Movin’ On Up! (and down, and up!)

Back in 2006, I was hired as employee number 6 at ShareASale. The company had recently moved into our current location at: 15 W. Hubbard in Chicago. Little did we know how soon ShareASale would begin to grow, and start moving up and down floors inside the building.

When I started, we had a little corner office on the third floor of the building; it was well known for being painted mostly black inside. Brian and Michael had their own private office, Dave worked behind a partition, and Sarah and I worked with two others in the main open space. If I can recall correctly, my “desk” was a door sized board on top of two file cabinets. It was definitely a cramped situation, as we expanded personnel. This is the only picture we could dig up from that office. I think it was taken near our “kitchen”, a  mini-fridge and microwave combo across from Michael’s office.

Around this time, a nightclub showed up on the first floor and would soon become a revolving door of closed clubs and restaurants. Hard to think this place would close down with such top acts.

As the company grew, we definitely needed some more space. So in late 2007/early 2008 we packed up the office and headed down one flight of stairs to our new home on the second floor.

Our new office was at least three times the size of the old home on the third floor. The giant brick wall was quickly painted with the ShareASale logo and we even had a kitchen (which shared space with our wall of filing cabinets.) This office would last us from 2008-2011 and the company personnel grew from seven to eighteen.

The second floor office was a total open loft space, so there were no private enclosed office spaces. Brian was in a corner behind some pipes and Michael was in the front near a our printers. David moved his partitions from the third floor and took up a home in a dark corner with zero light.

We had some fun times in this office. Its vast space equaled half of the floor in the building. This led to a few long running Nerf battles as well as miscellaneous sporting events after hours.   When the roving packs of dogs started showing up, it was time to move.

The company was forming what Brian would come to call “pods” and we needed to find a space that would help bring these pods together. So it was decided to move up two flights of stairs to our current home. Our twenty-one employees take up work residence in the penthouse on floor five. We have a kitchen, a learning classroom, a conference room, one of the bathrooms even has a shower in it (which I still scratch my head about), and three private offices – so David has finally bid ado to his wall partition. As of today, the office has been rearranged to maximize productivity and teamwork. Follow me while I walk you through the ShareASale office!

All pictures prior to the new office © of Carolyn Kmet.

All pictures of the new office © of Nate Beal