HPE's London boozer dubbed the 'Hewlett You Inn?' It's official: Hewlett Packard Enterprise's private London drinking club has been dubbed the "Hewlett You Inn?" in a reader poll which saw the name pip "The DrinkJet" to the post by a single vote. To recap for the benefit of those who inexplicably missed what was the single most significant IT-related boozer scoop of 2015, it …
Being from the US, I was a little confused when I saw this. HPE is actually building and running a bar? For employees or customers?
I know companies rent "hospitality suites" at trade show hotels to provide the traditional "hookers-n-blow" to their CxO customers, but I've never heard of a company operating a full time booze joint. Those suites are usually pop up locations.
(The name is awesome BTW)
Many companies in the US provide hospitality of all sorts to customers both off premises and on. The office beer keg or fridge for the workers is also not unheard of. The senior executive of a major corporation who doesn't have alcohol to offer his office guests might be a rare case. I know - it sounds terrifying, and totally alien to those of us on the front lines - but this is how business (sales especially) is done. With dignified courtesy.
Years ago (1978), when I worked for Data General, they had a strict "no alcohol on premises" policy. This was, granted, in the United States of Lawsuits, and I understand and accept that the norm in other countries is different.
But, a bar??? Seems like a lot of expensive square footage which would be seldom used to its capacity (unless the sales weasels have a daily "beer o'clock" meeting)
UK services organisations run on beer. Often that beer will be served on site, because we're billed by the day and there's no way we're coming back to the office from client site after 5pm for an internal meeting unless we're getting lubed up for nowt. That requires a license, even if no money changes hands.
They may also have a bona fide cash bar. Still not that unusual in certain employers.
We're now mulling just how to get some "Hewlett You Inn?" artwork knocked up, encased in improbably excessive packaging
1. Knock up a CorelDraw file with the desired letters at the desired size depicted in hairline outline (or tell the guy in stage 2 what you want)
2. Take them to someone with a laser engraver and ask them to cut them out of plywood
3. Spray the plywood letters with car paint of the desired colour (gold'll probably do)
That gets you signage cheaply
4. For packaging, I recommend phoning round airports and seeing if you can get hold of any of the boxes that helicopter blades come in...they stretch pretty well the length of an articulated lorry trailer, even for a smallish chopper
5. Put the letters in the box at random and fill the rest with packing peanuts
6. For bonus points, print some instructions on a tiny piece of paper in the wrong language and hide it under one of the flaps that hold the box together.
7. Extra bonus points/level up: Include enough double-sided sticky pads to stick all but one of the letters...for the last letter, include a random cable from some other piece of equipment and tell them to use that.
Delivery is entirely your problem; but you'd probably want a photograper on hand for when it arrives.
EVIL PLAN NOTES:
Stages 1/2 are a cost/convenience tradeoff. Cheapest option is get the letters cut out of vinyl, but that looks a bit crap.
Laser engraving you get cheapest if you supply the artwork and materials...phone up and get the size of the laser guy's laser bed; make your CorelDraw document the same size (CD is a sort of standard for engraving, but check first) and try and get as many letters on as few pages as possible. Wood supply places will often cut plywood to size, if you ask nicely (3mm ply will do the job). As a more expensive but more convenient option (skipping the painting stage), the guy might have some coloured 3mm acrylic in stock or be able to source some.
Stage 3: Painting. Best to do it outside. If you're married either put paper down first; or alternately arrange the letters to spell as rude a word as possible where the kids will read it and prepare to become more familiar with the couch.
Stage 4: MOD contacts? Box chosen because it's relatively normal height and width; but stupidly unmanageable length. Can be handled by 3/4 blokes if you go wide round corners and stop off for periodic beer breaks. You could probably get a fitbit etc comparison article out of the afternoon too if you played it right. Can't see the doors in the picture; but with a bit of luck the box won't fit inside and you'll be able to photograph the unwrapping. You'd definitely want to get them to sign for it and capture the "I'm signing for THAT!?!" expression.
@Neil Barnes - Not quite but I have had some stuff from HP in OTT packaging...that's why I made a point of adding the wrong cable part. Don't know if you can get artics into that particular part of London; but the last ½ mile is doable with a couple of stout, sufficiently intoxicated journalists if you can't get lorries in there.
"6. For bonus points, print some instructions on a tiny piece of paper in the wrong language and hide it under one of the flaps that hold the box together."
No, print the instructions on a tiny piece of paper as a series of diagrams. This ensures it's equally incomprehensible in all languages.
You missed a bit regarding the 'instructions'. They should be in every language imaginable (except English of course), prefaced in as much legalise 'it's not out fault' boilerplate as possible and should fold out to at least a few square metres. The exact same 'instructions' (as in nothing instructional, just legal disclaimers) should be on a sealed CD that's also marked 'instructions'. Safe packaging of these is expected of course, along with picking and packing slips for each.
The bar cheap to own.
A glass of beer cost 1/3rd the price of the bar.
When you order a beer you get additionally 2-3 other types of beer at the same time.
But once your are near finishing one of the beers the staff take all of the beers away and then proceed to throw out all the glasses.
After a couple of years the bar has to be removed and replaced with similar bar with a new look, otherwise it won't work with the current type of customs.
HP and Canon large format are fine, tech trained on both for the CAD machines and high end on Canon. Canon's ink system is better than HP but I have my doubts about the purge units. Canon / Oce scanners kick the arse off HP for quality but are harder to use. It's Like comparing a Pc with a Mac or either running Linux, if you know what you are doing you can get the best out of them. A decent one from either will run for at least 5 years/ 10 hours a day.
Stop bitching about ink and let me know how much it costs for a pint in HP HQ (The new one anyway, HP UK training Centre has its own Costa Coffee while Canon's restaurant is super yummy and both free or very cheap:)
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