[if(is_geek)…]

On Friday I got my first taste of what it will be like working at VendAsta. I went there Friday afternoon to pick up my laptop – a MacBook Pro which I am using to write this. I have never worked with Macs before, so this is a somewhat novel experience. The shock to my system is somewhat lessened by the fact that I have my own laptop configured such that Ubuntu looks like Leopard. Emulating look and feel is a far cry from the actual experience. I’m adjusting slowly, but I am sure in time I’ll come to really enjoy this as the other devs at VendAsta do.

Anyway, back to my first taste of VendAsta. I arrived there shortly after 3pm to find the offices apparently deserted. I wandered around a little and found everyone in the back meeting room watching a video. The video in question was the second Spokesmonster promo for the StepRep application. The first Spokesmonster video is embedded below. For me the fact that such creative and fun things are not only applauded internally, but also released for public consumption, is amazing. Coming from a place like Cover-All, where one of the graphic designers creates hilarious mock advertisements all of the time and the public face of the company remains a stark beige yawn, this is a brave new world.

Equally interesting / frightening was another presentation that was made involving a Finite State Machine. Actual computer science is being performed at this company. This represents a quantum leap from the seat-of-the-pants type of environment I have been working in for the past three and a half years. I have to admit, it is a little daunting. There will definitely be an element of culture shock for me as I move into a real, honest to goodness, software development environment. Very, very exciting.