Memos From the Cube

What do you get when you cross an engineer with a metric butt-load of alcohol? An epic office Christmas party of the notoriety that ancient folk songs are created from.

I was a little apprehensive going to last week’s Christmas party at Atmel, chiefly because it was a social event, and despite the engineers being some of the nicest and interesting people I’ve ever met, I really wasn’t sure who to talk to or what about. All that anxiety disappeared pretty quick with the application of beer.

Before dinner, we all went to the pseudo-cafeteria room – I’m really not sure how to describe it, it’s a mini kitchen with snacks for sale attached to a big room full of tables and bar stools – and did the usual pre-dinner mingle between departments. Someone put on some local music into set of speakers, which was an interesting experience; Swedish rap is almost impossible to listen to with a straight face. Here someone cracked out some Glögg, a Mulled Wine drink popular in European countries around Christmas I’m told, which tasted rather interesting (perhaps moreso straight after beer).

After a bit of chitter-chatter, it was off to the large training room – but a training room it was no longer. Instead it had been converted into a dining room for the party guests, with an awesome seafood buffet along one wall. Here we all got to sit down and eat salads, prawns, crab and a Spanish dish of cooked fish, olives and tomato called Bacalao, which tasted great.

Here’s where things get good. The post meal game was a treasure hunt, but not a normal one! We were split into several groups of around a half dozen people each, and handed a ball of string. We were required to feed the string through our shirts and link them together to form a severely uncoordinated ring of people with a blood alcohol content estimated at around 8.5. We were then required to brave severe rope burns in hard to explain places, running around the office finding clues, before finally all meeting back in the training room for points to be awarded.

After the fun and games were over, we then went back to the old party standby of mingling. Here I got to meet a few of the marketing folk and engineers I missed in my initial tour. It’s been quite entertaining to meet everyone; while I was expecting to be uttering lots of “hey, it’s you!” to the people there, it’s actually been a bit of the opposite – everyone seems to have been reading AVRFreaks at some point or another. I feel like a minor D list celebrity. Next I was invited to try Karsk, a drink so powerful the mere smell of it melted my eyebrows and made my eyes water.

By the end of the night I managed to stumble into a taxi, passing the Christmas tree that several fellow co-workers attempted to mount to the office roof.

And THAT is a quick summary of one of the greatest nights of my life. I’ve had to omit some of the best bits (like being taped up to a coworker and falling over in a heap) to protect the guilty – but the above should give a good feel for how it all went down. I’m fairly certain the photos of the night will be locked away in an Indianna Jones style vault somewhere never to be seen again, but I’ll ask for a copy anyway.

As for other news about my stay in Norway, I attempted to get my passport back from the Immigration office yesterday, only to find them closed; it seems they only open during working hours on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Given that I’m supposed to be working at those times, I’m fairly screwed – I’ll have to see if I can arrange for an alternative pickup time or something during the week. Not to completely waste a trip, I took a couple more photos and uploaded them, so take a look if you want to see the town. Special thanks to AVRFreaks member Ossi, who sent me a surprise Christmas package of Printen, a local German biscuit – a very nice gesture much appreciated while I drink my morning coffee.