Archive for the ‘Company Life’ Category
University Hack-a-thon Afterparty
In conjunction with SIGNALFIRE, Expensify threw an afterparty for their University Hack-a-thon… and it was EPIC. Of course we had a great time chatting with quite a few collegiate geniuses about their projects in the hack-a-thon, but that wasn’t the point. We wanted to give them a chance to relax and celebrate their hard work. So, thanks to SIGNALFIRE, all of our participants, and everyone who helped make the party a massive success.
If you didn’t make it, you missed:
- Tons of dim sum and sushi
- Milkshake bar (They do exist!)
- RFID check-in/point system for the party developed by one of the university teams
And a photoshop booth manned by our designer, Shawn Borton (immediately below):
Here are some of our favorite products of the photobooth:
Office Profile: Shawn Borton
Name: Shawn Borton
Alter ego/Nickname: Bort, Shane Burton, Bortista (for his supreme barista skills)
Hometown: Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Roles at Expensify: Chief Photoshop Officer & Part-time Designer
Expensify Start Date: 10:00 AM US PST on September 10, 2012
What is/has been your favorite project to participate on at Expensify?
Refactoring the sign in page. It turned out very well, and the team contributed some really cool images for your sign-ining pleasure.
Life outside of Expensify?
An abysmal chasm of confusion, loneliness, and darkness. (He’s on a pretty bad FIFA losing streak.)
Outside of Expensify and FIFA, you can find him wandering about the city by day, playing soccer by night, and getting $10 haircuts in the Tenderloin bimonthly.
What is your idea of happiness?
A 25 yard knuckler, 20psi of boost in my 1.8T, my Grandma’s meat pie. (Soccer banter, fast cars and Grandma Meola’s fantastic Easter-time dish to the laymen)
What is your idea of misery?
Spending a day with Internet Explorer.
Favorite hero?
My mother Linda – notably for her accomplishment as a back-to-back breast cancer champion.
If you could have a mediocre super power, what would it be?
The ability to untangle headphones with one hand.
How do you want to die?
In exactly the same fashion as General Maximus Decimus Meridius.
What would you look like as a statue of Buddha?
This:
Inspired by his recent trip to South East Asia.
Office Profile: Will Demaine
Name: Will Demaine
Alter ego/Nickname: Crispy D
Hometown: Nottingham, England
Role(s) at Expensify: American/English translator (and occasional software engineer)
Expensify Start Date: September 2012
What is/has been your favorite project to participate on at Expensify?
Sneaking English-isms into as many places on the site as possible. Cheers…
In all seriousness, I’ve been lucky enough to work on a ton of different things since joining, with commercial card reconciliation feature and our Submit to Bill.com integration probably being the most memorable user-facing projects.
Life outside of Expensify?:
Strangely enough, my life outside Expensify consists mainly of watching and playing American sports, closely followed by watching people scrunch their face and look me up and down when I tell them I played ‘American Football at university in England’. The English sport of ‘getting spicy’ is often a weekend favourite. When possible I also love to travel, especially to places where I can scuba dive (PADI Advanced Open Water – no big deal).
What is your idea of happiness?
Sitting out in the sun with a cheeky pint watching England smash the Aussies in The Ashes on their home turf.
What is your idea of misery?
Waking up in the morning after a heavy night out with a tattoo on my face… of a (expletive deleted) or a (odd British slang that sounded like it could have been an expletive deleted).. or maybe a French flag. They’re all bad choices.
Favorite beverage?
A nice pint of lager. None of this IPA nonsense.
What’s your life motto?
“There’s no chance this isn’t a brilliant idea.”
ExpensiCheer-Have a Happy Holiday Season!
I hope everyone is getting ready for some relaxing downtime in the next week. We kicked off the holiday season with an evening as a team at Frances, with Executive Chef Melissa Perello cooking an incredible dinner for us. Plus we dressed in formal attire which was pretty exciting to see each other all dolled up. Tis the season for some company loving!
Robert gives his toast looking quite dapper
Some of the studs that are actively working to make your expense reports not suck.
Philip shares his special holiday mug. He is the only one in the office to have seen the start to finish of our office redesign project since much of the construction took place while the majority of the team was in Thailand. He earned several brownie points for being such a trooper.
Jason and Tony with their lovely wives seem to be enjoying their evening.
Like a boss, David looks wonderfully regal.
Holiday Cheers at Frances. What a good looking bunch.
Its been a pretty incredible year for us and we are excited to bring on 2013 with some pretty big ideas in the works. Be on the lookout.
Enjoy the holidays !
Love ,
The Expensify Team
We Got a Business Insider Article (!) and We’re Pretty Stoked About It
Owen Thomas, West Coast Editor at Business Insider, put together a lovely article on our annual offsite, complete with some great photos. I highly recommend you check it out! Link here. Thanks Business Insider and Owen!
Unbelievable Scenes at Expensify: Welcome to the Club
Trial run:
Thanks for the light show, Will.
Offshore Update: The Good, The Bad, and The Awesome of Railay Beach
The Good:
I mentioned in a post a few weeks back that a major point of our offshore is to focus on our strategy for the upcoming year and re-gel as a team. This is my first offshore with Expensify and we have already made tremendous progress towards both of these goals.
