups, sweet offices
Hahahahaha oh, man. Knowing a few people that work for startups and having heard them talk like this about how much greater their company is than other companies and blah blah blah “things that sound exhausting and also too good to be true and are likely masking some serious disorganization that will bite them when the company starts to grow,” this article is right on the nose. Love it!
Alternately, “We thought a LOT about the fun parts and getting people to want to work for us but not enough about the rest of it!” I’ve heard a lot of that kind of stuff from my “cool job having” friends.
I call shenanigans. A tech startup hiring a woman over a brogrammer?
also hiring anyone over 40
Are these Desques standing ones, or does that just go without saying?
I vote for the kind with motors in that you can adjust throughout the day. They’re FANTASTIC. My old job had them and they help so much when you’re working at a desk all day. Sometimes sitting and sometimes standing.
Or treadmill desques?
Actually, we have elliptical trainer desques, because the movement is so much more *organic* than treadmill walking.
They’re standing desks (Stånding Desques) but if you want to balance a few of those exercise ball chairs on top of each other, I’m sure they’d be down with that.
Breaking traditional workplace expectations! Breaking barriers! Breaking bones when your stack of balanced exercise ball chairs spills you onto all that exposed brick.
I work at such a place and while I like it very much here at the moment, I did literally have to stop and look at my desk to make sure it wasn’t actually just an unpainted ping-pong table… haha
Ohhhhmygod I applied at a place like this out of college! They did not hire me, possibly because my ping pong skills are totally nonexistant. Now I’m not sure if I resent them for that, or if all the smug/fakish supercoolness just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. You nailed it though. Nailed it.
The superficiality and “LOOK HOW COOL WE ARE” always makes me assume they’re going to have either a horrible bro-culture or just ridiculously underpay me and overwork me.
I applied to intern at a place like that when I finished college and their entire company culture was literally built around the fact that they had a slide in their office. When I went to the interview, I was interviewed by 6 different people in suits who never smiled.
Or both.
I worked for one for a bit, and yeah, it was both of those. No health insurance or HR department, but lots of open misogyny, racism, and xbox friday. Also there was only one office toilet, which for a while was designated for CEO shitting only. Everyone else was supposed to leave the building.
I know it shouldn’t surprise me in light of the rest of your comment, but the toilet thing just really got to me. Seriously??
So what do you do?
-“I’m a programmer. I build meaningful things. I make an impact in the world.”
Oh? Have I heard of the company?
-” Probably. We’re called _______(some noun with an -ly tacked on at the end, with no vowels). We just received 400 million dollars in funding to create an app that lets you share selfies with people in 3rd world countries to inspire them to be like us. We don’t actually make money, but that’s expected when you’re passionate about your work like I am. What do YOU do?”
I’m a doctor.
-“Must suck to have such a boring job where you can only help one person at a time…have you considered learning to code? Then you can help improve the lives of MILLIONS like I did”
HAVE YOU CONSIDERED LEARNING TO CODE.
The answer to life’s problems.
Code: It’s plumbing, but you never even get to see shit move.
Oh yeah? http://jsfiddle.net/uzMPU/
(notice the exposed brick!)
If I had a dollar for every time someone told me, “Have you considered learning to code? It could totally change your life!”, I could fund my very own useless tech startup.
If I had a dollar for every time someone at a party asked me if I’ve considered learning to code… I wouldn’t even need the freaking job. (Too bad coding is boring)
Ha! I guess this is a really common thing. I don’t understand code-evangelism. Wouldn’t it be bad for all the programmers if the market were (even more) flooded with their kind? How much coding actually needs to be done, on a daily basis??
Well… the market isn’t flooded with programmers, actually. There’s lots and lots of openings for software engineers and software developers. And the answer is: more code than you think! But I don’t ask people if they’ve considered learning to code at a party… that seems like a weird thing to do at a party. Fun fact: I worked with a computer science summer camp that was all about teaching girls technology and letting them experience it without having a bunch of dudes around. It was awesome! Those girls were brilliant.
I want to go to there!
As a programmer, I have to say I absolutely love writing code and solving problems. But it’s not for everyone!
I think most people hear “code” and think “screen full of mysterious numbers and letters and brackety things” rather than “problem solving.” From what I’ve heard, the coding is really just the gateway to the problem solving, which is the actual fun part.
I only venture into anything that might be called “coding” or, more accurately “copying and possibly making minor edits to other people’s bits of code from the internet” when I find something really, really annoying. But my non-coding stance is far more related to my being the child of two computer programmers than any belief that it’s not actually interesting. Problem solving is fun, I just prefer my problems to be building shaped.
