Sunday Funday

Sunday Funday!

I did not get to post anything yesterday (Sunday) because I was pooped. I'm not in any better shape now but I thought I should catch up. 

We started the say at 9:30. When I showed up for breakfast around 9, it was obvious that most of us were jet-lagged. After a brief intro, we played a game called Human Bingo. The purpose was to quickly find if someone fell under one of the categories in a box and cross off that box. For example, if someone had a dog or if someone was left-handed. Very similar to real bingo but in this case we had to talk to each other quickly and learn more about one another. It woke us up a little. After that, Eliana gave a small presentation on SAP Social Sabbatical and SAP CSR strategy. Eliana is really cool. She is originally from Argentina but lives in Germany with her family. She is in Corporate Audit. She was part of the Social Sabbatical program in Mumbai last year and decided to come back and help the program as a volunteer. She is quite awesome. If you are on my FB, you should have already seen a photo of that session. I plan on including photos on this blog at some point to tie it all together.

After Eliana's presentation, we followed our local consultant Carolina (aka Caro) for a neighborhood tour. Our hotel is in a swanky neighborhood of BA called Palermo. It's a happening place. The hotel itself is not fancy, but my room has more space than my room in SF. That alone makes me very happy. It also costs a fraction of what an international hotel chain would charge for a room. It's a trendy boutique hotel in a trendy neighborhood.

After the neighborhood tour, we came back to the hotel and played a team building game called "Architects & Engineers." It'd hard to explain in a few sentences, but the goal of the game is to build a model of something based on a prototype. The only catch is that the engineers that need to build the model can't see the prototype; only the architects get to see it. The architects only provide verbal instructions and they only meet with the engineers for 1 minute duration without even seeing what the engineers are building. I found that to be very useful and it was also very relevant in our software development world. We have architects that meet with customers and gather requirements but our developers in far-flung places build the actual product. Often what is built is not what is asked for. I'm going to find out the detailed rules of the game (it's also not very difficult to come up with own rules) and use it for a team building exercise on a project. 

Then came lunch. We went to a pretty cool restaurant for steaks. Pyxera Global treated us to lunch. Some of our colleagues from the BA office joined us as well. A couple of them were past alumni of the Social Sabbatical program. Our colleagues in BA are really excited about the Social Sabbatical program coming to Argentina. It is the first time SAP has conducted the program here. They lobbied for it for years. At lunch, I got to meet Noel as well. When the pope was in Philadelphia last year, I was searching for a list of all the people the pope met during his trip there. I was quite irritated by the fact that the pope met with the crazy Kentucky woman Kim Davis in DC. So I wanted to know who else he was meeting in Philly. During my search, I found an article about Noel and her family. They traveled from BA to Philadelphia in a VW van. And when I say her family, it includes 4 kids. One of them is a toddler! They were invited to meet the pope. I think they truly deserved it. I was, on the other hand, totally captivated by their adventurous spirit. I was also jealous. Who wouldn't be? I was really excited to meet her and I told her that I knew all about her trip (because I spent half a day researching about her trip). As we were leaving the table, Noel came over to me and said that she wanted to take a photo with her fan. So Noel, Caro, and I took a photo outside the restaurant. Check out my FB to see the photo. She then walked back to the hotel with us. I had a very engaging conversation with her. I asked Caro that I'd like to spend some time with her again before I leave BA.

We spent the afternoon sitting at the courtyard and talking about our lives. I'd rather not get into the details because some of them were quite personal. The conversations were engaging and we learned a lot about each other. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I am amazed by our team members, their experience, and their accomplishments.

I finished the day with a great dinner. Our program manager from Pyxera Global, Rodrigo, took five of us to an excellent restaurant. It was a tiny place and the menu changes so frequently that they don't even print menus but write it on chalk boards. I had the best tomato salad. I also had a steak. We also had some great wine. I had trouble sleeping after eating so much red meat in one day.

Monday is the kickoff for our sabbatical.