Geeks blowing off steam
When was the last time your boss stepped into your office and said, “Get over here and give me some pushups”? Mine did today, and it wasn’t because I’d horked something up (although that would be a reasonable guess).
We just put the finishing touches on a particularly difficult product release. A lot of pressure has been building up over the last few weeks. This afternoon most of the whole team of developers and DBAs, QA and product management people stepped into the DBAs’ office and gave two sets of pushups their best shot.
This foolishness was infectious. By the end even accounting people and other Dockers-wearing types had joined in the fray. Here’s how it turned out.
| Geek | Department | First Set | Second Set |
|---|---|---|---|
| Robert | Development | 30 | 26 |
| Mike | Development | 26 | 22 |
| Jason | Development | 25 | 22 |
| Scott | Development | 40 | 30 |
| Nils | Development | 36 | 29 |
| Dean | Development | 50 | 48 |
| Kim‡ | Product Management | 14 | 13 |
| Hyon‡ | Quality Assurance | 20 | – |
| Josh | Product Management | 51 | 42 |
| Mozart | Development | 18 | – |
| Tim | Development | 20 | 13 |
| Tony | Professional Services | 24 | – |
| Tyler | Quality Assurance | 35 | 31 |
| Shannon† | Accounting | 18 | – |
| Lupe | Distribution | 30 | – |
In case you’re wondering, we are going to celebrate shipping version 7.2 of the Bridgeway Suite in a proper fashion this afternoon with pints and darts.
The bad news is that it looks like this pushups thing is going to be a regular Monday-morning routine. Ugh!
† Girlie pushups
‡ “I’m a W-O-M-A-N” pushups 
If this had been a poker game, Josh would have won with the “high card” of 51.
I was stunned to read this entry earlier this week, having just watched the rerun of SNL where Ashton Kutcher wanted to increase his stature at work by having everyone participate in a pushup contest.