Monday, August 31, 2009

Nuffnang Australia's Melbourne Office

For those of you who have been following me on Twitter, I've been in Melbourne for the past week with Ming to handle some work stuff.

I dragged Princess along with me too. When I told Princess I was going to Melbourne for business for a week, she said "So you're going to leave me alone for the long Merdeka weekend?".

My heart softened and I said "Okayyyy you can come along...".

Not sure if she kinda regretted it though because for the first few days of our trip here I was spending most of my time working in our office. Most of the mornings she didn't even make it up in time for breakfast so I always ended up stealing a muffin for her at the breakfast buffet so she can eat on the way to the office.

This is where I feel really stupid. I just realized that I didn't take any pictures of our office in Melbourne. I mean I have a picture of how it looks like on the outside.



But not on the inside.  Shall make it a point to take some tomorrow. In the mean time for illustration purposes, I'll steal one of Ming's older pics of the Nuffnang Australia office.

I did however take a picture of our hotel room at the Westin. 

It's really really nice.

Working in the Nuffnang Australia office was a bit of a culture shock for me. I mean... back in Malaysia, the Nuffnang team starts work between 8.30AM-9.30AM and they finish at least around 7PM. Some even stay till 12AM or later. 

If you leave at 5.30PM or something, someone will surely shout "OI!!! HALF DAY AR?"

In the Nuffnang Australia office though. Everyone starts work at 8.30AM and starts leaving by 5.30PM. By 6PM... the entire office is empty! But in those 9 hours though... everyone is extremely focused on work and nothing else. No water cooler chatter, no Facebook, no nothing.

Just serious work for maximum productivity.

Lately, the Nuffies here in Nuffnang Australia have been working on a number of blogger initiatives. Like the Challenge 1000 where they send out all these gifts to some of their most loyal bloggers. 

And if you walk around Melbourne you'll see they've been doing some guerilla marketing. Sticking these Nuffnang stickers all around.

Our meetings are very very intense and very very productive. We cover a lot in a short time. But after a while we all decide to take a break from it all and go for lunch... like the other day we went to this really nice cafe.

This is David, one of our local partners who has been extremely hospitable to both Ming and I. Taking us places and buying us way too many meals!
This is Princess and me.
And this is Ming. At first I wanted to take a nice "gazing into the sunlight" picture of Ming since there was sunlight coming into the window he was sitting next to but he only ended up with this angry face.

Ming and Pinky


This is David Krupp, one of our latest additions to the Nuffie team. 

Because he has the same name as the other David, we call him Kruppy. He used to work in MySpace before he came to Nuffnang.

He's really really intelligent and very passionate about social media and blogs. He's also really really nice, easy to talk to and of course charming on the ladies (I can tell). We're lucky to have him.

Did I mention that he's also really tall?

Much taller than Princess.
I really like the team here. Maybe I'll blog more about them someday. In the mean time, here's a picture of some of us in Nuffnang Australia.

There's Pinky, Ming, our partners Martyn and David and Kruppy.

It's been a fun trip so far and the Aussie Nuffies have been extremely hospitable towards us. Gotta go to bed now everyone. Tomorrow morning I've gotta get up to go buy some stuff from the market then head to the office for some work. Yes... I have to work even on Merdeka.

Have a great week ahead everyone!

24 comments:

myname said...

I've got same thoughts as you when it comes to Western work culture. I got to work in Europe for a month plus last year and their working culture shocked me. Like you said, they arrive on time and leave on time, submit work on time, no extra internet activities... just work.

Malaysian bosses would be glad to have them on the team for the extra boost in productivity.

Anonymous said...

i just live opposite westin hotel!~ hahaha :)

anne_jo520 said...

Ya exactlyyyyy!!!!! Same happens in the UK, if they start late, they will go home late but nothing like going back later than 6pm will happen in the UK. And even if people facebook, they will make sure that their work is all done. I am kinda proud to be part of such a team actually. *feeling accomplished =)

Kiran @ KiranTarun.com said...

Love to know that Nuffnang Australia is doing fabulously great :D Where is our gift, the Malaysian Nuffnangers?

http://kirantarun.com

Michelle Chin said...

Hey, I'm in Melbourne.

:(((

Cindy Khor said...

i have this really strong urge to work for nuffnang if i have the chance to come back to malaysia. everyone seems so happy working in nuffnang

Anonymous said...

the australian really knows what is break and what is work..totally extreme...good for them...

OMG...kruppy looks like a giant beside audrey...he is really tall...i didnt notice his height when he was standing with you...cause you were standing on that thing...haha...

Simon Seow said...

You should bring the working culture from Australia to Nuffnang Malaysia. :p

Pinky Tham said...

I was the only girl there again haih.. Where's Candice! haha

Vy said...

Nice working environment...I like the exterior look of it...doesn't really look like an office block though... =)

goingkookies said...

oooh.. i was in Melbourne last week!!

were u guys ever caught in the hail storm? hopefully not!

Grace said...

Welcome to Melbourne! Hope you have a lovely time here. It was great to catch up with Ming the last time he was here. Perhaps one day I might get to meet you and princess. Enjoy the rest of your trip!

Grace @ www.lachinvasion.blogspot.com

Ken Wooi said...

ahh .nice.. really different way of work life there huh? =)

enjoy your stay there!

kenwooi.com

Boss Stewie said...

belinda: yeah that's true. a more balanced work life. That's how we should all strive to be like :)


princess: oh you're so near! u should've come by and said HI

anne: hahaha yes... proud and lucky you are :)

kiran: hahaa they do different things from us. not sure if Malaysia is going to do something like that yet

michelle: yeah u should come say hI

cindy: hehe yeah we are. everyone in the team really likes the work environment at Nuffnang

cheong: yeah he's huge huh.. hehe

simon: yeah i should right? haha

pinky: hehe i haven't put up her picture yet. will do

vy: yeah that's what i like about it. that it doesn't look like a typical office building. it's not. it's a very cosy building on its own

going: no we weren't. we were caught in some gloomy rain but no hail storm. luckily

grace: sure grace. perhaps we'll catch u sometime :) i'll ask ming about u

kenwooi: yeah it is :) really different
----------------------------

Anonymous said...

mayb i should stalk u guys at westin every single day... hahahahaha coz i really wanna take a picture with u n audrey!!! >.<

KY said...

i'm missing melbourne food!

Anonymous said...

i haven't been to melbourne before...how sad...maybe i should fly there when i have anough money...such nice view...and so many people dancing shuffle..

v said...

Oh wow ... I've been having Nuffnang for quite some time on my blog but this is the first time I landed on your blog. Nice to be here ...

Jiyan said...

so nuffnang has an office in melbourne? yeah it's like this here..after 5pm..everything closed wtf..so no life man ><

JD said...

I think that's what they called work-life balance?

ahlost said...

Very productive..

I should close this window and go back to work NOW !!

*LOL*

Jay said...

Hi Tim,

I wonder if you ever thought of expanding it to Europe / Uk? I live here, and know that you used to go to LSE maybe UCL .... and I've noticed that blogging has become quite a trend recently here ... a lot of major companies have a blog and beauty blogs are on the rise.

It'd be really interesting to hear your thoughts,

Jay (j-foo@hotmail.co.uk)

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