Throughout the history of Tempo, I’ve always been involved in the team’s real estate initiatives. Apart from a team house in Arizona that the company got for the Heroes of the Storm team prior to me getting involved in esports, every other house has been toured, contracted, and set up by me. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, that changed this year.
The lease on Tempo’s Beverly Hills house was running out, and we didn’t want to stay in that property for another year because it was very expensive, the air conditioning was catastrophically bad during summer months, and the Internet was catastrophically unreliable during … all months. I did the initial scouting on potential new properties, but one of our production directors found a great house candidate in Long Beach with amazing value.
We ended up moving forward with this property and I reached out to the leasing agent to organize a tour. It started out not going too great, because the leasing agent did not want to do business with a corporation and they didn’t even consider the possibility of entertaining the concept that we might actually be a reliable, real company, and not some shell company that was created solely to limit liability.
Eventually, they stopped responding to me altogether, so one of our production directors literally went in-person to the leasing agent’s office to figure out what was going on. Luckily, this director is probably the most charming person we have in the company, and he worked his magic—he put the leasing agent in touch with our CEO, and we managed to successfully submit an application for the property.
This is our new “backyard.”
It was weird being the one being given a tour, rather than the one running the tour. This was my first time seeing the house, as the residents and producers set this house up without my help.
I don’t want to show any photos of the interior because I don’t want to spoil any house tour videos that our production crew might have in the works, but this… this is absolutely, definitely a mansion. A lot of people called our previous Beverly Hills house a mansion, but this is a real mansion. It has far greater square footage, and my favorite part is that it is astronomically cheaper than our previous property because it’s a lot farther out of the way of Los Angeles (as opposed to being nestled in the Hills surrounded by celebrities).
Anyway, in addition to the show that we did yesterday, another reason I came to visit this time around is because the 27th is reynad’s birthday and the 28th is my birthday. We had a small staff get-together and grill at the house on the 29th in celebration of our birthdays, though it obviously had to be fairly small due to minimizing COVID-19 risks.
One of reynad’s friends made a Russian (or maybe it was a Ukrainian?) cake. Apparently it did not rise and shape properly, and the candle was limp. I found it in the refrigerator and took a photo of it in honor of her effort.
Overall, it was a pretty nice trip. The house was a nice surprise that exceeded my expectations (which only happens fairly rarely). I’m happy with where Tempo is in terms of staffing, and I think the core staff members we have are all pleasant and considerate people. I’m generally not one to enjoy birthday parties or attention, but it’s always nice to have reynad’s birthday so close to mine, so I can deflect some of the attention away from myself and towards him instead.
The house is busy and bustling right now with a lot of live-in staff and a lot of projects going on, so there aren’t any rooms available and I might not be able to make it out there again until another month or so, but I definitely am looking forward to it once the opportunity arises again. The roads are far less cramped, and I don’t need to drive 15+ minutes down a mountain to find commercial civilization, so it’s way more pleasant of an area to visit.
Until then, I’m back at home sweet home.