There are many reasons why Intuit is a great place to work. Instead of boring you with the typical responses of pay, benefits, work life balance, vacation, etc. I’ll be honest with my response. Sure all of those items are important, but I left out another benefit that has hidden value that may not seem obvious, the Nintendo Wii. How can the Wii be a “benefit” you ask? Let me explain.

I don’t consider myself a gamer, which is rare for a software engineer. I don’t own a Nintendo, Sony PlayStation, Xbox, or any PC game for that matter. There’s a small game room here at our office that includes a pool table, foosball table, and of course a Wii. I was reluctant at first, but after a few rounds of golf, a tennis match or two, and rocking Guitar Hero I was hooked. I’ve found that playing Guitar Hero on the Wii helps clear my mind and is a great stress reliever.

My style of programming doesn’t always work in my favor. When I’m working on a problem I like to keep hacking at it until I get it working. Sometimes I work a solution in minutes, but other tasks might take hours. Instead of getting up, taking a break, walking around, etc. I sit at my desk with the headphones on coding away. Sometimes hours will go by before I realize I need to get up and walk away. Lately I’ve been walking away to the game room and it’s helping me be more productive. Crazy right?

I’ve found that playing a jam or two takes my mind off the problem I’ve been trying to tackle. Enjoying some laughs with other members of the team and just letting loose for a while really helps drain my brain of confusion. Just yesterday four of us played for a while after a meeting. Believe it or not, we had a mini-discussion ourselves talking casually about the meeting we just had. Of course it wasn’t all business because we would interrupt ourselves to yell out to Holly, “use your star power, quickly!”

Jonathan joked the other day, “Don’t you feel like you can type faster after you’ve played Guitar Hero?” He’s right. Not only is my mind clearer than it was before, I find my fingers can move and type at a feverish pace. Ok, this is a bit of a stretch I know, but in all seriousness it’s a nice break that forces me away from my desk. I’ve been able to get a lot done in the time spent after an attempt at Through the Fire and Flames. My mind is clear, moral is high, and of course typing speed has increased.

tagged: great place to work, guitar hero, productivity, wii