Archive for the 'work' Category

The Delta Gorillas

Published December 6th, 2007 in useless, work, fun and video. 3 Comments

One of the dreams I’ve had for well over a year recently came true when a friend at work and I brought our gorilla suits in and had a fight in the front lawn of the company I work for. We did it during lunch when we thought everyone would be returning from lunch.

The Delta Gorillas from randy on Vimeo.

I am the idiot who wore a white shirt under my gorilla suit. And yeah, I realize the Men at Work song doesn’t make sense, because there are not gorillas in Australia.

interesting fact: i had bought my gorilla suit explicitly for this video, but my friend, out of pure coincidence, got the same suit for other reasons. he was totally game for the gorilla fight.

the wall of boxes

Published April 22nd, 2007 in work, fun and video. 0 Comments

towards the end of every year, my company signs a bunch of clients that we have to print ID cards for. thousands and thousands of cards. which results in hundreds of perfectly stackable boxes. instead of throwing them away, i decided to build a privacy wall for my cube:

Wall of Boxes Version 1.0

but someone thought it would be funny to push it on top of me:
http://strivingafterwind.com/videos/WallFall.wmv (1MB)

so my box wall layed in ruins all over my cube:
Wall of Boxes Crashed

not a problem, because i built a better wall. with a window (furnished with a golden curtain) and an archway:
Wall of Boxes Version 2.0

but all still did not end well. the wall had to be torn down after Corporate Services sent a message to my boss — and my boss’ boss — stating the following:

“[the team has] been printing an awesome number of ID cards, and the visible acknowledgment certainly makes a statement. I realize the boxes are empty, but they still pose an OSHA (and sprinkler system) violation. Would one of you mind diplomatically asking the boys to “tear down that wall” before they leave?”

All in a Day’s Work (2006)

Published February 27th, 2007 in work, fun and video. 0 Comments

in 2006, we had a web cam (internal) set up to capture a picture every minute of the day, from 8 to 4. this is the video made on the first day by putting all the frames together. some of the stop-motion sequences were a pain because we had to watch the clock, and jump out of our seats to pose. And then we’d continue our work. Despite how that may appear, we did get a lot of work done that day. some of this is boring, some is fun.

http://strivingafterwind.com/videos/AllInADaysWork.wmv (4MB)

by the way, it’s labelled armcam, because back in the day, that’s what the camera was focused on — our arms.

link to google video

Oracle’s Generous Gift of Appreciation

Published February 23rd, 2007 in work. 1 Comment

Recently, my company installed a major Oracle product that affected all of our several thousand employees. Those who worked on the project were told they would be receiving a tee shirt in appreciation for the 6-9 months of work spent on the project. I just got mine:

oracle shirt

Sure, it’s a high-quality 100% cotton shirt. But my company has nothing to do with BMW. We have nothing to do with Racing either. From the price tag that was left on the shirt, I’ve drawn these conclusions:

Oracle was trying to sell this shirt at one time.
Oracle could not sell it for $10, so they marked it down to $6.
Oracle could not sell it for $6, so now they are giving them to clients.

Interesting as this is, the back of shirt provides more insight into the history of this shirt:

oracle shirt

This indicates:

The shirt has nothing to do with racing BMW cars.
The shirt has something to do with racing boats?
The shirt has been around for 3 years.

Since this shirt represents the gratitude Oracle has for my time spent on the project, I researched the UBS trophy on the web… and even though there were just a handful of sites with information, I found out that Oracle and BMW teamed up for a yacht race in Rhode Island in June of 2004. And they won the “UBS trophy.” All of this I could have figured out from the shirt. Apparently this event happened only once, and so long ago that the official website does not exist anymore.

Even so, this shirt will forever be a reminder of how much Oracle cares about the people who dedicate their time and effort to a project. To have a piece of Oracle’s history to treasure is enough for me to feel appreciated for my work.

I’m sure I will look at that BMW logo often, day-dreaming about it being my company’s logo. Because even though my company has nothing to do with racing or yachts, we could have joined up with Oracle and created a fine yacht, and raced, and won. And then produced an over-abundance of tee-shirts for the event, and distributed them to Oracle’s other unsuspecting clients.

Links:
Summary of UBS Trophy Race
Pictures of the UBS Trophy Race

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