A year at ThinkGeek

In some ways, its hard to believe I’ve been at ThinkGeek for over a year now. So why don’t I blog about it, you may ask, and its a fair enough question. Its not like my last job, where discussing work was more than strongly discouraged. Of course, a lot of things about this job are different. To the rolling eyes of my wife, I routinely work fifty or more hours a week. And I don’t mind. I like what I do, I like where I work. The only time it feels like a sacrifice to work those hours is when the kids ask if I might be home on the weekend (for the record, I haven’t had to go into the office on a weekend yet, but there have been some close calls lately). Granted, its nice to work somewhere labeled one of the six cool companies to work for by CNBC 🙂

But what do I talk about? I can’t talk about the cool things people are working on – that would take away the surprise (and possibly incur licensing issues). My part in the process is a bit behind the scenes (“I make things go.”). And I can’t gossip. So what can I say?

I can say that it is definitely getting your geek on to work somewhere where you can mention something from geek culture and there be at least one other person in the room that knows exactly what you’re talking about. Where you can try randomly strange (or bacon’ed) (and of course, caffeinated) foods as a part of doing your part for the company. Where folks with surgical masks and blood splatters joke with the guy dressed as a Ghostbuster – and its not Halloween, its a perfectly  normal day. And for us, it really is. And yes, I’ve had to wait to use the bathroom while the photo shoot of a Boomer plush  from Left4Dead2 was wrapping up. Perfectly normal. Lord only knows what the other tenants in our building think of us, though. The other offices are more traditional, dealing with mortgages and assessments and the averagely mundane, shirt and tie kind of places that must really arch an eyebrow at our come as you are work place. (Have I mentioned I haven’t worn pants in seven plus months? Kind of proud of that, actually.)

So how does that relate to the tomb like silence of this blog? Well, in some ways, it doesn’t, but really, it does. I’ve been putting a little bit more time into work lately, and its only going to escalate as the holiday season approaches. Its no secret we’re facing some amazing growth lately, but that growth means needing more infrastructure and support, and that’s my job to take care of. My free time these days is mostly devoted to making up missed hours with the kids and detoxing my brain for the next week of work. Occasionally, I’ll do some writing (I have a nice little short story I’m still working on, all dark magic urban fantasy crap that’s been fun to try and write), but mostly its catching up on TV and hanging with the girls, and of course, with the saintly woman that agreed to betroth me.

OK, off to take care of some errands. I’m planning on making SteakUms tonight, which childhood memory says are awesome (need to come up with a backup plan, though, as reality and memory of Spam showed us). Might try and post the pics from yesterday’s escapade at the pumpkin patch, at least the ones I captured. Later!