March 7, 2016

@40 Stories – My NBS Memories

Shared by Maria Morrison, Interior Designer

The biggest thing I remember working at NBS twenty years ago was that we all would eat lunch together every day in our conference room.  The break room was small with only a fridge and one table.  What happened in the Mount Clemens office drove our future NBS culture.  It wasn’t until we moved to our Rochester office that we got a larger café with a TV and bar area to socialize.  I remember watching the World Trade Center towers falling on that TV.

We dressed more formally back then, I would often wear a full suit to work for a client meeting.  Also, if you wanted to wear jeans on Fridays you had to pay for it!  Our receptionist kept a jar at her desk where you could put $1 in every week if you wanted to wear jeans that Friday.  The money went to Habitat for Humanity.

We didn’t work in an open plan back then, we were in 80” high panels, so if you wanted to talk to someone you had to get up and walk around to their station.  Eventually the center wall of my station was dropped to 54” high so I could collaborate with the person across from me.  The color trends at the time were very dark and bold.  Our showroom had purple, green and dark blue workstations.