Office News
I probably didn't mention the purchase of my employer. I was hired by the GraphData Corporation (GDC) of London, makers of geographical information software, largely for UK government councils. GDC has been privately owned by a few of its principals throughout its 20-some year history.
Last month GDC was sold to the MapInfo Corporation of Troy, New York. Just my luck to be working for a UK company just to be bought by Yanks. MapInfo is a worldwide leader in location intelligence, and GDC had been a strategic partner of MapInfo for 17 years. Acquisitions had been floated long before, but GDC staff had been reluctant to sell because they didn't trust the leadership at MapInfo. A recent reorganisation at MapInfo quelled those fears and allowed the deal to proceed.
Today we learned that the MapInfo Corporation was purchased by the Pitney Bowes Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut. The big fish eat the little ones.
MapInfo makes sense, but a maker of postal machinery? Will we start writing postage software? From what I've been told, the company is cash-rich and was looking to make some good investments. The message, as always in a takeover, is "business as usual". I was skeptical of the company at first, thinking how embarrassed I'd be to answer, "Where do you work?" But after doing some dirt-digging, it seems they're in the top half of the Fortune 500, are in the 100 best companies to work for, they have a good record in business ethics, human rights, and the environment, and seem to take a genuine interst in their employees' welfare. I tried to get some dirt on the company's CEO, and it turns out he's been the president of the National Urban League, and the closest I could get to a political affiliation was a $2000 donation in the 2004 presidential election to Joe Lieberman. So maybe it's not so bad.
In other office news ... have you ever worked in a condemned building? It's an interesting experience. Things break, and if they aren't essential, they don't get fixed. Things like blinds. Bathroom tiles. Windows stay dirty. We still get cleaning service, but you can see the writing on the wall. With the last merger, we were assured of getting even swankier offices - the office across the street deemed not good enough to be the site of MapInfo London. Now with a multibillion dollar company owning us, our next office might be that much nicer.
And I haven't told you about the first floor. Every morning around 8 am there's loud techno music accompanied by whoops. If you look down into the windows you'll see a bunch of people in suits (high street suits, sometimes with black trainers, and white socks) rallying themselves. You might wonder what kind of work requires a daily rally. That work would be marketing. Street marketing, I guess. Door to door selling. Of stuff. I don't know what kind of stuff, but I've heard it's mostly useless stuff.
I'm the first one in the office so I get to unlock the doors and disarm the alarm. Thursday and Friday mornings there's often a truck parked in front and a chain of people passing boxes through the doors into a beeping held-open-too-long elevator. Sometimes I go out for coffee and pass quickie interviews in the stairwell. There must be a high turnover. And each morning all these young men and women in cheap suits, often minorities, haul their wheeled zip-up bags onto the sidewalk and go out and try to sell this stuff. Sometimes we hear the whooping and are drawn to the windows and we wonder aloud what it must be like to work down there, and are grateful to have our skills and jobs.
Last month GDC was sold to the MapInfo Corporation of Troy, New York. Just my luck to be working for a UK company just to be bought by Yanks. MapInfo is a worldwide leader in location intelligence, and GDC had been a strategic partner of MapInfo for 17 years. Acquisitions had been floated long before, but GDC staff had been reluctant to sell because they didn't trust the leadership at MapInfo. A recent reorganisation at MapInfo quelled those fears and allowed the deal to proceed.
Today we learned that the MapInfo Corporation was purchased by the Pitney Bowes Corporation of Stamford, Connecticut. The big fish eat the little ones.
MapInfo makes sense, but a maker of postal machinery? Will we start writing postage software? From what I've been told, the company is cash-rich and was looking to make some good investments. The message, as always in a takeover, is "business as usual". I was skeptical of the company at first, thinking how embarrassed I'd be to answer, "Where do you work?" But after doing some dirt-digging, it seems they're in the top half of the Fortune 500, are in the 100 best companies to work for, they have a good record in business ethics, human rights, and the environment, and seem to take a genuine interst in their employees' welfare. I tried to get some dirt on the company's CEO, and it turns out he's been the president of the National Urban League, and the closest I could get to a political affiliation was a $2000 donation in the 2004 presidential election to Joe Lieberman. So maybe it's not so bad.
In other office news ... have you ever worked in a condemned building? It's an interesting experience. Things break, and if they aren't essential, they don't get fixed. Things like blinds. Bathroom tiles. Windows stay dirty. We still get cleaning service, but you can see the writing on the wall. With the last merger, we were assured of getting even swankier offices - the office across the street deemed not good enough to be the site of MapInfo London. Now with a multibillion dollar company owning us, our next office might be that much nicer.
And I haven't told you about the first floor. Every morning around 8 am there's loud techno music accompanied by whoops. If you look down into the windows you'll see a bunch of people in suits (high street suits, sometimes with black trainers, and white socks) rallying themselves. You might wonder what kind of work requires a daily rally. That work would be marketing. Street marketing, I guess. Door to door selling. Of stuff. I don't know what kind of stuff, but I've heard it's mostly useless stuff.
I'm the first one in the office so I get to unlock the doors and disarm the alarm. Thursday and Friday mornings there's often a truck parked in front and a chain of people passing boxes through the doors into a beeping held-open-too-long elevator. Sometimes I go out for coffee and pass quickie interviews in the stairwell. There must be a high turnover. And each morning all these young men and women in cheap suits, often minorities, haul their wheeled zip-up bags onto the sidewalk and go out and try to sell this stuff. Sometimes we hear the whooping and are drawn to the windows and we wonder aloud what it must be like to work down there, and are grateful to have our skills and jobs.
posted by Michael Nelson at 2:06 pm
2 Comments:
Nice blog Michael
Are the offices really that bad? they are not condemned actually, just scheduled for redevelopment.
I agree great blog on the current events of MapInfo, GDC and now Pitney Bowes. I to was to be a new starter at GDC a couple weeks ago, however as MapInfo were taking over all GDC's recruitment froze inlcuding me.
A major bumber if you ask me as I have been using GDC products for some time now and was looking forward to working with the company. I did also hear that from one of your colleagues that you were moving just up the road to swankier offices. Im sure this is more likely to happen with Pitney Bowes taking over.
Enjoy!
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