Work sent me and two others on a First Aid course, so in case of the Zombie Apocalypse (or your garden variety work place equivalent) we have three persons qualified in preserving life. They say that, because our job (as heavily, in bold and underlined, mentioned on our one day course) is not to save lives by radical means, but to keep people alive until the life-saving paramedics show up.

It was pretty fun, actually. It was a day out of work, and was pretty interactive so yeah, I enjoyed it. We covered all sorts. The basics of DR ABC (Danger, Response, (Get Help) Airway, Breathing (call an ambulance) and Circulation). Basically, what to do if you come across someone whose fallen over and is unconscious (that’s the response bit, as in, there is none) and what to do if they are breathing (put them in the recovery position) or not breathing (CPR etc etc). It was pretty ridiculous, because apart from the CPR where they use Annie the Mannequin, the rest of it was done on your fellow course attendees. Pretty good way of getting all up close and personal with strangers, which was unexpected.

Also, turns out that CPR? Harder than I thought. To compress the heart (which is mostly under your sternum in the middle, not way off to the left like I thought. In Braveheart, when they put their hands over their hearts? Yeah, they missed) you have to push down 5-6 centimetres. That’s a lot more than I thought! It’s also really hard work, so I’m hoping that I fingers crossed, am never in a situation when I have to give CPR to someone. Also, apparently you’re not to worry if their bones start making cracking noises, because they might. It might also be an indication that you’re breaking their ribs, but as bones are on the bottom of your priority list, and breathing is that the top, it’s better to do CPR bad and break ribs than not do it.

The best bit I thought was the afternoon, when we covered blood + bandages (well more fun than the burns + seizure sections). There’s a whole list of things you’re meant to go ask as you’re bandaging someone up (AMPLE – Allergies, Medical History, Prescriptions, Last food/liquid, Event History) and that last one, Event History, is where you ask them how they hurt themselves. When you’re all hyped up on a Friday afternoon, you can come up with some pretty mad explanations. How’d I get this glass shard in my forehead? Well I’m a Pirate Captain, and some swashbangling boot-bucket from another ship stabbed me as I swiped his booty! Oh, this bite mark right here? I’m an underwater explorer and this great white didn’t like it when I was trying to explore his mouth. Yeah, you can see how ridiculous it got. Fun, though.

So yes, qualified to preserve lives! Like a boss!

Sinter, the tiny little web design company that I run with Liz has had a facelift! It’s been a long time in coming, and in between all the travel and other random design projects we’ve got going on (the most fun recent one was designin a little Mexican character for a friends learn-to-speak spanish project) I finally managed to get my a into g and pull this together. Fun, right?

If you’re interested in some design work, a blog overhaul or a banner design, let me know. We’d be happy to help :)

PS – Shout out to JJ Keith from JJust Kidding, who let me redesign jjkeith.net for her. That’s her face top right :)

A while ago work did this wonderful team building exercise. We all stopped work for the afternoon and were put into teams of three. RANDOM teams of three. Now, we’re a small company of about 20-25 people. At little over half those people are very very clever developer/sys-admin type people. Of which a lot of them intimidate me with their smartness, and it’s not often that I have to work with them. Well, the randomness insured that we were all kicked out of our little comfortable social crews and started interacting.

It was a lot of fun! We got a bunch of clues, none of which was listed in any kind of order. We got given the first clue, and the starting point and if we solved it correctly we could work out what the next clue would be.

So, the starting point was Embankment, and the first clue:

It makes no sense if unless you’re standing there. You go up the hill, till you come across Gordon’s Wine Bar where you’ll find a lane called ‘Watergate Walk’. So down you go, and eventually you’ll come across an old school gate that has Fi and Dei and Cvla (among other things) inscribed on it. There are a whole bunch of other letters and things, one of which is an ‘R’. The letter before it is an ‘N’, and so you use Clue N to get you to your next point.

However, there are also two other challenges that you have to complete on the way – The Photo Hunt Challenge + the Observation Questions. The photo hunt challenge meant you had check out your surroundings as you went and spot the landmark, image, or statue. There would be a question, like ‘Who is in the gutter here?’ with a photo of a mashed face. Looks like this:

I already knew that it happened to be Oscar Wilde, but there were 9 other questions that I had no idea about. Answering each question correctly was worth about 100 points, so I kept an eye out. We got about half, which was good.

