Work and Play
Last week, my department did an appreciation lunch at the Thomas Fogarty Winery in Woodside. My first thought was, there’s a winery in Woodside? It’s actually quite a lovely location with gorgeous views of the entire Bay Area. We lucked out and had beautiful sunny weather and could see from San Francisco to the South Bay clearly. As part of our visit, we had a friendly blind wine tasting competition. My favorite wines from the bunch were the Cabernet Brut and the Geverztraminer.
The rest of my week was pretty busy with usability testing for a couple of applications that we’re evaluating. This required me to travel all over campus to meet with people. You really gain empathy and an appreciation for the users by observing them work.
With Halloween coming up, the week ended on a light note. My co-worker Matt, who is probably the most detail-oriented person I know, put together a little “fright clinic” in an empty cubicle. He had spent the previous weeks searching on the internet for things like severed heads, decaying torsos and fake blood. On Friday morning during a project meeting, Matt did not show up but in his place Dr. Otto Frank appeared dressed in a doctor’s jacket, stethoscope, and “Einstein” hair and mustache. He spoke with a thick German accent and spent his spare moments conducting “research” in the fright clinic.
I had a ratty old wig and dark sunglasses, so I walked around as Dieter. I occasionally asked if people wanted to touch my monkey, but for the most part I just stared at people behind my glasses. When asked if I was entering the costume contest, I replied indignantly, “I’m not wearing a costume.”
Last Sunday, I flew out to Dallas for the Vignette Village conference. Since we’re looking at portal and content management solutions at work, it made sense to go. Actually, I have to say that I thought the conference was a lot better than I thought it would be. I had low expectations — I thought it would be pretty dry and tech-y, but there was a lot of talk about user experience that was inspiring. In the evenings, I got to bond with my co-workers a little. On our last evening, we visited Fort Worth for some barbeque at Riscky’s, and then we headed over to a honky tonk called Billy Bob’s for a beer. It’s actually advertised as the world’s largest honky tonk. Alas, they only have pro bull riding and live entertainment at Billy Bob’s on the weekends, so it was pretty dead but still enjoyable.
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