More Thoughts

It turns out, actually living life gets in the way of writing a blog sometimes. I can't update the blog from work (I'm supposed to be... y'know... working) and when I get home, I like hanging out with my brother, Michael (who I'm living with) and just relaxing. I have lots to say, but I've consistently lacked the willpower to put it into words. I imagine this will only get more difficult when I go to Denmark in the fall.

One of my favorite things about EnerNOC so far has been the lateral nature of the company. Everyone is an expert in their own area, and has the collective trust of the company in that area. It's cooperative. While everyone technically has a boss, requests from the boss don't necessarily mean more than requests from a member of another group. When anyone makes a request, you're expected to do what you can. There's none of this "you're not my boss" that you might find at another company.

This setup is also evidenced by the fact that interns are trusted and given real work to do. I've only done one typical office intern job (I went on a coffee run before our first big event). Everything else I've done has been critical to the overall performance of the team. I've been making changes to the system since day 1. In most cases, every correct change I make is one more business that can participate in our demand response program, and every mistake I make is one company that gets left out. I know what's at stake, and I take their trust seriously.

That said, it's really a fun place to work. First of all, the NOC looks like the future.

I mean, look at that. The first three rows in the NOC have these huge three-screen monitors. I want one so bad.

Then there's the giant wall screen up front. It has eight sections, each of which has some piece of information about event readiness and likelihood. There's usually a weather report (events are much more likely on hot days). There's also an event likelihood calculator (next to the weather). As you can tell from all the green, event likelihood was low across the board that day. Which probably explains how someone had time to wander around taking pictures :-)

By contrast, us interns are in our own room in the corner of the NOC (it's just to the left of where the picture ends). Last summer, it was affectionately dubbed "the ICU," or "Intern Containment Unit." We lack triple-monitors, but we do get our own little space, which has been fun. We're all in our early-to-mid 20's, and we've got at least office-level friendship going. Everyone I work with is good-natured and dedicated, which isn't surprising given the nature of the company.

That's all I can think of to share. I'm toeing the line between giving lots of detail at the risk of boring/confusing everyone, and giving little detail at the risk of leaving you all wondering what the heck it is I'm actually talking about. The best way I can make this blog interesting, I think, is to answer your questions. Otherwise, I'm just going to ramble, and that seems like a waste. So ask me something about EnerNOC, or about demand response, or anything else. I'll try to answer in a somewhat entertaining way.

The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily the views of the company (EnerNOC, Inc). If you thought otherwise, you're probably an overzealous lawyer.