Bogus euro dude!

Bogus, bogus, bogus. I can see it already. Constantine our VPE has brought in some new management. Its some French dude, dressed too well and too much aftershave. I think he's real name is Francois, but people have been calling him Frank. Apparently he gets super annoyed if you do that. My boss, Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir, is really pissed. Looks like they will give Frank the platform team, which I thought was the team I worked in. After Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir stormed out of the building, I caught up with him the next day. Apparently we are now the Architecture team and we lay the ground for everybody above us, including the Platform team. So sticking one finger in the air to Frank already.

I have grown to love Can-I-Have-A-Latte-Sir, we did not see eye to eye to begin with. But I'm learning my lesson and not judging a book by its cover. He really knows his way around the code and the system, and I should have respected that. I can see he super loves us in that I-will-beat-you-but-its-for-your-own-good sort of way.

Now I just need to finish that shopping cart feature.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 2 bottles (down 13 from last week)
Shots : 2 x Bourbon Shots (down 8 from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (1 x Thai, 1 x Una Mass, 3 x Pizza)
Weight : 178 lbs

Fun in the sun!

Wow. What an awesome way to say goodbye to the old cramped office, a fun day in the sun and "hello new office" next week.

It was an awesome day, Henry did look spectacular in his Ralph Lauren (not Polo) Polo short, cut off Seven Jeans and his regular loafers (no socks). He really showed what it takes to be a king of the valley. Not only did he land some big fish so far this year, he took the time to let down his slightly thinning hair and hang out with his staff. Boy, he also put away a few PBRs in the process.

Tried to hang out with Geek Babe, but she was too busy throwing down Jello Shots and throwing up the Una Mass from the catered lunch. I will miss the old office, with the wall of shame (aka where you go to punch out the dry wall), the coffee stained walls (aka when DJ had a fit when the site went down for the 3rd time that day) and the great food.

The future looks bright, we are not moving far, just into the other tower. We will have three floors to fill out so the recruiting team will still be hiring, hiring, hiring.

Henry had a little rally call at the end of the day. We were hot, sweaty and drunk. He said the most amazing thing, "You are my family, I love each of you like you were my brothers. We are all brothers in arms". I'm starting to think that Henry is that father I never had, he is so inspiring, my father was such a looser working at Washington Mutual all those years.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 15 bottles (up 10 from last week)
Shots : 10 x Jello Shots (9 up from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (4 x Pizza, 1 x Una Mass)
Weight : 177 lbs

Awesome office!

Wow! The new office is awesome. I mean, its exactly like the old office, the kindergarden color scheme, weird names for offices and the super post-industrial-look-at-me-we-have-money-to-spend vibe. I can't wait for the open house that has been planned to lure even more people into the Hank Nation. My friends are going to be so jealous.

So two more weeks in the old office. I had my second HAHA (Hank Architecture Holistic Assessment), and I got slammed. Stacy (Mobile Director) totally killed my design because he thought it would not scale to the 1M transactions / hour that he has to design the mobile server for. I mean I get it, but we are running at 48 transaction a day, a million does seem a bit of a stretch. Back to think through the design again.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 5 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 1 x Bourbon (4 down from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x pizza)
Weight : 175 lbs

Cool, we buy an online calculator application!

Henry, he is just so cool. At the company meeting this week he gives a long speech, almost a monologue, on how its critical that we are accurate and accurate all the time. I did not get it. Sure we have to make sure we charge right amount for the services, money is presented in the UI with the right currency symbol and the period in right place etc.

But now I get it. Its totally cool, we have acquired this company that has an on-line calculator application. It totally makes sure that any math you need to do is not only accurate but available everywhere our application lives. I mean, right now that's just a web browser, but as we broaden where our platform can be accessed, you will be able to do this stuff on you cell phone. Awesome.

Apparently, its written in PHP or some arcane language like that, but how cool. A calculator widget anywhere in our application.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 5 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 5 x Bourbon (2 up from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x Una Mass)
Weight : 175 lbs

Awesome waffle breakfast!

Wow. I was blown away. All the VPs got together this week cooked all the employee's breakfast. Hey it was Bisquick Shake & Pour but it was super tasty, in a processed kind of way. I've never seen such a controlled form of chaos in my life, must be the fact that Henry was not there. He did say at the last company meeting (from his cell phone) that he would be there leading the charge, but apparently some Red Sox game was playing so decided to stay on the East Coast to watch it. He loves them Sox.

I chatted to Geek Babe, you know, her best advice on Spring dependency injection and so forth. I think she recognizes talent if you know what I mean.

One of the teams has started a bake-and-bring weekly event. Apparently, you bake something and bring it into the office. Sounds totally yuk to me. Why would I want somebodies homemade cookies, coffee cake, etc. when I can just go to Starbucks and get the real thing. Don't people know that home style stuff is so like my grandmother would do?

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 5 bottles (down one from last week)
Shots : 3 x Tequila (same as last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (4 x Una Mass, 1 x Thai)
Weight : 171 lbs

Our mobile product rocks!

Stacy, who runs the mobile team, gave an overview of the product at the company meeting this week. OMG, we are going to kill that market! I had just not thought about the horizontal synergy that mobile gives the digital butler. Its just everything, everywhere and at anytime. We rock!

Stacy walked through the product roadmap. We are looking to support the 62xx and 65xx range of Blackberry's late this year. It makes total sense to support technology that has been out in the market place for quite a few years. That way its prevalent because all the business dudes already have them rather than support a new or current model which nobody has. Its really pushing our engineers, those models have no memory and use a version of Java that's older than my mommy. Those platforms are tough to crack, which explains why the team have been at it for some time.

The Asian dude with glasses asked what about the iPhone. The answer made total sense. We are aimed at the business market and not the consumer market so we need to support business. It kind of sucks because I can't show my friends and family the digital butler on my iPhone and looks like I will not be able to for a bunch of time. I'm sure Henry is right about the strategy.

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 3 bottles (same as last week)
Shots : 2 x Tequila (down one from last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x Pizza)
Weight : 171 lbs

Geek babes!

I'm sure Henry has something to do with this. Yes we have way over the normal quota of babes in finance, marketing, HR and the normal places. But this is why Hank Commerce is just so different, we have geek babes as well!

I was at a brown bag this week and one of the total goddess babes was presenting. Hair pulled back, white t-shirt, skinny jeans, slingbacks you know the drill. OMG she totally knows what she is talking about, there was some stuff in there that blew my mind away. I'm sure that I must have looked like some sad puppy or something, my cube buddy kicked me one time, I think I must have been dribbling into my soda.

Henry has the vision. Development have the Geek babes. We are so totally writing the next big internet story!

This weeks food and drink
Beer : 3 bottles (down three from last week)
Shots : 3 x Tequila (same as last week)
Dinner : 5 nights (5 x Pizza)
Weight : 170 lbs