Office Bliss

I've been meaning to write a post about this for a while now, and today seems like the perfect time to do it!  An article just came out in Business Week that features my company's beautiful Dallas office.  Although some of the statements in the article are incorrect (we don't have a happy hour in the office every Friday), most of them are pretty spot on.

Here's a link to the article: See Why My Office Rocks

And here are the top ten reasons I am so blessed to work where I do (commenting on non-work perks only - tacking on why I like my actual job would be another list of ten reasons!):

10. My company pays for my cell phone bill.  Thank you, BCG, for my beautiful iPhone 4S.  Yes, this might mean you expect me to read and respond to work emails beyond the set 9-5 hours, but it also means I am less one personal bill each month!

9. Proximity.  My office is in walking distance of: my apartment, my favorite sandwich shop, the American Airlines Center, and the Katy Trail.  Talk about turning Dallas into a "walkable city."  Going to a Mavs game?  Park and walk.  Running after work?  Walk straight there.  Pretty day outside? Stroll to work on two wheels instead of four.  It's great.

8. We have a fully stocked beer fridge.  Whether it's been a hard week or it's a pretty day outside or you need a little pre-game booze before heading to a Mavs game, it's nice to pop one open on our terrace after work.

7. Speaking of...our terrace.  High above uptown Dallas on the 23rd floor, it's beautiful and conveniently located directly next to my desk.  On pretty days we'll pull out the cornhole or eat lunch outside or even set up our laptops for an afternoon of working in the sun.  We have a direct view of the downtown lights, so it's not a bad view after dark, either.

6. Summer Retreat.  Every summer our whole office (significant others and children included!) take a Friday off and hit the road for the hill country.  What ensues is a three day retreat full of costume parties, cocktail hours, lounging by the pool, and going to the spa.  Not a bad way to spend a "weekend at work!"

5. Special events.  We also have other events throughout the year like our annual Holiday Party or our Bring Your Kids to Work Day or our Halloween Party.  We have March Madness parties with pizza and games blasted up on the big screens.  We have a community service day that the whole office participates in.  And we have a staff appreciation day where we take a half day off work to do something fun (this year it's a cooking class!).  Work hard, play hard, right?

4. Food.  Oh, the food.  People warned me when I started to beware of the BCG Fifteen.  I thought it was a joke.  It twas not.  Besides the fact that I eat about 1/5 of my meals for free because there is always some sort of training going on and I always snag the left overs, we also have snacks galore in our cafe and break out kitchens.  There is cereal (5 kinds!) and popcorn and candy bars and goldfish.  There is trail mix and beef jerky and gummy snacks and soup.  And two days a week, fresh fruit is delivered.  Fatty alert.

3. Continuing with food (because more than one bullet point is necessary for this), we have lunch catered in every Friday.  As a treat to those who are out traveling Monday-Thursday and as a way to bring our office all together to socialize, we dine on everything from Indian food to burritos, hamburgers to Italian food.  Today we had pizza.  It's Beer Cart Friday so we figured the two coincided.

2.  Oh, have I not mentioned Beer Cart Friday, yet?  This is one of my absolute favorites.  I've talked about it before but just in case you need a refresher...the official, organized Beer Cart Friday happens about once a month.  People sign up to push the cart filled with wine, beer, and desserts around the office.  Starting around 3:30pm, it's hard to find a desk that isn't alive with booze.  Not a bad way to bow out for the week.

1. Cake Meetings.  Surprised I'm talking about food again?  You shouldn't be.  Once a month we have a thing called a "Cake Meeting."  Sounds fake?  It's not.  And we actually DO work during this meeting.  All of the non-consulting staff gets together for a training or a presentation or sometimes just a fun team-building exercise.  And while we do it, we enjoy cake.  It's a way to say "Happy Birthday" to everyone with a b-day that month.  Our cake meeting for March was yesterday.  Guess who had a slice of the Red Velvet and the Toffee Crunch?  This girl :)

As you can see, it's more than just a beautiful office and awesome job that makes me love coming to work every day.  I feel truly blessed to work in such an awesome environment!  Showing you appreciate your employees really goes a long way.  And it's a lot easier to work long hours during busy season when you know you're being treated well :)