My “Welcome to Auth0” swag

My Auth0 swag arrived today! This means I can finally partake in the techie tradition of making the traditional “Look at the stuff I got when I joined the company!” post.

The laptop arrived on the Friday of my first week, and it’s a nice one:

When I got hired, incoming Auziros — that’s the internal term for “Auth0 employee” — got the choice of either a 13″ or 16″ MacBook Pro.

Many developers I know prefer to go with a smaller, lighter notebook. As a person who carries an accordion to social events, conferences, and bars (or at least, I used to, before the plague), I have a distorted sense of what “lightweight” is, and consider a 16″ laptop dainty. I don’t mind the extra weight, and I appreciate the extra processing power, screen real estate, USB ports, and battery size.

The swag arrived in a box at noon, and most of it is Auth0-branded and in the official colors.

The goodies are:

• 2 Auth0 t-shirts
• 2 Auth0 stickers
• A reversible booklet, which reads “Auth0 Product Vision” on one side, and “Auth0 Brand Vision” on the other
• An Auth0 water bottle
• A metal cup, labeled “One giant leap”, and below it, a lunar footprint with the Auth0 “shield” logo in the middle
• An Auth0 spiral-bound notebook
• An Auth0 laptop zip-pouch
• A Tile Mate bluetooth tracker

The laptop pouch can hold the 16″ MacBook Pro, and it certainly stands out. It’s a good thing that orange is one of my favorite colors:

I’m going to have to ask an Auziro who’s been around longer what the “One Giant Leap” promotion was all about. It is a nice mug:

Companies function better when their people can actually tell the story of the company and articulate what the company’s all about. And for the people who work at a company, knowing the company’s vision and the image it wants to project to the world can help give a sense of meaning and purpose to the work they do.

That’s why I think one of the best things in the box o’ swag was the double-sided booklet, with Auth0’s product vision on one side…

…and Auth0’s brand vision on the other:

It’s not unusual for a tech company to provide swag like branded bottles, bags, mouse pads, mugs, and stickers. In my more recent experience, I’ve been fortunate to get a really nice “welcome” package from Shopify, Smartrac, and Sourcetoad.

Some companies stand out by providing something a little more unusual with the welcome swag. Auth0 is one of those companies, as they didn’t just include a Tile Bluetooth tracker, but also put the box in a sleeve with nice messages. They could’ve just thrown it in with the rest of the stuff, but they took the trouble to make it a little more personal:

Thanks for the sweet stuff, Auth0!