MetaBroadcast

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the pursuit of metappiness: we're making way to an ever pink summer

Written by Rita Lopes on 26 Jun 2012

Even if it doesn’t look like it every moment, every day, Summer just hit us. And with it, comes not only good weather in London (hopefully!), but in other places, too. Therefore, some of us will be on holidays over the next couple of months. Besides the best part of going on vacation (which is actually going), it also means we have to make sure everything is tidy, handed over, carried on, up and running—so that we needn’t call someone relaxing on a sandy beach somewhere in the world :)

Our so called summer tidying was off to a great start when we received new crockery to add another splash of pink to our collection. Around here, we love different shapes and sizes, things that look fun and quirky, fine china and unique pieces. Which is why we often go vintage, and eBay is a good friend.

Last week, our regular code review session was about Cassandra, a deep dive in accordance with our vacation handover needs. In short, Sergio took the stage in our Plan room to let everyone in on recent developments, what has been done and how to carry on the work. All this happened with precious insight from Adam so that everything was clear, code and systems wise.

To continue with our summer cleaning and to help make way for our ever pink summer, I now have a pretty pink rose in a vase on my desk, which was a very kind and thoughtful gift from the only other lady in the team.

Thank you Mirona :) By the way… Yes! Only two girls are part of this team at the moment! Could we use some more feminine touches around here? We definitely could :D Where are all the women engineers? Or designers? If you’re a talented, brilliant girl, take a look at our jobs page. If you’re not, but the other two adjectives still apply, do take a look, as well :P

Since last week we’ve decided to give away our current chairs in Plan to make space for new ones. This is one of the steps we’re taking towards not having any unnecessary stuff around. No point in that, right? Today we received, and will assemble our new purple chairs, and next time I’ll update you with some pictures of how the room looks.

On the same note, and because we are serious about having a clean approach to everyone’s metappiness we also offered our team the laptop memory modules that we no longer use but still had sitting around—doing nothing. The idea was to have a better purpose, if not a new life for something still useful, only somewhere else. Like with the chairs—we’re giving them away, instead of throwing them away.

Our on site storage facilities are far from megalomaniac; but large enough that we had to put in place a new system, to help everyone navigate through it better. As a consequence, Lead will soon have much more free space (and look better), which will definitely contribute to both Mirona and Chris metappiness.

As usual, Thursday called for a weekly vote :) This time, Tom won our recognition as the most impressive person last week and he was feeling a strong desire for Japanese food. After some careful consideration, he went for a choice he already knew to be good. Have you ever heard of Taro?

Well, I had never tried their food before last Friday, but they were already acquaintances of the team. Everyone spoke highly about their Bento Boxes—and I’m sure Chris was very sorry not to be able to be here for this! Chris, rest assure: you were thought of :)

Speaking of Food… And Summer… And Pink… And the need for some cooling… We have some new items around in Play! We received our new (bigger!) pink fridge and we have new pink curtains, too :) Take a look at our new acquisitions:

This also means we’re now able to have a lot more cold drinks around. Summer is here, brace yourselves :D

On a final note, here’s a quick Euro2012 update (from a MetaBroadcast point of view, of course).

Yes, it’s true—I cannot complain about Portugal’s last exhibit against the Czech Republic. I will not deny I am quite happy at the moment either. Our next opponent is Spain. Ahh… Historically recurrent battle field. Ask any Portuguese person (football fan or not) which team they would feel happiest about defeating and I would bet that a good percentage of the answers would go for Spain. And if you asked the Spanish? I guess it wouldn’t be much different in reverse :) It’s History, you know? Some sympathetic rivalry that begun too long ago and fortunately has evolved onto something much more friendly and easier to achieve and appreciate. And a bonus: France—our archenemy of football competitions for some occasions was eliminated. From a semi-final point of view, I still think this is the tougher outcome. We’ll know soon enough. Go Portugal!

Sunday, it was an impossible situation for any non-British and non-Italian symphatizer here at MetaBroadcast. It was a very good match; well played and for the first time in Euro2012, the game reached the 90th minute without any goals. So extra time kicked in, and for the next 30 minutes it seemed like Italy was trying to avoid the penalties, and England was aiming for them. So much so, that Italy actually managed to put the ball in, but it wasn’t a valid goal. Then the penalties started and when Montolivo (Italy) missed his shot, it looked like it would be a closed deal for England. That might have been the case, but Young (England) missed his shot, as well, and Pirlo (Italy) scored a classy penalty that fired up his team once again. It might have had other effects, too, as Ashely Cole (England) also missed his shot, right before Diamanti scored the final goal that put Italy through to the semi finals to face Germany. So, I have to say, Go Italy!

Wouldn’t it be great to have Portugal x Italy in the final? :) I can dream, can’t I?