Around the Office in 80 Seconds!

Friday, September 10, 2010

Good morning, and welcome to S.M. Tours. Today we are offering a "virtual" tour of the elusive Paizo Publishing offices. Here to greet us as we open the front door is the ever-cheerful Customer Service Manager Cosmo! While tempting, we recommend for your safety that you do not stare directly at the moustache, as it has been known to attack on occasion.

On your left are the offices of our technical team. If we could see through the gloom in the first office, we would find the illustrious PostMonster General and his minion Ross. We here at Paizo try to simulate the native environment of these computer folks, as it helps with productivity. Please, no flash photography—it disturbs their delicate sensibilities. Moving forward, we see that our Technical Director Vic is not yet in. Unlike the cave where his team slaves away, Vic's office is usually cheerfully lit by fluorescent lighting.

On your right we have a set of cubicles: one for yours truly, one for the warehouse manager, one for a laser printer, and one for a set of label printers. While quiet now, in a few days those label printers will fire up to continuously spit out subscription labels for hours at a time—truly a sight to behold.

Pressing onward, we have several more administrative offices lying dormant. This is to be expected, as we started our tour fairly early this morning and the residents have not yet arrived. Behind the door on the right is our server closet, where hundreds of little hamsters feverishly run in shifts to keep the servers running and the website on.

And here we have the upstairs breakroom, complete with refrigerator, sink and the all-important coffee maker. Next, past the restrooms, we have probably the most impressive location at the Paizo offices: the combination conference room and library. Here you will find all manner of old, new, rare, and interesting games, books, and magazines.

We are tight on time, folks, so let's keep moving along. Here we have still more offices. You'll notice that the double-doored corner office is the largest of the lot, fittingly occupied by our CEO, Lisa Stevens. The expansive office seems to help with the various and sundry secret meetings which take place there.

If you'll follow me down the stairs, please, past the monsters... here we have the offices belonging to our publisher, managing editor, and creative director. On the left are the set of cubicles referred to (for obvious reasons) as the "Editorial Pit."

And what do we have here...? It would appear that, unlike the other unoccupied offices, this one has its door open. What do you think, folks, should we take a peek inside?

It appears this is the office of lead designer Jason Bulmahn. Jason is on vacation this week and seems to have forgotten to arm his office's defense system. You folks might be getting more of a tour than you bargained for!

Let's just take a quick look at what we have on the desk...

Illustration by Carolina Eade

Sara Marie
S.M. Tours