Part 2: Behind the Scenes at Kelby Media Group Headquarters
On Monday I had posted a visual tour of our headquarters here in Florida, with photos taken by my buddy RC Concepcion (link), and I saw a number of comments from people who wanted to see the other parts of the company (like my office, for example) and people that we didn’t have photos for, so I asked RC if he might head out yesterday, camera in hand, to pick-up some of the people and places we didn’t get to see on Monday. Here we go:
Above: This is where our book and magazine editors live. We had to give them their own special area after they staged a small uprising several years ago in which two guards were injured. That’s Chris Main walking around. You saw his picture on Monday but he wasn’t wearing his Star Trek crew shirt in that photo.
Above: This is one section of our warehouse, and here we store everything from tradeshow booths, to books, to back magazine issues, DVDs, and numerous palettes of Stonewall Kitchen Farmhouse Pancake & Waffle Mix (the 40 oz. size).
Above: This is our Shipping Dept., and when orders come in, everything being shipped that day comes from the warehouse over to this room to be processed, packaged, and sealed with a kiss. (I usually close my eyes during that last part).
Above: This is John from our Shipping Department, and one of the hardest working guys in the building, yet he always has a great attitude. He’s been with us for years, and every time I walk back there I shout out “JOHN!” He always gives me a big smile back and yells back “Hey Scott!” but after all these years he really probably wants to actually yell back, “Scott! Shut up!”
Above: Here’s a shot of my office, down in building 2 (affectionately known as “124” around here). I have an office in both buildings (they’re on the same street), but I spend most of my time down here, because Matt (seen with the laptop here), Dave, Corey, Larry, RC, Kathy, Brad, Ronni, the whole video crew, and a lot of other great folks are all down here. I keep a Fender Strat and amp in my office just to make sure I’m not overly productive. I’m playing Foghat’s “Slow Ride” here, but don’t worry—I have the volume on my amp set pretty low.
Above: This is my other office, the more corporate looking one, down at our Main Building (otherwise known as “333” to our crew). I keep a Fender Telecaster and an amp here to annoy the graphics dept. (they’re just outside my door). The monitor mounted on my wall is there because people got tired of coming behind my desk to see things I was showing them on my laptop.
Above: This is Ronni’s office (and Christmas wonderland), and Ronni is one of my favorite people. She handles our printing and magazine distribution, among many other things, and she’s incredibly good at her job. Ronni’s the first person I see at the office each morning as she’s got the first office in the door, and she has the greatest smile, and the best attitude. Ronni rocks!
Above: This is a hallway between the two sides of building 333 (our main building), and we have a mini-gallery here where we put our own images and images photographers have given us as gifts. A lot of my student’s images from workshops have been proudly displayed here as well.
Above: This is Kleber, who runs Kelby Training (both the live tours and the online training), and I can only guess that’s why he has an office roughly three times the size of mine. He’s got a really important job, and he and his team are just fantastic (plus, he’s got a wall map. They would never give me a wall map).
Above: This is Mike, and although he’s in the editing/publishing side of our business, he doesn’t live with the other editors. He has his own swanky office that is, once again way bigger than mine. I’m not sure I’m really enjoying this tour of our headquarters.
Above: This is Todd in our IT department, and if our computers mess up, he (a) comes and fixes them, and (b) then he yells us at and tells us it was all our fault it messed up in the first place. None of this is true, of course, but it helps propagate existing stereotypes about IT guys (totally kidding, Todd).
Above: This is a rare sight indeed—an Editor actually at her desk. I don’t know why we give them desks, because they’re never there. Editor’s prefer to hang out at Chili’s Restaurant, and at any given time during the work day, you can find five or six of them there with a big basket of Chips & Salsa. That’s Cindy—she’s a Technical Editor, so when I write stuff, she has to test it to see if what I wrote actually works. If it doesn’t work, she has me meet her at Chili’s where she yells at me over Chips & Salsa.
Above: This is part of our Web department, and back in the back is Tommy’s office, the Web big cheese (you saw him, well the top part of him, on Monday). His office is huge. I don’t want to talk about it.
Above: This is Justin on our Web team. Totally cool guy, and a serious musician. He left for a while to go on tour with his band, and when the tour was over, he came back to work. Do we let everybody go on tour like this? Nope. But Justin is that good that we were thrilled to have him back. Plus, I have great respect for anybody who brings their guitar to work. It’s also refreshing to find anyone in this building with an office that’s not bigger than mine.
Above: This is a part of our Customer Service department, and if you call in on the phone, these are the great folks you talk to. Although the colors look like the rest of our offices, they’re actually located in Mumbai, India. I’m totally kidding, but I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?
Above: This is Eddie in our graphics department. He’s the new guy, and a really talented designer, but I’m especially proud to share this image of Eddie because day before yesterday, Eddie became an American Citizen. Way to go, Eddie!!!! Now, if we could just get Dave Cross to defect….
Above: I wish you could see Margie’s face in this photo because she’s another one of my very favorite people. She is an absolutely, off-the-hook, brilliant graphic designer, and I’m constantly amazed at the creative stuff she comes up with. I feel very fortunate to have Margie designing for us. Besides her design work, she is just a wonderful person.
Above: This is Brandon, the “new guy” in our video department, and here he’s pretending to be editing video, but I happen to know that he secretly outsources all his editing tasks to a guy overseas who puts together videos for $1.20 an hour. Brandon was recently voted “Most likely to run a major airline. Or HP.” (Kidding).
Above: This is where some of the video crew work (the others have private offices. Don’t get me started), but we must have turned up the lights in there for this shot, because they normally like to keep it dark and romantic. Plus, they play a lot of Johnny Mathis music and Barry White. They also have the department with the highest birth rate.
Well gang, there you have it. There are still a lot of people missing that I would have loved to share with you, but it’s hard to keep everybody there during the day because we have a Cracker Barrel restaurant nearby. ;-)