Anyone who has trolled through the pages on the Joost website, (and, if you’re here, then you’ve probably trolled quite a bit), might have learned that our London office has a pet/mascot/Vice President of Office Harmony called Marley.

Not to be outdone by our London colleagues, yesterday afternoon, months – no, a year – after Marley first made his appearance in the London office, one of my fellow greenhouse sitters decided it was time for New York to get an office pet/mascot.

But we’re kind of limited on the kinds of pets we can have here. We share office space with about 50 other companies, so dogs and cats are out of the question. Animals from the rodent family- gerbils, hamsters, ferrets, guinea pigs – were also vetoed; New Yorkers spend a lot of time and money keeping rodents out of our lives. Also, we needed something hearty and cheap – something that can survive the weekend without being fed, or something that, if they didn’t make it through the weekend, we wouldn’t be too sad or broken over their loss.

What’s left? Goldfish. Thanks to Paulina, we now have two – a black one and an orange one. We’re not naming them because we don’t want to get too attached. My guess is that if this goes well (or even if it doesn’t) we’ll have a full-on tropical fish tank by the end of the year.