The Planet Blog

Alright, alright … you can sit down and stop applauding. I know you are excited to see multiple blogs from me in the course of only a few days, but I am far too humble to accept the ovation that I so clearly deserve. I have officially been employed by The Planet for 26 days as of this blog post, but I haven’t really done my job to give you a real “look” inside the company.

There’s no need to fear (shout out to all of you UnderDog fans out there) … I have begun my quest to unveil what the “behind the scenes” looks like here with a picturesque view of The Planet’s Houston offices. I hear the unanimous groaning of the audience that this post will not include my discourse on the meaning of life or my thoughts on the best colored shoes for any occasion, but those topics can stay in the hopper for a rainy day (which is not very uncommon here in Houston as of late).

If you can place where “It’s Business Time!” comes from, you get an air-5 (think of it as an internet “High Five“) directly from me. Typically, the white boards in nearly every room in the office are filled with scribbled half-writing and diagrams, but that message seemed the best opening to our tour. Click on any of the below images for a full-sized version, and please excuse any poor photographic composition. I’m an expert in a lot of things, but photography is not one of them.

I took this picture in the lobby of our headquarters, and it could use a little explanation. At a recent company meeting, teams of employees got “The Planet” building blocks to compete for a “Best Design” award, and the constructions that survived the car ride back to the office are on display in several places. There is a deeper, more philosophical meaning for a bridge-like construction deep in the heart of Texas, but I’ll leave those intricacies for another post.

71% of the Earth is covered by water, so what better than a mini-ocean behind our reception desk? If you look closely, you can see every fish in The Planet (note: this cheesy wordplay could potentially be a staple in my posts).

This conference room is linked with the other Planet offices via video and audio conferencing. Because our team is separated by a few hundred miles, face-to-screen-to-face is a great alternative to email or phone conferences for our weekly meetings. The most legendary and mythical of the meetings: The 7:30 a.m. “State of the Company” management meeting first-thing Monday morning. Well, some people get in at 6 a.m., so it might be fourth-thing Monday morning for them.

The Oasis, The Water Cooler, The Place Where Diets Go To Die … you can take your pick of names for this area. A coffee machine waiting in the wings, caffeinated drinks in the fridge, and countless snack possibilities make this a dangerously amazing place to hang out.

My desk. Can you just see the awesomeness emanating? If you click on the above picture to see the larger version, you can see a Homer’s head Rubick’s Cube, a Sudoku Rubick’s Cube, a Nerf Buzz Saw and a uniquely functional “door on top of two filing cabinets” desk.

This is Doug Erwin’s office. No huge view, no fancy chairs, no expensive desk. It gives great insight to the way Doug operates and “I’m here to get it done” mentality.

This is where the magic happens. Our tech support folks collectively take up residence in this area 24×7x365. You’ll note that we make every attempt to block out as much natural light as possible since everyone knows that the best work on the Internet is done with extremely limited exposure to that “sun” thing.

I’ll give you two guesses as to this area’s function, and the first one doesn’t count. If you are curious as to which of the tables is the “cool kids’ table,” the answer is easy: whichever one I grace with my presence.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. So we’ve got a pool table and treadmills (along with some other toys) available to all of our employees. Scroll down to see the “other toys.”

Since I’m new here, I’m flying under the radar when it comes to table tennis and foosball. I made quite a name for myself by winning the table sport biathlon gold medal at the little-known “Indoor Recreation Games.” As a note, I completely fabricated that fact in my utter modesty. I apologize.

Clearly, this is not an exhaustive tour of our offices here in Houston nor does it even scratch the surface of the setup we’ve got in Dallas. But it’s a peek at “A Day In The Life of A Planet Employee.”

Before you grab your torches and pitchforks to hunt me down and scream obscenities about not seeing any of the data centers, I will disclaim that I can get a few in-action pictures in a D.C. or two in a future post. But there is so much to see , that if I included pictures from that side, this post would read like “War and Peace.”

- Kevin

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under The Planet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.