Robyn Welch

Website: http://www.burgis.com/

Member Since: August 2008

Type of Member: Resident

When Robyn moved to Seattle a year and a half ago, she was trying to get a handle on the whole telecommuting thing.  She had moved from New York where she had worked for four years as an urban planner with Burgis Associates.  She had thought that the move across the country would be an end to that but Burgis loved her so much that they wanted her to try telecommuting for the New Jersey-based business.  As luck would have it, she saw a sign pointing her towards Office Nomads and has not left us since.

As an urban planner, Robyn works with private firms and municipalities that are too small to have their own department for planning.  “Basically, we write master plans and development ordinances to implement the plans.”  Projects include affordable housing, open spaces, historic preservation plans, and much more.  Her projects have been known to keep her here until 11:30 PM, which is what prompted her to become a resident here at Office Nomads.

Robyn is a great, positive addition in the space.  When not working, she is usually laughing with one of the other folks sitting near her. “I was so isolated when I never left the house.  I come here and everyone is great.  I’ve made great friends.  Office Nomads has given me a good social network,” she says with a smile.  It also gives her the opportunity to live vicariously through the pet owners in the space.  With Cortez the Killer across the way and fellow nomadic pooches Chuey and Sadie taking turns sitting to her left, Robyn gets a regular quota of quality dog time. Whether it’s the people or the dogs keeping her here, Office Nomads is incredibly lucky to have Robyn on board – not only does her laughter light up the space, but her welcoming attitude has made others feel at home here on their first days as Nomads.

Alright ladies and gentleman, you’ve been waiting.  Ever since we dropped our first post about the Office Nomads Top 5 (well, originally it was supposed to be a Top 10, but we got a bit choosy there at the end), many of you have logged your votes, argued for your favorites, and debated well to create the first ever Office Nomads Top 5.

Top 5 what you might ask?  Well, it’s a bit unclear, but the general idea is the Top 5 things we love about Office Nomads.

Here they are, in order of number of votes received:

[drumroll, please...]

1. Stella and Cortez! (we’ll assume people also dig Henrik & Ryan, their respective owners…)
2. Beer (who’s surprised there?)
3. Daily Firings (Charlie officially gets the most of those)
4. Zombie Proof (techically tied for third with Daily Firings)
5. Sarah/Jason/Derek (Susan, Jacob & Eric’s super alter-egos – keep posted for the coming comic strip)

Well, everyone, you done us all proud.  Can’t wait to see what the next round of voting looks like.

The photo above is of the original round of voting.  Personally, I was sad for several items who lost out, such as “80′s dance party,” “composting,” and “nerf gun.” But hey, that’s the thing with voting – I can’t win every time…

Happy Friday, y’all.

There may still be about 80 days to go until the Presidential election (it can’t come soon enough), but it is Primary Day here in Washington. Meanwhile, we here at Office Nomads have been voting our heads off since last week though.

I’m not sure why happened, but when I came into the office last Friday, I saw Jacob had put a list on the blackboard titled “Office Nomads’ Top 10″ the night before. There were 17 items on it which kinda shows you what we think about rules here at ON. When Susan and I held one of our many watercooler meetings later in the day, the meeting’s main agenda item was the list and what to do with it since the watercooler happens to be next to the blackboard.  We decided to add a few more items and open up voting to see if we could come up with a real Office Nomads’ Top 10 or so.

The list, which now contains 23 items, is full of the topics we keep talking about (eg: zombie proofing, composting), the things we have and like in the office (eg: the pretty conference table, candy dish), the items we use the most here (eg: beer, maragritas) and the things we just like the most about ON (eg: naps, Cortez and Stella). Everyone gets five votes (some of us took a couple of extra) and when voting closes, we hope to have a top 10 list of the most loved parts of Office Nomads.

Have any additions? Maybe you’ve got something in your office that we should add or talk about ad infinitum (like zombie proofing) here? Let us know in the comments.

Vote Early! Vote Often!

Big news this week folks! Office Nomads welcomed our tenth monthly member! As the kids say, “W00t!”

We’ve been planning to profile each of our monthly members for some time now, but you know how things can get put off? Right, well since signing up the 10th member is big enough news for posting, we decided to start doing it here and now. Why, we thought, should we start with the first one? He gets all the press.

So please welcome Henrik to the Office Nomads world. He’s a software product manager for Pace Systems Group and an all around cool guy. I think he’s going to fit right in. The first thing he did when he signed up was to choose his desk which ended up being right next to mine. While we were talking on his first day, it took less than five minutes for him to tell me how he’ll probably like hearing me be on the phone all the time because he’s been stuck at home and isolated for so long.

A true Office Nomad.

As you can see, Henrik comes complete with a dog. Her name is Stella and she’s a sweet as can be (she also gets along famously with Cortez the Killer). He’s got a wife who stopped by the other day to give her approval of the new space (she liked it). Right now, he’s trying to get back into soccer-playing shape. (Ask him how his legs are feeling two days after his first game in a long time.)

Welcome Henrik (and Stella), to the Office Nomads fold!