If you follow us on Instagram, you already know that I got to go visit Kathryn’s office in December. For those of you who don’t know, Kathryn is a software developer at rewardStyle, which is basically the capitol of the fashion blogger world. Since the company is so vital to blogging, I thought it would be fun to share a little bit about what rS HQ is like behind the scenes, from an outsider’s perspective.
I actually turned up super late for our lunch date because my haircut ran long, so we thought we would only have a few minutes before Kathryn kicked me out for her team meeting. Kathryn walked me around the office quickly and I immediately recognized the Early Bird from the rS insta. I thought these light fixtures were so unique and I wanted to try my hand (haha) at recreating them.
Right outside the Early Bird (on the way to Amber and Baxter’s offices!) is this fun “started with a screenshot” neon sign. My new friend, Morgan, graciously took about twenty pictures of us to make sure we got the lighting right—Amber says it never photographs well, so if you need a photo taken at the rS HQ, Morgan is your girl.
We headed to the Goat (the 8th floor bar/kitchen, and Baxter’s college nickname) to scarf down some lunch and then I walked Kat over to her team meeting. The conference room conveniently had an rS sign right outside so I recruited her coworkers to be our photographer and assistants. Thank you Clay (behind the camera), Josh, and Gentry!
Clay invited me to sit in on their team meeting since they weren’t discussing anything sensitive, and I didn’t understand most of what they talked about anyway. Of course, I had to tell them all about our blog before they got started, get a chastisement about our could-really-be-better SEO, and then sit back and finish my lunch while they worked out upcoming projects (I have no insider info to spill because, again, I am not fluent in devspeak).
Since my short visit had already morphed into crashing Kathryn’s workday—and I wanted to stick around to meet the HR team—I helped set up her team’s holiday white elephant party. I rooted around the rS bar to make some festive moscow mules that I found on Pinterest and played bartender so no one would question why this random girl was suddenly part of the gift exchange.
After the white elephant exchange, the HR department was finally back from their team event and y’all, they were the sweetest. All five of them follow us on instagram, so I felt like a celebrity—everyone knew me the second I walked in, and they were SO encouraging. They applauded our follower count (that I thought was too low), our photos (that I often think are too rushed), and our overall blog concept. It was like being blogging royalty. The head of HR, MeL, got pulled away to do a shot at the bar with Baxter which lead to her showing our blog off to Amber Venz freaking Box! And she genuinely cared! When Kathryn and I went back to the bar to grab our things, Amber stopped what she was doing to scroll through our feed and compliment our ideas.
You would think that, dealing with bloggers day in and day out, rStheFam (they have their own hashtag) would be so unimpressed by a little blog like ours. But they weren’t! They were so kind and welcoming to this random girl that stumbled into their office. Everyone from the woman who greeted me at the front desk to the owners of the company took time to interact with me, take our photo, look at our blog. I am blown away by the support and so glad Kathryn gets to work for a company that values her.
Tailor of 2 Cities 