The great CANDDi show-and-tell!

A strong start

As the best looking and most widely-respected member of the company (and, luckily, the only one who will check this blog post before it’s published) I kicked things off.

Going first is always a tough gig, but I was ready. My item wasn’t technically an item… It was a living, breathing ancestor of the Jurassic period: my pet tortoise Dippy. As a 43 year old, Dippy raised the average age on the call by over 18 months.

With show-and-tell well and truly underway, what followed was a wonderful succession of revelations as members of the CANDDi team presented relics of their past.

Tim, our CEO, showed off his encyclopedic knowledge. Unfortunately, I mean that literally… he held up an actual encyclopedia that he used to sell door-to-door.

Next up was developer George, who brandished his second-place trophy for a country-wide coding competition. “It’s funny you got a number 2 trophy, George, since coders usually only care about 1s and 0s!” I joked, to thunderous laughter (read: groans).

Heart-warming contributions from some

There were a few on the call who tried to win people over by using dastardly tactics like emotion and sincerity. Shameless.

Developer Dan Smith for example showed us a framed picture of a castle in Wales, where he’s from. I suspect he sleeps with it every night.

Then there was Jasmine, who showed us a lovely book she’s reading at the minute which we might enjoy. Thanks for trying, Jasmine - but I’m not sure some of the developers can read.

My personal favourite entry of the whole competition has to be developer Logan, who showed us a pillow he made when he was 10 years old. It’s name is Stuffy and it was hideous. But in a cute way!

A disappointing effort from others

It pains me to have to call out my fellow coworkers like this, but there were a few people who just didn’t recognize The Great CANDDi Show-and-Tell of 2020 as the important event it was.

Developer Matty showed us his dog, which just about escapes criticism since it was pretty cute. But it wasn’t quite a tortoise.

As for the rest of you:
- Dawid (developer) who showed us… his house.
- Alex O’Conner (developer) who showed a hat he picked up off his bedroom floor.
- Morgan (developer - noticing a pattern here) who showed his desk cactus.
- and Dan (customer care) who showed a random Kylie Minogue vinyl.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Some surprising developments…

The best thing about the call was learning that some of my colleagues had sides to them I never even knew about.

Yulia (whose job involves something to do with data that I’ll never understand) showed us some of her postcard collection, including rare concept art of Disney princesses.

Alex Jordan (developer) performed a rendition of the Jurassic Park theme tune on the harmonica. It was beautiful. I actually caught Dippy wiping a tear from his eye as he remembered his fallen brothers.

But the biggest surprise of all came when developer Francis proudly held up a strange little gnome statue for us all to see. With this gnome came an interesting tale about how Francis and his friends used to hide it around the house to scare each other.

The surprising part here, of course, is that I didn’t realise Francis had any friends.

I hope you enjoyed this insight into how we’re keeping sane over at CANDDi. I’d love to hear how your team is keeping social while remote working (mainly so I can steal your ideas) so please get in touch with me at chris.glover@canddi.com!