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teddy_radiator....used to blithely go along with any and all foolishness I proposed in my workplace. While doing a little tidying up, I came across some photos of moments spent at my work when I lived in the UK. My floor was a group of very highly specialised IT professionals - they were a great bunch of people and I loved my work experience in the UK.
One of the reasons I loved it so much was their absolute willingness to suspend belief, sacrifice valuable free time, and go along with any hairbrained scheme I came up with to celebrate holidays, Red Nose days, Children in Need, you name it.
We were bought by another company while I worked there, and to form some sort of feeling of workplace harmony they decided to stage an 'Office Decorating Contest' for Christmas. One of my friends suggested Christmas at Hogwarts. Now this is a group of approximately 80 people, and with the exception of very few, they all participated by dressing up on the Contest day - many spent hours after work decorating.
The prize was a no-expense-spared champagne breakfast for the entire group, but by the time the judges came by, we didn't really care - we were having too much fun. We didn't win - a much smaller group won, but a group of consultants from Germany who worked with us had such fun they decided to give us that Champagne breakfast anyway.
I was flooded with memories when I found these, and wanted to share a few pics with you. Mind you, on other years, we did The Grinch, we hosted a 50's party, a 20's murder mystery, a Riverboat casino, Mardi Gras (complete with dubloons and beads) and scores of other things, and each time, this huge group of people listened to my silly ass idea and went, "Okay!"
On one end of the building, we played HP1 on a projected screen all day (It had just come out that year), and all along the building we had little speakers playing excerpts from the film. Here, we had a recording of the film's wizard's chess sequence playing at this station. This was my chess board, which I unfortunately didn't bring with me, and my Bertie Bott's bag, which I did, and hang on my Christmas tree every year.
The Christmas tree, where I introduced Brits to 100 lights per foot. The little stars floated around the tree very magically!!
Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall. Poor Dumbles' beard wouldn't stay on!
Our adorable Hagrid had a 102 degree temperature and flu that day, but insisted on being part of it, until he nearly passed out and we made him go home. Joe was my partner in crime - whatever I came up with, he'd say, "Let's do it!" Lovely, lovely man.
The fat lady was my contribution - took me ages to colour her in. I printed out pictures of bricks and pasted them all around the doors. I must have cost my manager a fortune in printer ink. We had to touch our ID card to the door to open the lock, so we put the handprint there so people would know where to place their id.
The Gryffindor Common Room. Everyone donated used loo rolls, which we glued together, painted and hung from the ceiling with silver thread. You can see them all the way down the building. It's very early in the morning on the day of judging; I think I was there at 5am to make sure everything was set up.
Harry and Dumbles
The banners were borrowed from a company which said that if we'd just post them back, they wouldn't even charge us for them. I think I ended up buying them anyway, but sadly made the decision to sell them when we moved back. I know, I know.
The Hufflepuff Common Room. Everyone had a badge with their House Crest on it, and they wore them all day long, along with their school ties.
Poor sick Hagrid. You can see his "Staff" badge and his wand. Someone cut wood branches and sprayed them gold so all 80 of us would have wands.
Hagrid, Dumbles, McGonagall and Snape. Snape came up to me that morning with extra long hair and declared, "You're going to have to cut my hair or I'll look like Cher instead of Snape!" I was happy to oblige.
Nice guy. Kinda sexy in his own way.
The Slytherin Common Room. See the hanging chandeliers? One guy stayed after work for a week putting those together.
Ah, speak of the devil. This handsome fellow was the chandelier maker. Here he's putting the finishing touches on the Gryff roll of Honour. Every house had one of these banners. I printed them on a large blueprint printer we had in the office.
The Potions store cupboards were actually the IT cabinets for all the tech in the building. You can see the Hufflepuff Roll of Honour to the left.
The Ravenclaw door was on the other side of the building from the fat lady. One of the guys again stayed after work to create this just because he wanted to.
The schedule was actually a schedule of programme roll-outs.
When the judges came in, everyone had on their hats (donated by one of our stores).
Gryffindor House. Actually, I was also in that house, but I was the one taking the photos!
Here's Pete hanging the chandeliers. I just love that he did all this just for the fun of it. They all did.
I don't know why I didn't take an actual photo of this, but there were brooms flying around in the Ravenclaw Common Room!
Yes, we had all the House Points up as well. These were filing cabinets we covered with photos of books to look like bookshelves. They also ran down the length of the building.
Finally, Professor McGonagall, coming to inspect things. The bricks behind her was a specially printed cloth used in a promotion somewhere in the business, and donated to us for Hogwarts. It was a huge group effort, and I think I hugged every single person that day just for going with it - even while they were still hard at work doing their jobs.
