Friends

One of our applicants for next year's student placement (an Aberystwyth student who shall remain nameless) has decided not to accept our rejection, and sent Mick a strongly worded email to that effect at ten to midnight last night.

Those of you who attend Gregynog each year might want to point out to next year's batch that, no matter how hilarious it might seem at the time, drunk-emailing employers who turned you down will not, in fact, get them to reconsider.

Sin, cos and e^x went to a party. Sin and cos mingled with the other guests while e^x just stood in a corner by himself. At the end of the night, sin and cos asked him why, and he said: "I tried integrating, but nothing happened".

I heard this at the kick-off meeting for the next release of our major product. That's what working with mathematicians will do for you. There was also cake. As meetings go, it was pretty good.

Last year, NAG opened an office in Manchester (our second UK base). However, owing to the glacial rate of change around here employees based in Manchester still recieve any emails which are sent to the whole office here in Oxford. Since these messages are typically arranging social events or informing people of cake/chocolates etc, a certain amount of resentment seems to crop up among our northern colleagues. The Manchester office is much smaller, with only 6 people, so they rarely get celebratory treats.

Today, there have been announcements of chocolate (twice) and biscuits, on top of several such messages over the last couple of weeks. It was all too much for one Manchester employee, Craig, who finally cracked and sent out this email to all staff:

"We have Champagne, truffles, caviar and veggie pork pie. Apologies to
those in Oxford.

Craig"

I like to imagine he isn't being sarcastic. It pleases me to think of the 6 of them sitting round a huge feast in silence, awed and frightened by the sheer quantity of food in front of them.

I guess the moral here is that if you live in Manchester you get less cake.