beer, bowling, and billiards

Last year, for the very first time, we got all of the North American MacBU team together in one place. There were dozens of people who had worked together for years but didn't have a face to put with the name (or, more likely, the email address). As one of the people who travels between Redmond and SVC frequently, I found myself frequently introducing people from the two locations and letting them realise how well they actually know each other.

It was such a success last year that we did it again this year. Even though we did get to meet last year, there was still a lot of the same thing happening. Part of it was that we had one of our overseas team here, part of it is that we've done an amazing amount of hiring in the past year. There were enough new people around that it was hard to keep track of them all.

Watching everyone interact over beers, bowling, and billiards reminded me of one of the reasons that I like working here. Okay, so most of us can't bowl (yes, we usually do take home the MacBowl trophy, but the bowling prowess of a few hasn't helped the rest of us with our bowling scores), but we're willing to give it a go and have fun trying. There seems to be a few more people better at billiards.

I ended up staying out until well after 2am with my co-workers, sharing cocktails and good times. A girl can't complain about co-workers cool enough that this is something that you want to do with your Thursday night.