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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
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
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
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
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.
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
15. Many of the fridges have signs like NO HUMAN FOOD
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'
19. Apparently, octopus can’t cling to astroturf.
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
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).
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???
@skinnylatte Sounds like a bunch of folks with their priorities solidly in healthy places! I hope it's as delightful as it sounds!! I'm not sure even for something so quirky and interesting I'd want to commute again but it's solidly offering a reason to show up which is more than I can say about most places of business.
@ren @skinnylatte It is the real deal. Never seen an organization with so many lifers.
@skinnylatte @rednikki I am warm and happy just hearing someone else getting this. And please note -- I'm a reasonably solidly placed person. I've been at my company for 19 years -- so I've got good people! My place of business just feels like a warzone with good comrades rather than a science amusement park full of joy!
@skinnylatte This place sounds magical. I want to read a coming of age novel set here, or some kind of murder mystery. Or both
@skinnylatte Your thread is the best - it sounds like you’ve landed (splashed into?) a most (moist) perfect environment. With all the fresh election disappointment around us, your posts are really brightening my day. I’m actually smiling - I can’t kelp (!) myself! 
@wendinoakland haha! best fishes!
@skinnylatte I didn't know there were albatrosses there! They are so mighty.
@skinnylatte Omg I loved reading all of these tidbits! Congratulations and best of luck with your new job!!
@farah hehe thanks for reading. it's keeping me.. afloat right now
@skinnylatte sounds like as amazing of a workplace as it is a place to visit!
@tim the person next to me has been there 36 years and she still said you are gonna love it here I love it so much!!
@skinnylatte
Great thread!!! I wait on YT for the next MBARI video to drop. See some critter only few get to see.
@skinnylatte huh. What about pickled herring? Pickling cucumbers makes them much better!
@skinnylatte@hachyderm.io I will take it! the rays were also not wild about it but smelt are one of my favorites
@skinnylatte reading this thread I'm now regretting going into tech and not persuing my childhood dream of marine biologist
@lunarequest I am in tech, working with the marine biologists (on the tech team!) I didn’t know this job existed!
@skinnylatte dream job after I get degree!
@lunarequest also a thread with photos here
@skinnylatte Oh this was all glorious.
@skinnylatte My oldest works in trade show set-up and take-down out of Sign and Display Local 510 and loves being dispatched to Monterey, because he gets put up in a motel and between the former and the latter can spend his days in the aquarium. He was so impressed by a jellyfish exhibit as a small boy that I made him into one for Halloween, complete with fish in his tentacles.
@mtheriaultsf I love that everyone has a great story like this
@skinnylatte truly a delight to read, thank you. I've visited Monterey Bay Aquarium a handful of times over the years and I love it a little more each trip. It's very cool that you get to work there!
@skinnylatte thank you for this lovely thread; it sounds like a great job to have landed!
@skinnylatte did they do photo shoots like this at the beginning of the pandemic? Maybe multiple places and/or the aquarium did this with animals loose and people home.
@skinnylatte it’s a ruse to get you to get to work early!
@skinnylatte you've got a badge? Does that make it all of-fish-al?
@Happyfishmedia Ahahaha very
@skinnylatte I adore this updates and look forward to pics of 
if possible
They are amazing
@skinnylatte your new job is like the sort of dream job that only exists in fanfiction tagged “toothrotting fluff”lol. Say hi to your octopus friend for me next time. (Geng jik hor mor? 
)
️ @skinnylatte I started following because I’m interested in hearing about your experience at the MB Aquarium. I was a Dive Master at the Ga Aquarium for 7 years and it was absolutely the best job I’ve had. Hard work but so rewarding.
We’d take people diving and snorkeling in the Ocean Voyager exhibit with whale sharks, huge Manta Rays and 1000s of other fish.
I hope you always look forward to going to work.
@DrewCommins thank you so much!! I hope to meet our dive team soon. Personally going to pickup my scuba training (dropped off after advanced PADI) and try to do some kelp conservation work outside of work. Astonishing marine life here. Just feel so lucky to experience all this. Thank you for sharing!
@skinnylatte yesss. I am so happy for you with this. My terrible high school/ college retail job (everyone should have one) was in the gift shop at the Baltimore aquarium, and the thing that made it bearable was coming in early or staying late to say hello to some of the animals in a quiet nearly empty building. Especially octopus.
@skinnylatte Always yes!
@skinnylatte Im so glad I started following you just at the right moment, living the dream aquatic!
@jollysea it really feels like it
Well AktchuLLy, I believe the correct answer was "Why can't we dine *with* the sea otters?"
SO. Freakin'. Cool.
@helplessduck I’ve seen how much they eat. I couldn’t possibly afford that amount of sashimi, nor eat as much as they do. Hahaha
@skinnylatte Your posts about your work make me feel sad to go sit at my desk and sit through meetings... but they also let me live vicariously, so please continue!
@m I have lots of meetings too.. sometimes there are animals around
@skinnylatte The only animals in the meetings I have to attend are the ones that live with me. I am so lucky to be able to work from home. It isn't one of the world's best aquariums, but my little zoo will have to do...