One of the reasons I loved it so much was their absolute willingness to suspend belief, sacrifice valuable free time, and go along with any hairbrained scheme I came up with to celebrate holidays, Red Nose days, Children in Need, you name it.
We were bought by another company while I worked there, and to form some sort of feeling of workplace harmony they decided to stage an 'Office Decorating Contest' for Christmas. One of my friends suggested Christmas at Hogwarts. Now this is a group of approximately 80 people, and with the exception of very few, they all participated by dressing up on the Contest day - many spent hours after work decorating.
The prize was a no-expense-spared champagne breakfast for the entire group, but by the time the judges came by, we didn't really care - we were having too much fun. We didn't win - a much smaller group won, but a group of consultants from Germany who worked with us had such fun they decided to give us that Champagne breakfast anyway.
I was flooded with memories when I found these, and wanted to share a few pics with you. Mind you, on other years, we did The Grinch, we hosted a 50's party, a 20's murder mystery, a Riverboat casino, Mardi Gras (complete with dubloons and beads) and scores of other things, and each time, this huge group of people listened to my silly ass idea and went, "Okay!"
On one end of the building, we played HP1 on a projected screen all day (It had just come out that year), and all along the building we had little speakers playing excerpts from the film. Here, we had a recording of the film's wizard's chess sequence playing at this station. This was my chess board, which I unfortunately didn't bring with me, and my Bertie Bott's bag, which I did, and hang on my Christmas tree every year.
The Christmas tree, where I introduced Brits to 100 lights per foot. The little stars floated around the tree very magically!!
Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall. Poor Dumbles' beard wouldn't stay on!
Our adorable Hagrid had a 102 degree temperature and flu that day, but insisted on being part of it, until he nearly passed out and we made him go home. Joe was my partner in crime - whatever I came up with, he'd say, "Let's do it!" Lovely, lovely man.
The fat lady was my contribution - took me ages to colour her in. I printed out pictures of bricks and pasted them all around the doors. I must have cost my manager a fortune in printer ink. We had to touch our ID card to the door to open the lock, so we put the handprint there so people would know where to place their id.
The Gryffindor Common Room. Everyone donated used loo rolls, which we glued together, painted and hung from the ceiling with silver thread. You can see them all the way down the building. It's very early in the morning on the day of judging; I think I was there at 5am to make sure everything was set up.
Harry and Dumbles
The banners were borrowed from a company which said that if we'd just post them back, they wouldn't even charge us for them. I think I ended up buying them anyway, but sadly made the decision to sell them when we moved back. I know, I know.
The Hufflepuff Common Room. Everyone had a badge with their House Crest on it, and they wore them all day long, along with their school ties.
Poor sick Hagrid. You can see his "Staff" badge and his wand. Someone cut wood branches and sprayed them gold so all 80 of us would have wands.
Hagrid, Dumbles, McGonagall and Snape. Snape came up to me that morning with extra long hair and declared, "You're going to have to cut my hair or I'll look like Cher instead of Snape!" I was happy to oblige.
Nice guy. Kinda sexy in his own way.
The Slytherin Common Room. See the hanging chandeliers? One guy stayed after work for a week putting those together.
Ah, speak of the devil. This handsome fellow was the chandelier maker. Here he's putting the finishing touches on the Gryff roll of Honour. Every house had one of these banners. I printed them on a large blueprint printer we had in the office.
The Potions store cupboards were actually the IT cabinets for all the tech in the building. You can see the Hufflepuff Roll of Honour to the left.
The Ravenclaw door was on the other side of the building from the fat lady. One of the guys again stayed after work to create this just because he wanted to.
The schedule was actually a schedule of programme roll-outs.
When the judges came in, everyone had on their hats (donated by one of our stores).
Gryffindor House. Actually, I was also in that house, but I was the one taking the photos!
Here's Pete hanging the chandeliers. I just love that he did all this just for the fun of it. They all did.
I don't know why I didn't take an actual photo of this, but there were brooms flying around in the Ravenclaw Common Room!
Yes, we had all the House Points up as well. These were filing cabinets we covered with photos of books to look like bookshelves. They also ran down the length of the building.
Finally, Professor McGonagall, coming to inspect things. The bricks behind her was a specially printed cloth used in a promotion somewhere in the business, and donated to us for Hogwarts. It was a huge group effort, and I think I hugged every single person that day just for going with it - even while they were still hard at work doing their jobs.
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Date: 2014-01-07 09:18 pm (UTC)Too bad you couldn't leave te decoratiosn up year round.
You should volunteer for the Misti-Con 2015 decorating committee.