Tag: work

So at work we have a thing called the Atlassian Foundation. Basically we get five days a year to take off work and do charitable things. We (by which I mean myself, kungfupolarbear, and a couple of co-workers) helped out at Monika’s Doggie Rescue last Friday.

Wow. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.

The dogs they take in were all a day shy of being put down, so they tended to be smaller dogs and with much more problems than your average dog. We took a few of them out for walks, and helped with the laundry that needed doing. The first dog I was walking had a problem where if he’d see another dog that wasn’t from his “group”, he’d start borderline screaming and would turn around and try to bite whoever was walking him. The person from the rescue place obviously warned me about this and what to do, it wasn’t like it was unexpected, but christ. Not a good start. And sure enough, we ran into some random dog while we were out for walks and the dog did exactly as described. It happened again on the way back to the place, fortunately I managed to avoid getting bitten, but bloody hell.

We did hung out some laundry, then took a second batch of dogs out, which were thankfully much better behaved and the walk was quite uneventful. The third batch, the dog I was walking kept stopping to look back and bark at the other dogs and I kept having to literally drag him to get him walking again. I ended up talking a different route to the others so he’d actually focus and start walking.

The reason this post is titled “Ow” is because I was wearing my regular boots and made the mistake of running, borderline sprinting on one occasion, to give the dogs a bit of a workout. I was thumping along flat-footed and the boots have no padding in them. The end result is that I think I bruised my hips or something because I was sore as absolute buggery on Friday night. We had Lily over the weekend, and I was sore but not too bad, but when I woke up on Monday morning I must have slept funny or something because I basically couldn’t bend at ALL. It’s currently just past 10pm on Tuesday night and my lower back is still sore as hell. I’ve been working from home both days, and will be again tomorrow, because owww. It’s getting better, but unfortunately Dencorub seems to be the only thing that actually does anything, and even then it’s not totally improved.

kungfupolarbear didn’t escape unscathed either, the first dog she was walking was solid muscle and kept pulling on the lead very strongly throughout the whole walk. She was leaning back to keep the dog in check, and as a result has sprained her leg and hip muscles. 🙁

We had our salary reviews yesterday, and I got a 5% payrise! Even better, it’s backdated to the 1st of January. \o/ So payday next Wednesday, I’ll get a bunch of extra money.

Woot!

So due to the large amount of (free) drinks we get in at work, and the increasing time that it takes for the office organiser people to stock the fridges, we’ve gotten in vending machines and will have people come in and stock them for us. The drinks in the vending machines won’t cost us any money, it’s just saving time.

😀

At work, we get a company-wide bonus each year, and the better we do the more we get. It starts at 7.5%, and goes up to 9.5%. We got the full 9.5% this year! 😀 …so naturally I’m spending part of it on shiny new camera gear. 😉 I’ve ordered the Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L, and it ought to arrive early next week. \o/

Work is going quite well, we hired a new guy for Studio support and he started about three weeks ago, and he gets along really well with everyone. The queue hasn’t been horrible this week, so I’ve had a bit of time to relax.

kungfupolarbear‘s new job is going fantastically well, everyone there is nice, and people are sane!

All in all, things are excellent. 😀

Wow. It’s been exactly a year to the day since I started at Atlassian! I was looking back at my LJ posts when we found out we were getting made redundant at Apple, and they were understandably bummed out, but holy crap did everything turn out nicely. 😀

In the year I’ve been at Atlassian, I’ve gotten a total of 11.5% in payrises plus a bunch of share options, I’ve been able to get my geek on massively, and am working in an even more laid-back and more awesome environment than Apple had!

I love my job. 😀

Every quarter at Atlassian, we have “Fedex”, where all the developers take two days off to furiously code and make shiny new things (see here). One of the things being created this year involves Sharepoint, and the writeup for it was absolutely brilliant:

The Problem
Some people really love SharePoint. Especially business manager type people. They just can’t get enough of it. It’s like KPI crack. With no knowledge of programming, web design or HTML, they can go in and create customisable dashboards, reports and lists and lists of information, pulled in from every other data-store imaginable. They can set it up to email them regularly with new information, export into pretty word documents and use a myriad of other useful Microsoft-centric features. Once it’s setup, they sit back and bask in the luminescent glow of their sweet, sweet datas. From their fortress of KPI solitude, they have ample time to reflect on how brilliantly awesome they are – breaking occasionally from their meditative state to hit the refresh button.

Oh yes, they f*$&@cking love their reports.

With this image underneath it:

😀