Starting a new thread to document the delightful things I am finding out about joining the tech team at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
1. ALL EMPLOYEES GET FREE AND UNLIMITED WHALE WATCHING TRIPS
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2. As a people manager, I am issued little checkbooks called SAND DOLLARS
When I want to recognize someone for something they did, I give them ONE SAND DOLLAR (they can exchange it for free food at our cafe, which is actually very good)
AHAHAHAHAHA
If you bike / walk / take transit to work, you can also get lots of sand dollars.
3. Our social team is AMAZING
Look at this amazing gif. It fully describes what I feel on a day to day basis
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4. Marine punning is very much encouraged.
I posted this update on LinkedIn: "Hello from the otter side! I have decided I will not spend the wrasse of my life working in dreary office buildings. So, I have found my sole and plaice at Monterey Bay Aquarium, as its Director of Product Management. Thank you everyone for urchin me on."
In the public chat channels I can see many many puns all day about everything
5. This week, I was invited to a PAWSITIVITY dog walk at lunch
@skinnylatte Sounds like a fin plaice to work. You might find this amusing too - Psychostick ft. DJ Tilapia - Do The Flop https://youtu.be/Mw0o7REF4XA
6, All of our internal sites and services are named after something to do with fish or the sea. All of them. Even like, our stock photography / branding stuff.
7. The guy who works with the octopus says that when he approaches the giant pacific octopus, they flash and change colors and move towards him
But if he goes on vacation and doesn’t see them for a while, they ignore him and don’t change colors the first day he gets back. Before finally doing it again
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8. I was shown how much they feed a single otter a day and I said ‘I would not be able to afford this at a sashimi restaurant’. It’s true.
9. I saw a tiny decompression chamber. For fish.
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10. The Hank scenes in Finding Dory were inspired by my workplace. A Pixar animator left a sketch of Hank on a whiteboard behind the scenes. There are nods to Hank everywhere. When I was getting my photo taken for my employee card, the camera had Hank on it and they were like ‘look at Hank!’
11. From some of the conference rooms, you can hear the nonstop splashes of the waves. Sometimes people stop their presentation, shout SPOUTS and everyone goes to the window to look at whales
12. The science-y people have such deep specializations. I asked someone a basic question about a jellyfish and she was like ‘well I got my PhD only in terrestrial animals, but what I know about jellyfish is..’ (tells me something I don’t understand)
13. I strained my back using a scope to look at seabirds. I realized only after that it was set up for children
14. I like having lunch in one of the staff kitchens. Someone has set up an elaborate harbor seal monitoring system there with DO NOT TOUCH signs and lots of his sketches of seals
16. My name tag was hand made by someone in the machine shop! We have in-house fabricators and crafts-people who make the things for all the exhibits
17. I'm in a Bird Nerd channel. They share pics of birds found around the aquarium, which are.. a lot!
Today's finds: a great egret and a blue heron. A few days ago there was an osprey and a condor.
At one of my on-site interviews, someone stopped midway and said 'look out there's an albatross'
18. I have been scheduling social meet and greets with people who are on-site. Someone just sent me a calendar invite for 'let's take a lunchtime walk by the ocean'
20. Tino the octopus dislikes whitebait. The guy who works with him read a paper that says ‘whitebait is like cucumber to octopus’. Bland and too healthy. He ignores it completely
@skinnylatte huh. What about pickled herring? Pickling cucumbers makes them much better!
21. I saw a photo at work of some of the African penguins waddling around reception (before opening) and I’m certain I will lose my shit if I see it in person (they take them out for walks..)
22. All of our meeting rooms are named after animals. Fish, birds, and others.
23. I always do a leap of joy when my badge unlocks the aquarium door in the morning before we open. I run to the open sea exhibit and also say hi to the octopus.
My office is unfortunately a 7 min walk from it but I sometimes have meetings on the main campus (the aquarium itself).
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24. Coworker: I hope it’s ok if we eat a brisk lunch. I’ve arranged for you to see the sea otter feeding behind the scenes.
UM, YES???
25. We are having a great taco truck come in for staff lunch. I still pick sea otters. Even though I really love tacos. I think I can eat 3 tacos in a few minutes
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27. Someone on my team took me on a walking tour. There are many office buildings. I walked by the space for the seafood watch program and they had signs like ‘you’re jawsome!!’ And ‘thanks for all the kelp!’
28. I went to meet some of the people who work on the science and they were like ‘sounds like you’re really aligned with our work!’ And that’s the nicest thing anyone can say to me (my boss sent out a welcome email in which he talked about how I’m really into birds and whales)
29. There was an internal division competition called Punderdome.
The person who writes most of the puns on our social media won it
30. While standing in line for the employee taco truck catering I met a guy who has a database of best tacos around here through to Santa Cruz. He has 90 spots right now. I’m going to befriend him
31. Hallway convo.
‘Why are you so tired?’ ‘I’ve been carrying leopard sharks’
32. I attended a standup meeting among the otter people. It was otterly awesome
33. I walked by a poster. ‘There’s no aluminum in this cage. It’s not nickel either. It is a nickel less cage.’ (Photo of the actor)
@skinnylatte You can never leave this job. Ever. Those are the rules now. 😆
35. I asked someone what a conference room was called. They said (seabird name). Unprompted, she grumbled: totally inaccurate. The room only has photos of pelicans. It’s not right. It’s the wrong bird. No attention to details.
(Did you know there is a photo version of this thread)
36. Upon entering a room we were overwhelmed by an intense lavender aromatherapy.
Coworker: what’s with this spa treatment?
Very queer person: gurl it’s either lavender or Dead Fish smells
(Thousands of anchovies are washed up on the beaches here this season. Maybe hundreds of thousands. It is impossible to keep your windows open)
Personally I am used to it coz it just smells like ikan bilis
37. I got an invite to go watch some employees play guitar in front of the sea nettles so I’m putting on my shoes to go there (we are closed for an all hands, all fins event)
38. We took a large org-wide team photo and the photographer said SAY ANCHOVIES
39. I had to shout to be heard while presenting in a conference room because some of the gulls started absolutely screaming right outside
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40. We shut down all of today and tonight we have a staff and guests only 40th anniversary party. Not only is there delicious food at every part of the aquarium, it’s also magical seeing all of this
Watching my guests (some of whom have never been here) gawk at everything is so fun
41. I posted my first question in the ‘All Staff Q&A’.
(Picture of fish)
‘What is the scientific name of this fish?’
Got a response in 1 minute (Zaniolepis latipinnis.)
42. At a meeting this morning
I asked my coworker ‘do you think people hear what we talk about, and have the same ?? Face I did when I heard people talking about gelatinous zooplankton?’
She thought probably but we both agreed gelatinous zooplankton is cooler than databases
43. I had lunch with the ‘Director of Puns’ today. She looked forward to working closely with me. I said I hope it all goes swimmingly
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44. I learned that cool videos like these are shot in the office next to mine
https://www.youtube.com/live/h6VIMHKAqew?si=1owwfHl0WeHN6e4N
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45. Saw someone write ‘oysters are an embodiment of queerness’ and I truly feel like I’ve found my people
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46. I’ve been fascinated by ‘whale fall’ since I first learned about it here.
Here’s an incredible video of a whale fall exploration dive in the deep sea just off Monterey Bay.
47. I talked to real people about animal poop 5 different times today (I counted). Different animals too
48. I found the internal form for ‘booking an animal encounter’. My coworker said ‘usually it’s for team building or bringing your family on behind the scenes visits BUT if you want to hang out with the octopus or otters on your lunch break by yourself, I don’t see why not?’