Do you remember the riddle about crossing the river with your fox, your duck and some corn? You only have one small canoe, so you can only take two of your possessions across at a time. The problem is how to get them all to the other side without the duck eating the corn or the fox eating the duck.

Well, we’re having our office space remodeled and the shuffling questions have been similarly complex. We’re not worried that the engineering Lizards will try to eat the sales and marketing Lizards or anything, but walls are coming down and people are having to move over and share space.

Our hardworking sales force are gregarious high-energy types that make use of plenty of joshing, banter and even some bizarre character-building rituals as part of the way they get their work done. Our engineers do their socializing in weekly meetings, then retreat to their desks to puzzle out code issues in solitude or huddled in twos or threes around each others’ computers or whiteboards. Some Lizards were wondering how long it would be possible for us all to work cheek by jowl together before the engineers would all be working from home.

It turns out that it isn’t a problem, and we’ve all been getting to know each other. The sales crew has been really considerate regarding decibels, so there hasn’t been the disruption to the engineers’ precious quiet. And in return, the development team are developing an appreciation of the job that sales and marketing does. (It turns out that these people have been selling the software we build back here). To get to our desks the engineers have to navigate sales’ slap-tunnel of amicable teasing. It seems worth it. Maybe it takes a little disruption in the routine to bring about closer inter-office relations.

In case you were wondering, we’ll still be supporting our products (and selling them!) during the build-out. We expect construction to last through late January.

Oh, and by the way, the answer to the riddle involves three trips across the river and keeping the duck away from the other two the whole time.

Happy Holidays.

Photo courtesy of Walter Wittel.

Tags: LizardTech, LizardTech remodel