Some things are the same regardless of if you are in a ‘regular’ office or a co-working space.
Being new is still being new. You still accidentally and awkwardly introduce yourself to people in the kitchen that you actually met only the day before. It still takes a while to get a feel for what the unspoken phone-use policy is, especially given the openness of the space. You definitely don’t get the hang of the coffee machine in a month’s time and as with most work environments, what some of the people you work with actually do is a complete mystery.
Serversaurus, where exactly are your high density enterprise grade computer nodes? Are they perhaps in the computer?
Which brings us to what I’m actually doing here in the Electron Workshop. As Jeanette posted last month, I’m working on a project that aims to give students more meaningful insight into what different jobs entail.
Interviewees so far have included an assistant sound engineer, a colourist and a process chemist. All jobs that – I think – don’t give too much away in their title about what you actually do! It’s been fascinating to learn about some of the work that goes into making a song sound the way it does by the time you or I listen to it, making a short film appear the way it does by the time we watch it and the work that goes into manufacturing what I gather is a fundamental ingredient for sealants, paints and adhesives. I don’t think ‘ingredient’ was quite the right word there but you get the general gist.
Given I have only a very vague idea of what most of the other Electron Workshop members do, I think I’ll start interviews here this month! First up, whoever the 3-D printer belongs to…
Although I’ve been out and about interviewing a bit, Electron Workshop has been a great home base and I’ve really enjoyed working from here. I’ve quickly realised that it’s actually quite important to have some separation between work and home, and there is something quite motivating (or maybe just mildly anxiety inducing) about being surrounded by other people working.
By next post, I hope to know what some of them are working on!
– Jenny Jiang
