Vancouver meets Toronto

Why working for a startup is awesome

Reason #5: Working from home on a Friday before a long weekend

This past week, my “office” has taken many forms:

• Starbucks patio
• Panera Bread booth
• Yonge-Bloor subway
• Mississauga Transit bus
• Square One Mall food court

The nature of my job requires me to travel around for coffee chats all over the GTA. At first, this was annoying to me because I’m used to having a car and taking transit takes foreeever. But then I realized that taking transit gave me a unique opportunity to get a lot of work done. In fact, not having access to internet when working on the subway is great because it allows me to dive deep into content creation or brainstorming without the constant harangue of emails and tweets.

So here I am - taking Skype calls at Starbucks and creating hotspot tethers to my iPhone at the Square One Mall food court. On-the-Go Productivity Rockstar. My new title.

One of my university professors told a funny story from when he was an independent consultant: when asked how many offices he had, he would say, “Oh, hundreds!” to make himself sound more impressive than he actually was. He was referring, of course, to his many Starbucks offices located throughout the city.

A bit tongue-in-cheek, but the message rings true. Being productive doesn’t necessarily require a desk, a chair, a lamp, a keyboard, and a mouse. If you’ve got a brain and a pen/paper (or iPad or laptop), then anywhere can be your office.

Work Time-Out

After a busy and slightly strange morning of sales calls and meetings, and major technical issues with testing the new pages for our website, I was feeling pretty drained. Unmotivated. A bit of a failure at life.

And apparently it was fairly obvious during my EOD chat with C. He enthusiastically encouraged (read: just shy of commanded) me to get off my laptop, stop thinking about work for the day, and go for a run/bike ride to clear my head. I struggled with it for a while because there’s just so. much. work. to. be. done. 

But what can I say? I follow direction well. Plus, it is a bit sad that I spent all that money shipping my bike from Vancouver only to have it gather cobwebs in the foyer for the last 6 weeks. So I hopped on my trusty seed and set forth for the Lower Don Valley Trail, which I had seen several times during my runs around the neighbourhood.

It’s one of the main bike paths in Toronto, which runs along the Don Valley River. It’s quite nice because it almost feels like nature. That is, if you just stare at the trees on the embankment and ignore the the random men drinking beers on logs and the graffitied fence and railway track on the other side of the path. (Well, it’s no Vancouver seawall.)

It was nice to just be biking in the city, and even nicer to get over my phobia of biking in a city that doesn’t have the same level of bike protection (e.g. bike lanes and bike dedicated streets) as Vancouver. Not to mention having to “share” (I use the term very loosely) the road with streetcars and regular cars!

It felt good to be moving, getting some fresh air, and exploring a new part of the city. Birds were chirping. The sun was setting. All was good with the world. Then there was a detour, and I ended up near the Don Valley Parkway (DVP, or Don Valley Parking Lot as the locals call it) on a sketchy side street. That was less nice.

I cycled through Corktown for a bit, and then somehow managed to get on the part of Bayview that merges onto the DVP (a highway!). Despite my panic, I somehow managed to turn myself around, and ended up in Cabbagetown. Which meant breathing in lots of delicious pollution and trying not to get killed by streetcars. 

I found Dundas as soon as I could after that and beelined for home. Which, unfortunately, meant a long, gradual uphill on Logan. Luckily my gams held up and I arrived home relatively unscathed.

The moral of the story (if there is one): sometimes, it’s really important to step away from work for a while and get yourself sorted out. Just make sure you don’t nearly bike onto a highway and kill yourself.

Reason #4: Juggling Many Hats

Over the last two weeks, I spearheaded the recruitment process for our “Wordpress Ninja” (yes, that’s the official job title - refer to Reason #1), so we were joking that I became the HR Department. This week, I’m creating, refining, and editing the license agreement for our coaching program… Thereby making me the Legal Department ;-)

I quite enjoy the variety of work. It keeps me challenged, and staying sharp is critical in this line of work.

That being said, I’m really glad I never went into law. Contracts are mind-numbing.

One aspect of my job that I really love is product development. Creating structure & content is so much fun for me! The downside is that it requires a lot of brain energy. I’ve had 4 different blog posts floating in my head, but I’ve been so drained every day this week after coming home from work that I just haven’t been able to these thoughts down to paper (er… HTML?). I’m hoping I can get to some fun posts tomorrow.

Today was another full day of content creation, plus a 3-hour networking event in the evening. That type of social activity is draining for me (plus, there was no “real” food at the event, and I get a wee bit cranky when I haven’t eaten), so I’m definitely feeling like a zombie. Mmm, brains.

What I’ve just written already reads less comprehensibly than my usual prose. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. One which includes watching the Rogers Open matinee with C, so I can’t complain too much. ;-)

Reason #3: Things change, and quickly

Went from 2 weeks of vacation to 5 weeks during a 3-year vision outlook from C.

Booya!

Reason #2: Strange Work Hours

It’s Day 4 on the job, and it’s my day off. Booya! Since I worked “overtime” last night by attending the Virtacore event, and I will be away from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon for our staff retreat at Blue Mountain, I got today off in lieu.

Reason #1: Outlandish Job Titles

While ordering business cards this afternoon, I went from “Facilitation Manager” to “Director of Partnerships & Facilitation.”

Booya!

So I started my first day at Actionable Books today. It’s a mere 10-15 minute transit via streetcar, which is all kinds of awesome. 

It’s a home office located at C’s house, which is this 100+ year-old beautiful Victorian house that he and his wife A have put modern touches on. I absolutely love it.

What I don’t love is the 4 flights of stairs to the bathroom, but it helps that the bathroom is gorgeous. Slanted ceilings with skylights, and featuring an old-fashioned claw bathtub. Can you tell I’m in love with the house?

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