The Noom offices are located in Chelsea. Normally, our lower Manhattan location affords us a bevy of transportation options, delicious restaurants and bars nearby, and all the other creature comforts the Noom staff could want.

This week, our plush lower Manhattan location means something entirely different: We’re in the NYC “dead zone.” As you may already know, Manhattan below 34th Street is essentially shut-down; flooding, power shut-offs, and a transformer explosion have left us without power and heat, and some without even running water. At the risk of sounding like the butt of a “first world problems” joke, this is making work pretty tough.

We’re fortunate that many of our employees weren’t severely impacted by Hurricane Sandy (though some were among those with no power, water, heat, cell reception, etc.), and everyone is safe and well. However it was still impossible for some to get to our office for several days, due to transportation shut-downs and serious traffic — not to mention the lack of power. In the interim, our team split up to work in three groups at various coworkers’ homes, and those without power were taken in by friends and co-workers.

Despite the hurdles, we’re doing everything we can to return to normal. One of our staffers who happened to be in DC over the weekend was able to purchase a generator and drive it in a U-Haul all the way here to our office. Team members carried the generator up five flights of stairs, installed it on our roof, and were able to get enough power to run several computers and our wireless router.

We’ve got internet service through two providers for just these circumstances, and Verizon stayed online, so we do have internet service. Chef Jane isn’t able to cook, but she is able to get us Korean food delivered from K-Town, which is a miracle in itself.

We’re still struggling to get caught up on our customer support tickets, bug fixes, and future launches, but we’re happy to finally be gathering again in one office (even if it doesn’t have power or heat).

We’re so grateful for our members’ support and patience during this tough time, and our hearts go out to everyone else impacted by the storm. We wish you all the best, and don’t worry — we’ve got plenty of Starbucks and flashlights to stay fueled up.

The afternoon of August 23, we finally broke through. But that’s not where it began.

Our office had been feeling a bit tight as of late. Chairs bumping into the backs of other chairs; folks rolling over Oggie’s tail (he’s a dog…we swear); desks pushed up against our only functioning printer, rendering it pretty unfunctional; and the pungent smell of stinky cheese wafting from the mini fridge. We’ve been growing rapidly this year with two new additions in February, another in April, and eight more team members since the summer began (including our four interns from Waterloo and another from Monterrey).

Luckily, at the same time, we were hard at work on the office space next door in our Chelsea, NYC building. Although we were paying rent for the space beyond the wall, we couldn’t actually expand into it because sand blasters were stripping the white paint from the once-exposed brick (to be exposed once more), green paint was being strategically placed, and walls were being added to construct an extra conference room. Oh yeah, and there was a wall was blocking our entry into this space.

After three months of renovations, it was finally hammer time. Sure, we could have let the contractor take care of that, but hey, we like to get our hands dirty. We christened our sledgehammer with Noom stickers, projected Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and went to town. Everyone on the team got a couple of good whacks in, and with Mark leading the way, we all broke through.

We’re already loving the breathing room and awesome, bright sunlight in the new space. Plus, we’ve now got a designated chill area, and room to hire even more awesome people!

Internships don’t have to be a pain.

We know that working in a fun, collaborative environment is the difference between a good internship and an amazing internship. At Noom, we all work together to make sure our culture is a place where we can create something awesome while learning and having fun.

We aren’t afraid to disagree and discuss anything and everything, which is one takeaway our co-op students always leave with. All decisions are made in the open, and everyone has a say — yes, even the folks that are here for only a matter of months. Our ongoing goal is to make sure everyone is always involved in our company’s vision and success.

But don’t take our word for it. Ask our former interns.

Living the Startup Lifestyle

“I started at Noom with a breadth of technical knowledge, wanting to learn more about what makes a startup tick. Right away I was working on new features for Noom. Soon after … users were brought in to test it — it was so cool to see the work I did last week in front of a user!

I had an interest in the business side of things, having a strong technical background from many engineering internships. I had weekly 1:1 meetings with one of the founders, Artem, where he taught me the essentials like finding product market fit and disruptive innovation theory. This was a very unique learning experience I don’t think I could get anywhere else. Near the end of the term, I started putting this knowledge to use launching an experiment to explore a new market segment for Noom.” –Tom Joynt, University of Waterloo

Embracing the Family Atmosphere

“The actual experience within Noom was great. The company has a family-like feeling, we all gather for lunch together, and nobody works apart from the rest … One day, we could all be stressed out because of a planned release, and the next day go to a museum for a scavenger hunt or to the movies. Every now and then we would go to a nearby restaurant or bar and spend time relaxing away from work and getting to know each other.” –Miguel Cervera, Tecnologico de Monterrey

Interested in joining our team? Visit our jobs board for more info.