Priyanka transitions from Java code to Java drink!
The regular readers of our blog will have noticed a few off-topic posts slipping in from time to time. The common theme is coffee and beer. As a group of passionate computer programmers and tech geeks it’s no surprise that we have developed a strong corporate coffee culture. Coffee is our secret weapon! Over the past 10 years we’ve changed programming languages, compilers, and development practices, but one factor has remained constant: Coffee. It must be the pillar for PaperCut’s success.
Coffee is very much part of our culture. The company funds a continuous flow of lattes, cappuccinos and macchiatos (Hendrik’s favorite) all arriving from the coffee shop directly opposite the office. Most of us have espresso machines at home (e.g. Rancilio Silva) and discussions on brewing techniques seem to pop up in developer meeting agendas unannounced.
Recently management decided that attending a formal coffee barista course would be a good idea. Traditional businesses would have called this a “cooperate team building exercise”, however for us it’s “core competency training” 
The whole Melbourne development team (minus Tom) spent a day at a coffee training academy learning the finer points of coffee production.
Lessons included:
- The art of wasting lots of milk perfecting the perfect froth.
- The amount of coffee one must waste to calibrate the ideal 25 second espresso pour.
- Latte art: The art of convincing someone that the shape on the top of their coffee was deliberate.
- How to make beverages unknown to computer programmers (chai lattes, and hot chocolates)
The day finished off with a competition. We paired up into teams and had to make 8 coffee variants in 8 minutes. Congratulations to Matt and Jason who took out the title.
To take a slight deviation, my favorite pieces of coffee trivia:
- The magic number on Java
.classfiles is0xCAFEBABE - The embedded framework we target for our HP embedded MFP development is called Chai
Overall it was a very fun day. We even got to walk away with a formal certificate – we’re now qualified Baristas! If we all get sick of writing print management software we now at least have a fall back option – open a Cafe!
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- Priyanka perfecting her milk froth
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- Jason (tech support) attempting the perfect espresso shot
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- Peter loading the group head for his next attempt at the perfect shot
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- Matt doing some Latte Art (free pour)
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- Chris and Tim reading the manual!
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- Ann (sales support) practising froth
Thanks to Jason for the great images!
Hilarious! Good times. I need to come work for you folks if you are having this much fun! Did you mail Rick any samples?
Warmest Regards,
Ken
Hi Ken,
Mail is so 1990. We gifted him an perfect 25 second espresso shot on Facebook instead
Chris
Hi guys and girls
What a nice environment you live there, were at Micro I/O Electronic Services, I’m always talking about your achievements, your company is for me a roll model off all software houses.
I hope that your commercial and technical relation, maintains solid has it is now forever.
Best regard´s from Aveiro, Portugal
Keep the good work,
Miguel Gaspar
P.S. Do you ever taste any Portuguese Coffey?
Hi Miguel,
I don’t think I’ve ever had any single origin (simple source) coffee from Portugal. I may however have had it in a blend. I’ve recently been trying a few single origin coffees from various regions. A lot of the good coffee in Australia comes from local sources in the region like Indonesia. I’ve also had some very good coffee from Brazil and I’ve read that Portugual was responsible for introducing coffee production into Brazil? Like most European countries, I’m sure you have a great coffee culture and some fantastic cafes. I’ll have to visit one day!
Thanks for your positive comments about PaperCut. Writing print management software is a fun area to work as far as software development goes, however it’s important that it’s not all work and no play. Coffee is a good social outlet for us all! We do a lot of complaining about driver bugs, MFP firmware issues, and of course bugs in Windows. It’s always a lot more fun complaining about this over a good cup of coffee
Cheers,
Chris
Hey Guys!!
Congrats to the team (specially Priyanka…she looks very absorbed…) for the initiative and unity of the team around a drink so tasty and historic as coffee.
Take the opportunity to leave an invitation for a coffee in Brazil!
LOL
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