Most people are like you and find coding boring. I think that might have something to do with why certain people go to very great lengths to dramatize the idea that they aren’t actually boring.
I might like working at a startup, except, you know, this. Is there one that isn’t made out of beer and frat behavior? Because if there was one where the jokes came from sending around articles from the toast and there was always wine Wednesdays, that I could get into.
I will co-start-up this with you. Toast Tuesdays, Wine Wednesdays, book club meets Friday over lunch and at the end of a long day someone brings us a box of kittens to snuggle?
As someone who likes beers and also weird liquors, can I chair the once-a-month Weird New Drink Wednesdays?
Right after graduating college, I worked the campaign cycle as a junior flunky who helped recruit and train the phone-banking volunteers. Lots of folks were afraid to work the phones, so part of our job was encouraging them to give it an honest go. One woman brought in her therapy dog, who was a beautiful, sociable but super-chill golden retriever. She totally got off the hook for ducking phone calls, since all the staff wanted to do was spend every free moment sitting on the floor petting dog ears. Seriously, there is no better moral boost for a passionate but over-worked and under-slept group of people.
Change approved! (Also, I’d be interested in some sort of Sloe Gin Fizz Saturdays…I’ve never had a sloe gin fizz, but they sound so 50s girl-in-the-big-city…like something out of an Elaine Dundy novel.)
Oooh, good timing. Sloe gin’s respectability levels took a major down-turn to the point that I can’t imagine not getting a dark look for ordering it from a typical bar. It’s basically turned into yet another flavor of Dekuyper’s (or, if I’m being really mean, a new flavor of Cuervo). But a few of the hoighty-toighty types are starting to mass-produce based on the original recipe (ie, actually using gin), so hopefully we’ll soon be able to get our own bottles of it in the states.
Mallory-seducing wikipedia pull-quote:
A sloe gin competition is held each January in Dorstone, Herefordshire, with the winner crowned the “Grand Master of the Sloes”.
Grand Master of the Sloes!
I had a conversation with a bartender once about Sloe Gin, but I know so little about alcohol (I like wine? Sometimes beer? My dad makes good gin and tonics?) and I had already had so much to drink that I retained basically none of the conversation.
All of my thoughts on cocktails are romantic ideas I got from reading too many books and watching too much TV.
No Misandry Thursdays?
Misandry Mondays! At But What Do You Do Exactly? Start-Up, we believe firmly in alliteration.
Every day is Misandry Day, dear.
It would be like the Pawnee Goddesses, but for profit.
I believe the condescending startup culture term for the type of company you want is a “lifestyle business.” My understanding is if you’re getting venture capital money you basically have to be able to impress the VCs by being the cool-bro-frat company they would totally work at if they didn’t have all these piles of money sitting around needing to be invested.
“lifestyle” as in we give you all these perks to hide the fact that you will be spending your whole life in this office.
You mean our Bespoke Princess Coat Startup??
GUYS THIS IS MAKING ME NERVOUS I AM STARTING AN AD AGENCY
no for real I am
my desk is a giant vintage arcade machine
Also since I am currently employed somewhere else, I just looked to the right of my desk and there is exposed brick oh my god
I am sitting on a neon color couch so it could be worse.
If it’s any consolation, I work in a drab office and there are definitely fluorescent lights. And the carpet? Yep, gray.
There’s florescent lights in my office too! I don’t understand the point of identifying our office as a “cool” office if we have florescent lights
My lights are fluorescent, my carpet is beige and my office is a windowless box with poor heat.
I work in a drab grey cubicle. My sole consolation is when the office coordinator bought new fluorescent light bulbs yesterday she accidentally got grow lights. Now the grey is vaguely pink-tinged.
My office is drab and horrible (it has cinderblock walls & no windows, so perhaps more horrible than your average drab office) but every ladies’ bathroom has ACRES of pink tile. Floors and walls the color of Pepto-Bismol. Beat that, quirkplaces!
yours will be fabulous though (where is it and can I be in it)
There is exposed brick right behind me as well as artistically revealed old wallpaper that is below the modern medium grey painted walls.
I do not work at a tech start up. The owners, however, do like renaming everything.
I work in the ugliest academic building in Holland so it’s a little concrete room with flourescent lights, but at some point next year we’re moving to a different building that’s been renovated. Hopefully the office can really fit three people then.
Exposed brick ping pong tables.
I know a startup that has themed conference rooms: ski lodge, picnic, pirate ship. Also a hidden bar in their kitchen.
I hate Silicon Valley.
I know a startup that had conference rooms named after David Bowie albums, which I am…100% down for, tbh
I think I’d claim the Hunky Dory room as my own because CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES.
