At the start of the new (American) financial year, Sun Microsystems, throw a big Kick Off event. This generally consists of an afternoon of meetings followed by dinner and drinks. Back in the days before .com bubble burst these events were legendary. One trip had staff flown from all over Europe for a party on a ship in Greece. Things have been harder in the recent years… This year’s Kick Off in England consists of a party in a big marquee in the campus car park. Thankfully the Spanish put great emphasis on the importance of partying, so we were treating to two days in Zaragoza for our Kick Off. Coaches took us out to Zaragoza for the (wedding style) lunch and meetings. After we were shipped to our hotels before the evening (wedding style) dinner. This was followed by a free bar and disco. As to be expected from this kind of event the music was pretty terrible, but after a few drinks and help from Philippe’s constant party attitude I was able to get into it. At about 4 am we moved on into the city centre in search of a night club. Several hundred drunken Sun employees staggering around a deserted city centre made for quite a sight. Eventually we found ourselves inside a club, surrounded by yet more Sun employees. We were eventually turfed out of there at 6 (I think). Some how, despite losing half of the group we were with, we later met up in a small street bar for some chocolate and churros (or beer and spirits for the hardcore/foolish amongst us).
A good night with the opportunity to meet a whole load of new people (being British, I also got a fair bit of attention with people wanting to practise their English) which finally drew to a close as we got back to the hotel for breakfast at 8am. I finally got to bed (in our 5 star huge hotel suite) at 9:30 ready for two hours sleep before getting on the bus to come back home.
Despite being with the company for nearly 5 years this was my first kick off. Regardless of the somewhat boring meetings (of which half were completely irrelevant to me and my job) and a low moment at the beginning of the disco, I have to say it was a top event.