mill & more

pic by Neil

Life, c’est bon.

Softball. We win. Two games so far, of which I played one and only struck out once. Even made it home a couple times. Actually, we came from behind by NINE runs to tie the game, and when the whistle blew we decided to play the innings out anyway. We won. But we had agreed to call the game a tie at the whistle. No more calling it a tie. We rawk. Who knew?

Barbeque season. We celebrated a belated birthday for Grant at an informal bbq at Oceancide. Tomorrow is Dylan’s turn at his place. Another belated birthday right on schedule. And a house warming. Tonight we played Bacci and Badminton and some wacky thing involving group juggling. I’ll show you the pics after they come back from monsieur developer. Yes I’m counting the days till the G2 arrives.

Speaking of mad photography, Neil pulled Dub-A & me into shooting some more gif movies tonight and that was way more fun than it sounds. Gif movies? Go here to see what I’m talking about. We’ve got a couple bigger ones coming down the pipe sooner or later, to the tune of 80 or a hundred frames. Or something. I dunno. We’re artists, so we can change our minds like women. *dj ducks quickly*

The frame above is from tonight’s effort, more specifically from the wacky outtakes reel that you’ll only be able to see on the dvd version. *grin*

The little soiree tonight was surprisingly successful for a “small, casual drop in”. Lots of good folk laughing a lot. So much laughing that I took notice. Wondermill has been so task oriented lately that as much fun as we’ve been having we haven’t really tossed decorum out the door like we did tonight. And it wasn’t a drunkfest. Just a ton of fun. Very kewl. Felt a bit sorry for the neighbours but then again I usually do.

Nick touched on it today at the All-Hands meeting. We’ve all been so mad busy with the moving and settling and organizing. It’s been a crazy huge upheaval and seriously- if we weren’t such an amazing group of people I think we could easily have self-destructed. There’s only so much change any system can handle, but we’ve sorta kicked all previous theories to the curb. Damn straight.

Nevertheless, Nick said we haven’t really had that team feeling yet, not since the move. He’s right, and he understood why. We’ve all had our work cut out for us, and it’s been an insane amount of focussed effort required to pull it all together. That feeling of family has suffered, and not just because we all now have offices with doors. We’ve just been too damn busy. Summer is coming along just in time.

Traditionally summer is the hump season for the online industry. More people are spending more time outside- less time on the box. So we really got this move done at the absolute premium time. And the craziest thing is that we haven’t slowed down The Plan one iota. It’s frickin insane. We’re still barreling along with our goals locked in sight. And then some. For the love of all that is holy, we’re doing all this and STILL innovating! GAH! It blows me out of the water what this team can do.

There’s talk of becoming the sort of company where the staff can invest back into the company in financial ways, and I can say pretty easily I don’t see much hesitation from most of the staff. We’re all already working lean so we can run farther faster, but this would mean doing all that and getting dividends at the finish lines. Sign me up.

It’s kewl. Knowing that we’re gonna win. With a team like this, with this energy, vitality, and sheer shrewdness… there’s no losing.

A strange thing, between you & me- you can see how the new arrivals (being everyone after me) are affected fundamentaly by the pervading spirit of the company when they come on board. Some took all of two days to buy in completely with absolute conviction that we are going to make it, no matter where we set our sights. And there are those who don’t show the same passion. You know they love the company, and they love the people they work with, but you can still see that because of the volatility of the work environment (sometimes we’re running with guns blazing and sometimes we’re just running) that some of the team are still keeping their eyes wide open. For them, there are always options. They’ll be the ones who follow the path I took:

I feel like I was the first lifer. Aside from Aaron. No, maybe even before him. He’s always maintained that even if somehow we didn’t make it we’d just start something else up. True. But then you can’t overlook Shannon, whose commitment to this company is far (far) beyond question. And Judd? I sometimes wonder what he would say if someone came along to offer him what he’s worth out there in the ugly market (shh! don’t tell him!). I came on board willing to try it out. Aaron took a chance on me mostly to tap my social skills, and I was willing to get up earlier every day because it sounded like fun. Then, after about six months, I realized that I loved this group, and that I had fundamentally made Wondermill my own.

There are those who have seen how I take care of my own.

I don’t have a clue what I’d do if somehow Wondermill didn’t make it. It’s beyond comprehension. Teams this good don’t fail. Not unless they self-destruct. No- it just can’t happen. We’ve got far too many safeties in place. Everyone is too smart to get stupid that way. We might once in a while miss a little gap because we’re charging ahead in another direction, but never have we failed to nail something down solid once we found it. Too many smart people, and more than that- too many good people.

Maybe that’s what happens when you pull together a bunch of people for no better reason than that they love what they do.

Let’s keep doing that, yeah?

Go Mill! *grin*