They’d need a team in full riot gear to remove me.
Our conference rooms are named after dead musicians (as long as they didn’t commit suicide), which I dig. We are to all other appearances a serious law firm.
When I interviewed at Amazon, there was a ping-pong table in the next room. My husband works at a food-centric website and their conference rooms are named after various foods, including but not limited to turducken. (there’s also always a keg called “the idea machine” and a conference room with cornhole in it.) I think these are supposed to make up for how everyone makes 15% below market.
“They always say, ‘We do things a little differently around here.'” BUT THEY NEVER DO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtLY6pa2zcY
Maria Bamford is the patron saint of temps. Like, last time a plucky little company said that to me, the CEO blocked my full-time job offer because I’m fat, which, OK, if you guys want to be different, refuse to hire me because the Oracle found me wanting or something. Whatever. There was a lot of exposed brick.
“What do you guys actually do though?”
“Yeah, I don’t think you’d be a good fit…”
_culture_ fit.
Blah blah blah, delightful, blah blah blah, it’s like Facebook for golfers, blah blah blah, who’s your angel, blah blah blah, it’s like Snapchat but for fascists, blah blah blah, changing the world one app at a time, blah blah blah, can we do something about all the homeless people in SoMa, blah blah blah, thank god I have three-day weekends so I can get down to LA because the chicks in San Francisco are…well like I said it’s a good thing there’s a good supply in LA. (That last one I have actually heard coming out of some dudebro’s mouth!)
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
It’s a ping-pong table.
Oh! What about the hiring process! “We want to make sure you’re a good fit for our office culture, so you’ll interview with every full-timer and two part-timers and one intern, just in case.”
We had FOUR in person interviews. Over four days! They had to give everyone input in the hiring decision, “because we’re like a family”. They had”office dogs”. They had a chef who brought us pastries and coffee every morning at ten on a little cart. The coffee or tea was in real china. The pastries were fancy, not Entenmem’s but Real because store bought was ‘not cool’. There was always fresh fruit in the break rooms. There was original srt by Jean Cocteau and other artists. There was a bicycle room of bikes to ride on the campus. We had a formal coffee break every day at 3, with snacks, of course. The owners used to fight in Italian sometimes. Sadly, they went out of business. I still have my Italian mug.
The first week on the job I was reprimanded for drinking water from a plastic bottle. No plastic! The owners were too good for plastic.
That’s how I got the fancy Italian mug. “We don’t drink out of plastic, cara.” Also, I guess I could say, thats how you go out of business, though.
A little less time picking out Chagalls, a little more time actually making money? Just sayin’
I could get down with daily coffee delivery, though, I must say.
Hearing the part where they are Italian, none of that surprises me. Dogs everywhere, coffee breaks all the time, sweets for snacks. Yup yup yup.
I hate every job but this reminds me that I hate cool jobs the most.
I am in fact, currently half-looking for a new job as a UX Designer, and this is too accurate.
Sorry, I can’t be your UX Grenadier though, I’m a pacifist. Do you have any openings for a UX Bene Gesserit?
I had a “cool startup” job that I left and now have a boring nonprofit job and 95% of the time I would totally trade it back. At least the chance of running into a flying remote-control shark lightened up the afternoon.
In my current, and my most recent, jobs I have worked for tech associated companies that are just coming over the hill from “sick start up” to “boring corporation” and it’s such an interesting transition to watch. At my last job it meant a lot of all studio real talks about drinking in the building after hours. Yet the cool guy bosses would totally drink beers in the alley pretty regularly.
This new tech bubble can’t pop soon enough.
Upon reading this, I could immediately name at least a half-dozen variously quirky-named places my friends work, all of which involve exposed brick, dog-friendly offices, and a 40% chance of going out of business in the next two years.
I work at a nonprofit/startup hybrid with one of those ultra-cool and collegial open office plans. It seems cool until you’re trying to get work done and you can see and hear every single person in the office. There are dogs in the office, which sounds fun until you’re focusing on your screen and people start throwing balls for them right by your head. I have actually said these words out loud at work: “I can’t work with balls in my face, guys!” which of course, was heard by everyone in the office, due to our open office layout.
I didn’t think anyone else was bothered by it until someone made a survey to send out asking opinions on it and surprise, pretty much EVERYONE hates it. The only people to speak up and say they really liked the open office plan are of course, the chattiest, most distracting busybody types.
I don’t mind the young, “hip” vibe of the place, but it does make it pretty difficult to actually get any work done. My team has started working from home once a week to actually finish projects. Sadly necessary!
It would be like the Pawnee Goddesses, but for profit.