Kartech gets a Development Office

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For the past few years, I have thought about getting an office in town. I typically work at my customers' site, but there are days I work remotely, and I'm usually not on site on Fridays. When I work remote, I have an office in my home, and it isn't bad, but I do run into a couple of issues. Sometimes there are distractions with being at home, and it is hard to get into the working mode. On the other side, there are times where I spend all day in the office plugging away at some pieces of code, and I don't see another living soul. If I do this for more than a day or two, I can get the feeling of being really isolated. There is no doubt that I am an introvert and I don't really struggle with being alone, but I do feel that I need to at least have some cursory interactions with people on a daily basis. 

I had a few criteria for getting an office. I wanted it to be within walking distance of my house, close to one of the downtown areas, close to a coffee shop, and have access to good internet. I have found several options over the past couple of years, but there was never anything that fit well enough for me to pull the plug. This year things changed as Lightspeed internet moved into downtown Ypsi with full synchronous gigabit internet service. One of the spaces that had been looking at was on a street where they had just pulled fiber. I met with the landlord, and a week later I was signing a lease.

I was originally just looking for a small office, basically a closet big enough to hold a desk. The building I decided on has a number of small offices like that, but they were all rented. they did, however, have two offices that were about 400 sq feet which is much bigger than I needed, but I decided to go for it with the understanding that if one of the smaller offices became available, I could move into it. I started moving in the week before Thanksgiving. 

My initial idea of just a desk and a monitor quickly changed. I ended up getting a couple of whiteboards. The landlord gave me a table and some chairs to use as a conference table, and I set up a small coffee station and mini fridge with drinks and snacks for late night coding. The office was really coming together and looking like a nice space where I could have a meeting of 6 to 10 people pretty comfortably. The one issue I had was that I kept having to bring stuff to the office, so I had to drive. I was starting to get a little bummed because one of my goals was not to drive, and the 3-mile round trip would be a nice walk. 

Last week I finally had the opportunity to walk to my office. It was everything I had hoped it would be. The walk let me get my thoughts organized on my way to work without having to deal with crazy drivers on the road. When I got to my office I was able to settle in instantly with no distractions. I also purchased a 38" high res monitor, so that really made a huge difference and my ability to write code and compare outputs in multiple windows without having to minimize anything. On Saturday I walked to and from the office a couple of times, and even in a pretty significant rain, it was a better walk than driving. 

One of my goals for the coming year is to collaborate more with other developers on side projects, so I am hoping that I can really utilize this space and grow my network and business. Right now it really feels good to be back in the community, having my main office out of the home. 

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