Officespotter

 After deciding to leave our previous blog provider behind and moving to blog.hu, the idea immediately arose to visit index.hu’s offices for a spotting session. On the one hand, we knew that the offices in the building previously used as a tobacco factory were bound to be impressive, on the other hand we – as we’re sure many people – were curious where the news published by index is written.

Just like the company group is well segmented, the same can be said about the office layout as well. Immediately at the entrance is central area, where the different chief editors of the different columns sit, and this is where they decide what daily news will appear on the main page. The next room behind this one houses the workers, who produce the content.

You can tell this is a wholly internet based company, as the employees barely look up from their monitors. While they do bring a sort of homely atmosphere with all the nick-knacks strewn about the tables, the office itself is relatively featureless. As if they would have just put the tables down between the cast-iron pillars, hooked of the wifi, and thought no more of office design.

The collecting of various paraphernalia is typical of the entire office. It looks as though there were some kind of competition to see who can bring the most peculiar objects to work. It appears they did have some time for certain basic decorative touches, and thus the women’s and men’s toilets at Totalcar bear the logos of Renault and Volve, respectively.

In some cases we come face-to-face with such a degree of friendliness, we can’t help but mention it. Tibor Bende, editor-in-chief of Totalcar, instantly offers to lend us his wide-angle camera lens, to make better photos. Similarly, Nándor Hargita from Indafoto and László Sára blog.hu project manager patiently accompany us all throughout the offices. They too know there isn’t really much to see, and so they give us a breakdown of which division sits where and does what. During our tour, we visit the Dívány girls, the makers of Indavideó, the developers of blog.hu and Indafotó, the sales team and of course the writers of Velvet and the well-known guys down at Totalcar.

Eventually, our path leads us to András Pusztay, editor-in-chief of the entire operation. We ask him right away why the offices seem to be decorated in quite a puritan way, to which he slyly replies that he personally will be placing paintings on the walls of his own office shortly. He also says that the cast-iron pillars work more to their disadvantage, as during the fitout they constantly had to accommodate them.

As a game-room, index employees have to make do with a ping-pong table. Whether this is enough for the 150 employees working here remains a mystery. We deduce that journalism requires a high level of concentration, and thus employees aren’t encouraged to take long breaks or play games.

We wonder whether an office building renovated out of an old monumentally protected tobacco factory is the best place for a company who doesn’t really have many design requirements, and whose employees are fine with sitting just about anywhere as long as they’re in front of their monitors. The best way to put it is to say the office emanates a feeling very similar to that of the online magazine itself, and thus many of you can guess just what it was like to delve behind the curtains here.

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