On the New Storm Office, the Infamous Orange Chair, and Why You Can Do It!

STORM transferred to its newest office a few weeks ago.

I love it!

It’s brightly lit, incredibly functional, spaceous, and comfortable to work in. There are no “manager” rooms. There are whiteboards and wallboards everywhere, and multiple spaces for different kinds of meetings.

Pictures below!

The main reception area

Our main hallway

Tech and QA work area

The pantry

Conference Room

marketing/sales/hr working area

Looking closely, you would also see rather peculiar items in the office:

Like this old restaurant-style chair…

Try spending 8 hours working on this steel chair

And of course, our infamous “orange chair.”

No, you wouldn’t want to see this in a high-resolution picture. Yep, its THAT grimy.

These “artifacts” belonged to the very first Storm office – the one-bedroom condo where I lived.  The bedroom became my house – everything else was transformed into the office.

(how I wish my old hard drive didn’t crash so I could’ve shown some pictures here)

I always joke around the office that we have to throw these chairs away, that I would designate them as prizes in our Christmas raffle for the poor soul who would end up “winning” it.

That restaurant chair there was donated by a friend of ours who closed down a restaurant. Nope, those chairs don’t have ANY bend on them. They are as uncomfortable as you can imagine.

That orange chair was the only comfortable chair we had. It was also a donation from someone who already had it retired in their home stock room. (Of course we still had to sit on the hard chairs – this comfy chair went to our first employee – our programmer) (Hi Angela =)

Truth is, I would want these items around for as long as they would hold up. They’re continual reminders of our journey. It’s a reminder of what we went through and who we are. Of how incredible Blessed we are. Actually, this is what I feel when I walk around the office. It’s not “wow, we have a nice office,” rather, it’s “wow, we’re pretty blessed!”

You see, back then, we had nothing.

We had no experience in running a firm, no mentors, no “donations” from any relatives, no MBA’s, no high QPI’s, no funding, no fancy methodology, no automatic clients referred by a powerful relative. We just had 2 things going for us: an idea we believed in (flexible benefits), and a powerful desire to see it through.

Then we just leapt and committed.

This is partly what fuels my passion in telling you to do the same: I really believe you can do it. Perhaps all you need might be a little push. Hopefully, this can be your push. Trust me, you don’t need any of the above-mentioned stuff. Anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Don’t wait. Leap.

(Do visit us at 602 Centerpoint Building, Julia Vargas cor Garnet Streets, Ortigas Center! And if you have anyone in mind who might especially appreciate this post or will find it useful, do click those buttons and share!)