People often tell me they think I work in some glorious office building, or at least somewhere cool. This is pretty far from the truth. On site I've worked in "Green Acres", the e-Cave, shop floor mezzanines, and now a trailer.
"Green Acres" was the first place I worked on site. It was the green office area, which picked up its folksy nickname because you were deep inside a manufacturing building, bathed in constant fluorescent light, unable to hear anything from the outside. If you came in to work and the sun was shining, your brain expected the sun to be shining when you left. Unless lightning struck the building, we were completely oblivious to outside noise. Just the constant hum of fluorescent lighting.
Later I switched groups and was given the opportunity to work in the e-Cave. Imagine a room with open faced cubicles lining the walls. Seven interns and four salaried workers all crammed into a big open room with some conference room chairs, a projector, and a screen. My fondest memories of working on site were from the e-Cave. Come 11am, the whole crew would rally for lunch. I swear those were the most productive years; my old boss swears they were the least productive years.
This same group got bounced around to various locations, eventually settling down in a shop floor mezzanine. We stayed there for almost 3 years. It wasn't bad, the interns had their own 'row', we spent a lot of time in each others cubes. Pretty standard corporate experience....except the place smelled like feet (ed: as I am writing this my shoes are off and I'm just in socks...no idea why that place smelled like feet, nope).
Not too long ago we got the news that we would be moving to the 14-wide. This 14 trailer wide (yes 14) "modular office space" is actually the bigger of two trailers built on the far side of the site. Our sister trailer is only 13-wide, but it is hard to tell they are short one trailer. Our trailer is complete with a buried septic tank (that has hit the critical level alarm twice), offsite power (we've lost it no less than 3 times), and a gravel parking lot. I will say though that parking is a lot more fun when you can fishtail into a spot.
It is hard not to laugh at where I work. I work for a Fortune 10 company...in a trailer. We do all sorts of crazy nuclear methods...in a trailer. But wait, this isn't just any trailer. This is an Almost Award Winning Trailer. Our 14-wide received honorable mention in the 2007 Modular Building Institute Awards of Distinction for a modular office space of <5,000sqft. I'm sure we were neck-and-neck with the Trenton Police Department, so congratulations to them for their hard work and modular working environment.
Let us remember that in the world of working in a trailer, everybody is a winner!
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