The Observation Questions were easier. Like I said, I work with very very smart developers, and had two in my random group. So, while everyone else charged out of the office, we took a moment and googled a whole bunch of questions. London has these little blue plaques all over their buildings to tell the unsuspecting walker by that something interesting happened there, or someone important once lived there. Well, we could have kept an eye out, or we could have used google. We got 14/20, which was a pretty decent score.

Example Questions: What replaced Fishers Alley? What did Sheridan own from 1776? What did Charles Fowler design? (Goodwins Court, Drury Lane Theatre (aka the Theatre Royal) and the Covent Garden Market, the Conservatory, London Bridge + Sion House).

Well, the answers to all these questions were always a little bit off the beaten path which made them tricky to answer. Occasionally we found them, and altered the google answer a bit, but most of the time it was a bit of a guess. These answers (correctly answered) were also worth 100 points each.

Eventually the clues wound us all around London’s Covent Garden (past fun places like the Sherlock Holmes Pub, past the Savoy, through the Covent Garden Markets – all around the place, really!) and we all eventually ended up back at a Pub for dinner and drinks. It was a ridiculous amount of fun, a good way to get people who usually wouldn’t hang out socially to do so, and a fun way to see London. That last one was particularly good because a lot of us aren’t London locals, and haven’t been in London for very long.

Definitely one of the better Team Building days I’ve done. Have any of you got any decent Team Building stories?

(Note: we did it with these folk. The website is terrible, but they were really good, and it was super easy to organise.)

Just another reason why working here is SO MUCH BETTER than the business end of the dirty fat cow that I used to work for (No love, ICONZ. Not even a little).

Yay for client appreciation :)

At the moment at work I’m designing a case management system. And the best part about mocking up the screens and working out the functionality is creating mock data:

I keep such brilliant, brilliant company :)

- Bob Hayes, on work.

Just another reason why working here is Teh Awesome.

Lately I’ve been trying to quit spending ridiculous amounts on lunch (oh lunch, how I love you so!) and so I’ve been bringing leftovers in, and heating them. At work, our microwave is on top of our fridge. On our fridge, there are many, many fridge magnets. Poetry fridge magnets. Kiwi slang specific poetry fridge magnets.

You can see where this is going. In the two minutes a day I spend in front of the microwave, I managed to create this:

Ahh fridge magnets. Indulging bad poets everywhere. :)

- Mabel Wharekawa-Burt.

Earlier this week there was Hikoi to protest the lack of Maori Seats in the new Super-City local government. There was some protest at work today, too. Why did Maori feel the need to do this? They aren’t special, there are a billion other cultures within Auckland now, do they all need special seats? What a waste of time, they said. We’re all New Zealanders now, they should be represented just like the rest of us.

I carefully ignored this kind of talk, not wanting to get into a debate out of my league. But I wish I hadn’t kept quiet. I wish I had spoken up.

The Hioki wasn’t just about the seats. It was about Maori being heard, and having a voice on the new council. It was about preserving the culture, and the history. It was about preserving the native culture unique to New Zealand, in modern society.

Oh, sure, Maori aren’t the only minority in New Zealand. Not even by a long shot. But we are the only ones native to New Zealand. No where else in the world will you hear the Maori Language spoken. No where else will you find the Maori history, or the culture. Sure, New Zealand is full of other cultures. But all those other cultures are native to somewhere else, another country, another island, another place. Those other cultures thrive both here, and in their native country. And all those other cultures haven’t fought in New Zealand like the Maori have. They haven’t been discriminated against in New Zealand like the Maori have. They haven’t had their New Zealand land taken away, or been punished for speaking their language in New Zealand like the Maori was. They haven’t had their culture turned over to the tourist trade, like in Rotorua. They haven’t fought like we have, and continue to do.

I’m not getting down on the other minorities. Many of them have fought their own battles, I’m sure. And we welcome them to New Zealand, and respect them and their culture in their own right. It is not a case of us or them. It is a case of preserving the culture unique, and native to New Zealand.

Liz messaged me, after reading about it on the news. She said she was proud to be Maori. Proud that we, as a people, were out there on the streets being heard. That we were fighting for the right to preserve, and live the Maori way in New Zealand, and fighting for fair representation on the new council. That we weren’t taking the removal of Maori Seats quietly. And I was proud too, to be a part of that movement. I was also proud that there were Non-Maori in the hikoi, supporting us, and our voice.

Still, I wish I had spoken up at work. Some debates are worth getting involved in. Even if you can’t explain it as eloquently as required. Sometimes it’s just the standing up that counts.