As a company, we relish the opportunity to discuss the heights we’d like to take Expensify to. While we make time in our day-to-day to stew on this, we’ve been allowed ample time to discuss, in depth, and crystalize the finer points. I’m not exaggerating when I say this year is shaping up to be an excellent one, for both Expensify and our users!
This is where all the planning magic happens!
The re-gel is also going spectacularly. We’re definitely getting closer and more confident in our colleagues all around, not to mention nicknames are spreading like wildfire. For a little fun, take a look at our Team page and guess at who’s who: Franky Danger, Crispy D, Tone Loc, The Frenchman, and Swag Da Vinci. Enjoy yourself!
The Bad:
My coconut shake consumption has escalated well into the danger zone (see depiction above). I’ve partnered with a local restaurant (it’s called “Local Thai”, in fact) to create a coffee/coconut shake. I’m aiming to bring it to the states as a subsidiary of Expensify. In fact, look out for a CocoLoco (already trademarked it) at a coffee/coconut shop near you in the coming year.
The Awesome:
We’re here to work, but we’re also here to have fun… and hustle back to work if need be. This past Saturday, a few of us decided to take a little jungle trek to another beach to survey the scene outside of our local beach bubble. We discovered a slackline and had some fun until Witold got called back for a small error he needed to correct. Did he take the relatively easy, less-timely route back through the jungle? Of course not, it would have taken longer. Instead he blazed a path through a cave and over a cliff back to our HQ. Now that’s dedication.
Witold enjoying a little slacklining before spelunking back to the ExpensiPlex.
Offshore 2012: Snorkeling!
Matt experiences a deadly sea urchin. Precious memories.
Well you guys, an update from overseas. We have spent the past week in Railay Beach. Its been incredible and to celebrate, we went snorkeling over the weekend! The picture above is probably the best picture of the trip, mostly because Matt is giggling like a school boy (our favorite cookies, BTW) and probably pooping his pants a little bit. Apparently that particular sea urchin is especially deadly.
Ready Freddy? JKruse looks like he is!
Tom. Perfect.
Garrett diving into the water! So much fun in the sun!
Bromance at its finest
Sky while at the beach BBQ
After I was awkwardly flowered and betrothed to our guide. Pure joy?
sand bar strolling
- Matt and our guide (also named Alex) jumping/missing legs
Pensive David
Work it Puneet!
David creeping on us.
Dinna Time!
Some magic tricks for our eerie boat ride back
The team
If you can’t tell, I am so in love. We had a great day. The setting was incredible, but more importantly, we have an amazing team of people who are making this journey so unbeatably awesome.
Thailand Thus Far…
So its been a few days for us, and Thailand is incredible. While work has been about the same (it really is true, we can work anywhere there is internet!), being able to explore Bangkok during lunch is amazing. Truly an adventure and an awesome way to break up the work day.
There are lots of little excursions we have collectively gone on and I have tried to put together a few of these pictures. My personal favorite adventure so far: Wine bar. Keep reading for the story below.
Honestly the pictures below barely begin to encapsulate how much fun it is to just walk around and explore. The temples you stumble upon are incredible, the markets are eye opening and the company is delightful. Seriously, how is this real life?
Lost in Bangkok
Street decorations
- More street decorations
]- Right off the river boat into the heart of Bangkok
- Passing by on the river taxi
- Such cool clouds.
- Dark Alley
- Temple we weren’t allowed into because SOMEONE was wearing a tank top.
Fancy Wine Bar in Bangkok, maybe a little too fancy for us?
After mentioning a withdrawal from wine, David suggests we go to a wine bar downtown last night. Five of us cram into a 4 person cab, and it becomes very clear that communication with our driver is going to be an issue. With 4 of us uncomfortably squished in the back, David has the directions pulled up on his phone, but we still got out of the cab incredulous that we had made it (and severely cramped). When we get to the restaurant/wine bar (Opus, highly recommend it!) we realized we are considerably underdressed than the rest of the population. We had somehow wandered out of our hostel and its corresponding casual atmosphere into a beautiful, high end restaurant in which several of the patrons may have poo-poo-ed our obvious back-packing attire. Oops. Anyways in the background you can see the beautiful wine cellar they have where you can go hand select which bottles you would like to enjoy. We were also unaware that you were supposed to leave the bottle there and tell your server the bottle we preferred. We basically committed 8 faux pas in an hour.
Below are Shawn’s pictures from this market we wandered around. Saw a lot of weird stuff….
And below we have the Lumphinee Stadium for Muay Thai. Highlights? The stadium is not air conditioned and while it was pouring rain, several sections were shut down due to roof leaks. Oh, also, the violence. Two fighters left the ring in wheel chairs, one on a stretcher (that one made me cry) and one with his arm broken. While it was a little tooooo violent for my taste, I think the guys had fun [especially capturing pictures of me crying which will never see the light of day].
- Thanks JKruse for the idea…definitely a unique experience
- Thats all for now! Updates to come as we explore the beach.
- And finally, here we are, Day One at West Railay Beach.
Bangkok HQ 1 found
The majority of the team has arrived in Bangkok. Today is our first official day of work for Offshore 2012.
