Today I started my first working day of 2010 at the PayPal offices in San Jose and thought I’d get a feel for commuting from San Francisco. It takes about an hour and a half to get into the office which is actually split into two campuses – one for eBay and the other mostly for PayPal. With a Wifi enabled bus, everyone started their day early as most people around me were logged into their emails or working on presentations. I now find myself working on the way back into San Francisco on a darkened bus, the only light the glow of laptops.
For my week here, I’m stationed in Building 17 which is the first purpose built green building here (in all of San Jose in fact!). Every floor has a map outlining where each desk is situated and everyone sits in their own high walled pods so there is some level of privacy despite the open plan seating. As someone new to the office, it does make you feel strangely alone in such a big building but the lunch and break areas are spacious so at least there are people to meet when you move away from your desk. Now I’m not sure why it’s called Building 17 as there aren’t seventeen buildings. Both campuses comprise of 13 at my count and on the north campus there are buildings 10 and 11 which are connected, 17 and Town Hall where most of the big meetings and conferences are held.
I met some of the team over here including Sudha Jamthe, who works on Social Media strategy, and Jenn Colvin. They kindly pointed me towards food and water at the appropriate times of the day and we had a chance to finally talk in person which is always nice.
My first day in San Jose is officially done and the next 4 days will be packed with interviews that I’ll be editing and posting next week. Tomorrow I’ll get to meet Scott Thompson again and interview Bob Swan, who is the Chief Financial Officer of all of eBay Inc. I’m excited to ask a few questions from my twitter followers as well as a few of my own.
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