I want to work here

March 4, 2009 7:47 AM

Is this real and, if so, where is it?

Does anyone know if the picture in this blog post is real and, if it is, where that office is?

posted by urbanwhaleshark to grab bag (9 comments total)

I can't find an original source, but here's a picture of it from a different angle.
posted by desjardins at 7:55 AM on March 4

here's another pic of the same thing.
posted by delmoi at 7:56 AM on March 4

It apparently used to be hosted on the UC Berkeley website, but the page is 404'd.
posted by desjardins at 7:57 AM on March 4

The UC Berkeley hit is from the humour page of a building relocation committee.
posted by zamboni at 8:40 AM on March 4

I'm almost positive I've read that the office is in Europe. I want to say Denmark, but I'm a lot less positive about that.
posted by hootch at 9:03 AM on March 4

If you look closely at the monitors on the far side of the tank, there doesn't appear to be any refraction. I'm guessing fake.
posted by brianogilvie at 8:14 PM on March 4

If it were just one photo, I'd go along with the shopping theory, but with two it seems less likely. That's a lot of trouble to go to.

And while it's pretty unusual it doesn't seem either impossible or inherently ridiculous.

The photo has been around since 2004, so I may have seen it without identification before, but I seem to remember the same thing that hootch does. Tineye search only turns up funny photo sites with no provenance, though.
posted by dhartung at 11:04 AM on March 5

Corroboration of similar excess, at least, from the NYT:
To Swim With the Sharks, Have a Big Tank
The author is Jayson Blair, but the Predictive Systems tank is corroborated elsewhere.

It's possible that it's a Bloomberg facility -- either the news operation or the bullpen at City Hall.
posted by dhartung at 11:18 AM on March 5

Here it is again. I doubt this is what their office actually looks like, but if anyone is curious enough you could call them and ask.
posted by yohko at 11:19 AM on March 5