How many times have you heard “cloud this” or “cloud that” but were never sure of where your stuff actually was in this “cloud”? Well, at Expensify we got fed up with giving people a roundabout answer about which one was our cloud and where your expense reports are going. This past weekend Zhenya and Witold took some time off from providing phone support and monitoring servers to hand pick and deliver your expense reports in to the cloud.
A cherry picker wasn’t tall enough and the clouds of smoke around San Francisco weren’t the clouds we were looking for. Already, picking a cloud seemed way more difficult than initially thought. Not to be discouraged, we set our sights outside of San Francisco. After several hours of driving, we’d finally found a cloud we liked.
Hovering right above Mt. Shasta, our very own expense cloud looked so soft and pure, yet menacing enough to ward off any potential threats to the security of your expenses. Making haste to get your expense reports moved in to their cloud, we geared up and proceeded on our quest.
Having only stopped to put a fresh Clif bar in our stomachs and water to wash away the thirst, we made our way through the tree line and emerged on to the lower part of Avalanche Gulch.
Feeling good from the thinning air, we kept on our way up, winding along the narrowing gully…
…until we reached a plateau: Helen Lake, a place to rest and relax for the night. Tired from the last push, we lounged around where the sun peeked through the cloud (and got quite a tan!) to give our legs a much needed break. A packet of chicken and rice mixed with boiling water did the trick to bring back our strength and regain our confidence in the mission at hand. As we set up our neon yellow home for the night, all we could think about was the next part of the climb, and more hot food.
It’s morning. 5 AM to be precise. It’s also cold, but not nearly as cold as it should be for all of the snow surrounding us. Despite the differences in scenery, the next day of cloud searching began much like any other day: with breakfast. A boiling pot of Gatorade mix and a blueberry crisp Clif bar sets us straight as we begin our move in to the cloud.
Just mere meters below the cloud, you can really see the excitement burning Wito’s lungs as he comes ever closer to announcing…
“It’s official! ”
“Your expense reports are in the cloud.”
The glee and glory soon faded as our thoughts turned to the future. What about when we get more people using our apps? What happens when we expand and need a bigger cloud? Well, what a perfect spot for us to be in. It just so happened that the summit was staring down at us, several hundred meters in the distance. Surely up there we would have enough room to host a bigger cloud when the need arose.
Refueling from now frozen chocolate chip Clif bars and icy water, safe and secure in the knowledge that we’d got at least a little cloud space to tide us over, the push to the summit seemed easy. We clambered up the last bit of ice, snaked over a sulfur spring and made the last steps to wind around a cluster of rocks to set foot on the very tip top of Mt. Shasta.
Finally, looking down at our expense cloud below, we knew that our mission was a success. Overcoming hurdles (and a lot of icy rocks), we had come out on top ensuring that we have enough cloud space to handle our growth.
As of this writing, we are the first and only expense reporting solution with tangible proof of being in the cloud. Where else do you get that kind of authenticity and dedication?
