We Have an Office! (Sort of)

June 18, 2008

We do our work online most of them time, not face to face. We IM and
email like crazy. Things that are simple for other businesses are a
little more complicated for us. Figuring out where to deliver a pallet
of boxes packed with the latest issue is a challenge when you don't
have a physical address. We store our stuff in little stashes all over
the city, like my closet, or Stefanie's living room, or Lisa's car or
Seng's garage.

Luckily we're a pretty crafty and resourceful group, so we've managed to make
do and keep publishing for 5 years now. Well, actually I wouldn't say it's luck. The fact that many of us have been raised in that frugal Asian way has clearly been helpful for Hyphen. (If you donate to Hyphen, be assured that your money is not being used for frivolous things. We know how to stretch every single dollar.)

Oh, but back to that glorious new office space. Personally, it was very exciting to be able to clean out my closets and have all the Hyphen back issues, merchandise, and files in my apartment join all the other Hyphen things in a central location where other Hyphen staffers could get a hold of them. I bet Stefanie is psyched to get the Welcome to Asian America road sign out of her bedroom. I know it's a very simple thing, but it's life-changing for us. We can see all our back issues at once! We can take an accurate inventory count! All our mail can be sorted in one place! We even have a little spot where we can display our awards.

We were busy bees on Saturday: folding t-shirts, sorting back issues, dusting off boxes. Stefanie made a back issues reservoir by stacking cardboard boxes to form make-shift shelving. As you can imagine though, this is a pretty precarious set-up. So if anyone out there in the Bay Area has extra shelving you don't need (preferably made of metal and capable of holding heavy stacks of magazines), please consider donating it to us. We're also looking for office supplies and a computer that isn't ancient. (Please email hyphen (at) hyphenmagazine.com)

Update your address books:

Hyphen
17 Walter U. Lum Place
San Francisco, CA 94108

Photos of our glamorous new cubicle coming soon.

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Contributor: 

Melissa Hung

Founding Editor

Melissa Hung is the founding editor of Hyphen. She was the editor in chief for the magazine's first five years and went on to serve in many other leadership roles on the staff and board for more than a decade. She is a writer and freelance journalist. Her essays and reported stories have appeared in NPR, Vogue, Pacific Standard, Longreads, and Catapult, among others. She grew up in Texas, the eldest child of immigrants. Find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Comments

Comments

Wow, a real office! Congratulations! Will there be office hours? Can we come visit?
Ooh, office hours. Not a bad idea. Since most of us have day jobs, I'm not sure *when* we're going to be around. If we have them, we'll post them.