Free Nonsense
The guzzlers
by Fábio Coelho*
In this month's episode of “Free Nonsense”, I offer you the opportunity to get to know the more gastronomic side of HasLab, more specifically that of the distributed systems team. Eating is a key part of our workday, not only because we religiously have lunch at noon (as we traditionally do here in Braga) but also because it seems we all synchronized our appetites for that lunch hour as well as for the snack time at 4.20 p.m. All this without even trying those famous Activia yogurts, incredible. For you to understand this importance to us, when we recently adopted Mattermost as our team chat (yes, we use Mattermost, thank you INESC TEC!), our number one priority was to understand how we could create a public channel - "Guzzle" - that basically aims to broadcast our food intentions, review of our destination as well as of its options, etc.
Summer 2017
Right now, many of you must be wondering why is this episode named "Guzzlers”... Well, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, "Guzzlers" means "Someone who eats something eagerly and usually in large amounts”. In fact, we couldn't ask for a better description. Our hunger, along with the Mattermost channel (and a couple of text messages) led us to the name of this post. And in order not to break any tradition, the guzzles are extremely important as some of the guzzlers that already left INESC TEC to pursue their professional careers still join us and tell us of how their lives are going.
Recently, Tuesdays have become a crucial day in our week because, you guessed it, it's the day that we automatically go out and have dinner. This event clearly made the inclusion of new members a far more easy and outgoing task. It also saw the achievement of several personal and academic milestones such as anniversaries, defence of Master’s Degree or PhD thesis with typical "end of thesis" menu - a toasted cheese and ham sandwich + a draught beer or even homemade Caipirinhas! However, in Braga the appropriate meal for a celebration is called "Francesinha" (Don't worry, fellow INESC TEC colleagues from Porto, the "Francesinha" here is different). The choice is automatic, almost everyone orders it. It was during this confraternisations that great discussions arose, some of them really philosophical while some others were mundane. It was during these times that some catchphrases like " I'm done with glasses kept full "were invented. The author of this one I prefer to remain anonymous. ;) you can already see where this is going.
Christmas Lunch 2017
All of this is what keeps us on being more connected and friendly, something inherent to the human being.
And with this "romantic" line, I invite you to join us. You already know the schedule! Talk to us through Mattermost and we can go eat some Mussels Marinara - yes, we're having some very exquisite intentions lately - and a piña colada!
Bon appétit!
* Collaborator at HASLab (High-Assurance Software Laboratory)
