I started a temporary assignment on the web/mobile team as a web designer about three weeks ago. The environment is incredibly different from that of QA, but I’m beginning to get used to it. Summary of important experiences so far:

I have my own trashcan. We only get a large trashcan every few rows in QA. Sometimes that trashcan moves, and it throws off your whole exit groove. In web I carried my trash with me to the break room’s trash bins for the first two weeks until I realized that I have my own tiny garbage can! Downside, it doesn’t get emptied too often. Reserved for odorless items.

Their headphones are kind of not great. Ones we get in QA are the fat, padded, enclosed type headsets. The pair I’m using in web hurts my brain after awhile, like those metal headbands that you purchase because they look so cute but end up tearing off after an hour of focused cranial pain. It also feels like everyone around me can hear any sound that comes out of them.

Everyone works with the internets, but I’ve yet to meet anyone that’s from the internet. I’m not going to explain this one.

Their water cooler is confusing. Yea, people laughed when I asked them how they used it, but I could not consistently get the water cooler to dispense water when I started (I can’t find a picture example so here’s a paint diagram):

…So I’d stand there for about a minute looking around sheepishly, pressing the dispenser lever every few seconds and wondering why God had forsaken me. Today I realized what I was doing wrong. The water doesn’t dispense unless you apply pressure to the UPPER part of the lever. What’s exceptionally stupid about this is that while you can only trigger the water flow by pressing the top of the lever, if you slide the cup down while it’s dispensing it’s not like the water stops…so why can’t you start it by pressing the lower half? And why is the lower half even available if pressing it doesn’t dispense water?!

And why does switching from cold to hot cause the thing to beep and lock after a few seconds?!?!

JFDSKF.

There’s an overabundance of Kona coffee blend in the breakroom drawers. I had quit coffee for a good 9 months before the start of my TA in web. I feel more productive when I’m caffeinated, though that’s probably just jitteriness creating an illusion of increased speed. Default company coffee at Blizzard has always been pretty bad coffee. Columbia Supreme is the lesser of the two evils; unfortunately, it appears to be endangered in web world.

Obviously, none of these things are important.

Except for the water cooler.