October 27, 2006
Some highlights from the two-day offsite at Eagle Point, Batangas from October 20-21:
- Not getting any sleep the night before in attempting to (and eventually failing to) finish our new-hire presentation
- Getting probably an hour of sleep on the bus
- Travelling by boat to Sepoc beach for lunch and games
- Participating in the rebus-solving game and the hellish sack race (ten people in one sack, hopping downhill and then back uphill on the beach)
- Celebrating with the Orange team for our hard-fought overall victory
- Wading all terrified through the water back to the boat because it couldn't land near the beach
- Thinking of ways to cover up our failure in finishing the presentation but never got to execute our plans because of the organizers' fault
- Acting as a literal briefcase (i.e., wearing Wackey briefs over shorts) in the "Deal or No Deal" game
- Not being able to finish a can of San Mig Light due to an allergic reaction which made it hard to breathe
- Playing an hour of table tennis to shrug off the alcohol's effects
- Staying up all night hanging out with the Supplier Portal team and videoke after 5 AM
- Finally managed to get two hours of sleep
- Made it home dreadfully tired, but safe and sound
October 09, 2006
The RubeTube was offline these past few days because of this weekend's offsite (an "offsite" is defined as any event that happens outside the office and usually refers to a recreational outing). It was the first offsite of Simon's new organization, the Supply Chain Management group, which has three teams under it: Supplier Portal (my team), SAP XI, and STAR.The offsite was staged from my teammate GM's house in Tagaytay. Some people (including me) arrived on Thursday night but most arrived on Friday morning. The whole of Friday was dedicated to teambuilding, planning, and recreational activities (videoke, poker, Cranium, card tricks) in the evening. Interestingly enough, I won all three Texas Hold 'Em games we played by a huge margin, which never happened when I was playing with the DISCS faculty. I think the "bet 1700" technique totally messed up my opponents' minds. The food we had was absolutely terrific even though we had chicken for almost every meal, but cooked in different ways. Kudos to the cooking committee for a job well done!
On Saturday, around half of the group had to go home in the morning but the rest went for a trip to Punta Fuego. We had lunch there after which we went to the beach, played some frisbee, and then relaxed in the afternoon with a dip in the infinity pool. Now I am terribly afraid of the water but I reluctantly gave into the pressure, seeing that I was the only one staying away from the water. In the end, it wasn't so bad and I was somewhat pleased to note that I wasn't the only one who didn't know how to swim. We sure had a lot of fun taking underwater pictures; will post some of them when I get a copy.
We had dinner back in Tagaytay on Saturday night and went back to Manila afterwards. Got home at 1 AM on Sunday and promptly dropped off to sleep.
Too many things happened for me to describe the whole experience in detail, but I just want to say that after the offsite, I feel very much a part of the team and the HP organization. I'm happy that I'm not just "the new guy" anymore.
