Work Life at New Media Labs

It’s 6.45am and I’m standing on NML’s main balcony at Upper East Side watching as the sun rises from behind the mountains.  As a homecomer who spent 12 years in London, I never take for granted just how truly blessed I am to live in such a beautiful part of the world.  This morning the sunrise is a particularly spectacular one, turning the sky into hues of red and orange.  I try to capture it using the camera on my cellphone, it doesn’t come close to doing it justice but I upload it to Facebook anyway much to the annoyance of some of my homesick London-based SA friends.

As the Mother City stirs into action below me, I make my way down to the gym for my morning workout.  It’s one of the (many) perks working at NML and, not only is the gym conveniently located for a pre‑work workout, but NML subsidises our membership fee too.

Paul has set himself the challenge of making NML the best possible environment for the team to work from and there is a strong focus on work/life balance here.  Our office space plays a big role in this regard.  A converted residential loft space in the Upper East Side, it creates a relaxed and informal working environment that benefits from incredible views over the City, the harbour and the mountains.

Work/life balance is a key element in NML’s work ethic.  There is a degree of flexi-time to our working hours, so long as we’re all in by 9.30am, and Paul encourages not working more than 40 hours a week as anything over that leads to burnout – I’m told it’s one of the key tenants of The Agile Manifesto.

Our office is based in Woodstock meaning we don’t have to commute all the way to Town and a couple of us carpool in to work together from Tokai making the commute easier and more social.  There is a finacial incentive not to use a parking bay. Most of the team are members of the gym downstairs and the residential layout of the office means you can go downstairs, have a great workout, come back to shower (or even have a bath if you want!) and eat lunch (NML has a steady supply of sandwich ingredients, bread, various condiments and a snackwicher!) before getting back into the ‘work’ zone.

I use the term ‘work’ here, but really, each member of the team is so passionate about what they do, that it doesn’t really feel like work.  The developers get to while away their days coding, fixing bugs, testing new technology and creating new techie stuff, Andrew gets to do his copywriting, Raoul manages the team and makes sure the clients are happy, Paul gets to focus on the next innovative growth steps, reading, meeting and general plotting and planning and I get to spend my days ensuring that life in the office runs smoothly (each to their own!).  More often than not, the team have their headphones on to help them stay focused and in the ‘creation zone’.  Although we have an informal policy of ‘Do not disturb when the headphones are on’, it doesn’t mean there is any disconnect in the team.  Truth be told, NML’s team is one of the most functional teams I’ve worked in.  Every morning we do ’standup’ where we each recap the previous day’s tasks and what we plan to accomplish today – it provides a chance to report our progress, raise challenges in projects we’re working on, ask for help where we need it and just generally ensure the whole NML team is up-to-date on what’s going on.

The standup exercise is just one of the tools we use for staying connected as a team – we have others too: the Braai (weather permitting, the team downs tools at 4pm on Fridays and we head to the main balcony for beer and burgers).  Then there is the much loved Coffee Pot (fresh brewed coffee is a staple part of the NML diet!).  That’s not to say we don’t do the usual ‘team building’ type of events.  I recently survived my first game of action cricket as the only girl on the team and the guys were really sweet about the fact that I actually lost runs!!

All in all, life at NML is pretty darn good and I can honestly say, I’ve found exactly the type of job and working environment I was looking for and in the country that I love to boot!