Office space

A little while back, someone asked for photos of the office. Your wish is my command!

Here’s a shot of the lobby. The couches here are pretty comfy; I occasionally ditch my desk and bring my laptop here to read long documents. It’s a shame that the WiFi signal doesn’t reach out to this part of the office.

The lobby has the usual magazines one would expect at an Internet company: eWeek, PC World and the like, but for some reason, we also have issues of Global gaming Business, a magazine for the casino and gambling industry. It’s actually a pretty fascinating read.

These inflatable cows are perched atop the shelving unit that houses the technical library. They weren’t specifically made for Tucows, but for the Dairy Farmers of Ontario milk promo.

Visitors will notice the cow motif everywhere. In case you were wondering, Tucows used to be an acronym for “The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software”. The company’s focus has since moved to movin’ bits across the ‘net in new, interesting and useful ways, but there’s so much goodwill towards the name that it stayed.

This is the central aisle of the office. My desk is the third one on the left, making it one of the most centrally-located desks. I’m in the middle of everything, kind of like Signor Antonio from The Merchant of Venice!

If I got my hands on a lifeguard’s platform, I could set up a nice little panopticon.

Tucows Central Command is nice and brightly-lit thanks to nine large skylights and this reflective fluorescent lighting system (someone once called them “airport lights” — it does remind me of Kansai International Airport, which in turn reminds me of a well-scrubbed brightly painted Babylon 5). These fixtures have all the energy-efficiency of flouroscent lighting, but none of the ugly.

Here’s where I make the Technical Community Development Coordinator magic happen. Although I do make use of the company-provided Dell, my preference is to use my own faster, smarter and sexier Apple 12″ G4 Powerbook for the “heavy lifting”.

A little game of cat and mouse. The cats are from my little desktop shrine of tchochkes.