I know I don’t talk about work that much – mostly because the subset of people interested in my world who are ALSO interested in my work is kinda miniscule. I can’t even sum up my job in a nice little sentence universally understood by the majority. I can be all ‘I am a content manager’, which dad interprets as ‘a manager who is content’ – but that still doesn’t tell you much about what I do.

Here’s what I do:

  • design stuff
  • write stuff
  • reformat stuff
  • edit stuff
  • analyze stuff
  • do stuff with stuff

Basically it’s design (graphic / document / web / interface / corp id / marketing comms), copywriting & editing, helping out with the evil that is Word and the lesser evil that is Powerpoint, SEM/SEO and… stuff. Are you any the wiser? No you are not.

Anyway, yesterday we went offsite for the day to celebrate a milestone: 10k user profiles in our system. Even though I suggested we all take part in a knitting circle, we ended up going tree-course-thingy-doing and quad biking. And by we, I mean the boys. I took photos, chased lizards, tried to get an antisocial cat to talk to me and basked in the sun.

monkeys in trees

Their day

It was actually a great deal of fun, even from my ground-bound perspective. Possibly less fun from the perspective of the guy who rolled his quad bike and broke his collar bone, or the one who drove into a tree, or the one who rode over his own leg. I missed all that good stuff though as I couldn’t follow the bikers, and nobody entertained me by falling out of trees. I did ask them to recreate the more exciting events for me, but surprisingly had no takers.

My point is, it was a fun day with no drama and no ego, and vastly different to the last team building day I attended. That one resulted in over half the ‘team’ quitting or being fired in the following months. One even quit that night. That is why I appreciate the happy geeky family that are my workmates.

The best part though (besides the lizards)? Even though I had fun just pottering round taking photos and eating BBQ, I got presented with a voucher for East Day Spa – so I can go get fat pregnant people massages and foot rubs to make up for not being able to fall out of trees or off quad bikes. Completely unnecessary but so thoughtful and very much appreciated. And that is why my work is more betterer than yours!

me stay on ground

My day