Real Photo Books. Real Simple.
Noooooooo, not Bruce Springsteen but Dr. Reiner Fageth who is the CTO of CeWe Color and is in charge of nearly all the charaters you’ll read about in this blog. Happy Birthday Sir!
Dr. Reiner Fageth
I know he’s not going to be happy that I used one of the formal portaits from the press section of the CeWe web site so expect this image to be updated when I get back to work!
Last Tuesday Dr. Dee invited me to join his division for a Glühwein-filled stroll around the Christmas market. These are the guys (& gals) who are in charge of production & systems software.
Gerd D (Dr. Dee), Miriam & Gunnar
Henning, Christoph, Sebastian & Rainer
The pics above are not black & white because I was going through an arty phase that night, it’s because my flash turned everyone into wild red-eyed demons. Yes, I have Photoshop and know how to retouch images, yes our SmileBooks Software also contains an Image Editor that will correct red eyes on your images (run SmileBooks software, double click on an image to open the Image Editor, click on red-eye removal, save changes to the original and you’re done. You don’t even have to order a book!), but just saving the pics as B&W is also a dandy way of eliminating those pesky red eyes.
But the one of Birte and Jessie standing in front of the carousel needs to be in color.
On Saturday the eCommerce division had it’s Christmas Party. This is traditionally a rowdy afair but it’s THE party to go to if you’re a SmileBooker.
We started out at the Wheinachtsmarkt where we huddled in a Glühwein hut to escape the snow outside:
Christain G, Jens, Andre B, Christain K & Steffi
Luckily, Glühwein huts are very popular, very crowded and thus, very warm inside. How crowded you ask? This crowded:
Elmar, Steffi & Conny
Once we’d had enough Glühwein, Feuerzangbowle and Lamumba, we trudged through the snow for the 45 minute walk ot the restaurant. Once we got there, Ludger gave a welcome speech for all those who’d joined the division in 2009.
Conny, Christian G & Steffi
Once he’d finished his speech, we reminded him that he’d forgotten all about Andy, Conny and Andre B. Not to mention Johannes who joined the group too but by that time I was laughing so much, the photo was too blurry to post. Sorry Johannes! You’ll be in a future post together with Tino and your office larva lamp!
Andy,Conny,Steffi,Christian G & Andre B
Once that was over, we sat down to dinner! Yummy!!
Dinner
Stefan, Indra & Liane
Thanks to Ludger for a wondeful party! On Tuesday I get to gate-crash Dr. Dee’s outing to the Weihnachtsmart.
It snowed today in Oldenburg, Germany. In case you’re wondering why that should be of any interest to SmileBookers, Oldenburg is where the head office of CeWe Color is. CeWe is the parent company of SmileBooks and that is where both Dominic (General Manager) and myself are right now. This means it’s perfect weather for visiting the Weihnachtsmarkt.
The best part of being in Germany at this time of year is the Weihnachtsmarkt (Christmas Market) which every town has. This is where everyone gathers after work for Glühwein (mulled wine), Lumumba (cocoa with Amaretto) and Feuerzangbowle (a hot punch made from rum, sugar, oranges and i’m not too sure what else), etc. It’s all yummy and there’s loads of good things to eat too.
I’ll be going on Saturday for Ludger’s department’s (eCommerce) Christmas party and on Tuesday for Dr. Dee’s (he’s in charge of all the production workflows at CeWe).
I’ll be posting pics! Til then, “Get well Dominic”. He’s in bed with the flu.
Oldenburg, 17th December 2009.
Somebody, no-one’s admitting to this heinous crime, put this “fetching” centrepiece on the conference room table. Apparently Post-Modern Viking decorations are the rage this year.
My desk is sadly bare of festive additions, except for what I like to call, “Santa. As he appeared to Ichabold Crane”.
The SmileGeeks are outdoing themselves when it comes to office decorations this year…
No-one else can compete with the technicolored glory above. Not Andrè and his window tree…
And certainly not Jens with his desktop version…
I’ll keep trolling the offices and post any new additions to the office decorations!
The Christmas season has now been officially opened! At the SmileBooks offices, this happens on the day in December that Jaron comes to work with bags of his home-made elf vomit. For those of you who don’t know how to make it, here’s the recipe:
Melt white chocolate, crush peppermint candy canes, mix, spread on a baking sheet, allow to set, break into pieces and then send to Tracy.
This also happened to be the day I came to work wearing my Santa hat, which can be seen in the pic above, along with Jaron’s wares, AND it’s the day we got our bags of German Christmas treats which Dr. Hollander, our CEO, gives to all of his employees who have been nice throught the year. Those who have been naughty get a bunch of twigs which is the German version of a lump of coal.
If you want to win my treat bag (psssssssst don’t tell anyone that i’m a regifter) and a SmileBooks t-shirt, write to info@smilebooks.com by midnight, PST on Thursday 13th December and tell me what the German word for Christmas is. Please enter “SmileBlog” in the subject line and include your postal address and t-shirt size.