Several times in the past few weeks I’ve been up on the third floor of our Mozilla office here in Mountain View and folks have asked me questions along the lines of “How long are you in town for?” or “You’re moving here soon, right?”. Well, here’s the thing – I’ve been living in California since mid-October and working in our Mountain View office on the second floor this whole time.
When I was an intern in the summer of 2008 and we were at our previous offices I hardly saw folks from Building S because I was in Building K. Now I rarely see people from the third floor, and even the folks who sit in the other half of the second floor are strangers to me.
I could blame office layout, but the bricks aren’t going to move any time soon. So it’s up to me to do something about the lack of social interaction that my desk location provides me with.
This is the first job I’ve had with this many employees so I’m going to experiment a bit with ways to help me connect with the people I work with every day. Dria suggested going to sit up in Ten Forward (our huge gathering space) once a day. She said it would guarantee that I would run in to everyone eventually. I’ll certainly try this, though not every day. Other thoughts I’ve had for ways to interact more with my co-workers include starting a lunch time Settlers of Catan game, making an effort to go for lunch with people who are not on my team, and doing a lap around the office (both floors) with the dog to give us both a stretch and to chat with whoever isn’t too busy.
If you’re ever on the second floor, behind the conference room, in the little pocket where Release Engineering and IT are situated – say Hi!
Lunchtime Settlers would be awesome. I'd totally play when I'm in town 🙂
Or just come and hang out in the comfy chair by Laura and my desk — we love company!
One thing I make sure I do whenever I'm on MV is to take time to just walk around the office when I need a short (or long) break. I get to stretch my legs, and catch up with people at the same time.