Cheering for the hometown team has always been interesting at SoftLayer. With U.S. data centers in Dallas, Houston, Washington DC, Seattle and San Jose, the “home team” varies throughout the organization. It’s always fun to talk about games with fans when I’m not invested in the outcome of a game outside my favorite team’s division … And when it comes to the NBA (which no longer has a team in Seattle), it’s easy to cheer for the teams that other SLayers are cheering for. When the Dallas Mavericks won the NBA Championships, our Dallas techs were going crazy, and their enthusiasm was pretty contagious.

When it comes to NFL football, things are a little different. Prior to the launch of our San Jose facility, supporting each data center’s home NFL team with some playful banter was normal. When San Jose came into the mix, that meant we’d have a lot of new employees (Yay!) who are probably going to be fans of my Seahawks’ divisional rivals, the San Francisco 49ers (Booo! ). Now cheering for games gets a little trickier since we don’t want a football-related civil war between offices.

In reality, I’m sure it’ll never be an issue, since SLayers are like a big, diverse family … That being said, I’m glad I wasn’t in the office on the Monday after the Seahawks’ opening game loss against the 49ers. My California peers would have probably been quick to chat about the game, and I probably wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it. It’s different for me to have coworkers who are die-hard fans of a rival team due to their geography (and not just because they are a bandwagon fan), and as we keep growing, I’m sure the football support between offices is going to keep getting more and more diverse … My vote is that we avoid adding a data center in another NFC West rival’s market, though.

The interoffice atmosphere is just another reason why I love working for SoftLayer. Our team is so different, but we’re united by the common goal of making SoftLayer the best company in the world (for our customers and for our employees). For right now, I’m glad that there aren’t as many soccer fans in our halls … You don’t want to see me in my soccer hooligan mode.

-Robert