There may be a few blog posts around on customer contact from a sales and marketing point of view, but not so many on the other points of contact a company has with their customers, which can be overlooked. Not everyone who deals with customers has a voice to talk about what they do - the work of support teams and finance teams with their clients often remain isolated incidents, unvalued, unobserved, locked away from the world with nothing but that physicist's cat for company.

Today it's the turn of the humble receptionist. I've worked at the reception desk in Red Gate for two months. I'm often the first point of contact people have with the company. The variety of calls can make the job interesting and satisfying, but it can also be rather precarious at times, particularly if people don't realize they're talking to a mere receptionist. Sometimes callers will presume a lot of knowledge and power that, much as I might covet it, I don't quite have just yet.

It's fortunate that Red Gate seems to be quite good at what it does. Given the importance of what our software gets used for, the number of baleful callers telephoning to berate us for some criminal oversight seems incredibly low, hovering steadily at about zero (that I've encountered myself, I hasten to add). This makes things rather more pleasant than I feared they might be at the start.

The vast majority of calls will be straightforward. Customers phone up with questions about bills and licenses; potential customers phone asking what our software does and whether it will do it for them; tech support issues phone up in a tired, bewildered or defeated voice; and wrong numbers call to demand - with implacable ferocity - a decent explanation as to why their furniture hasn't arrived. (Well, once.) They all get passed through to the right departments or furniture companies.

The straightforward calls are rarely the interesting ones, though. Calls become interesting when someone needing tech support thinks they're straight through to an engineer, and in the first sentence launches into an explanation that makes a lovely whizzing sound as it goes over my head. (Like deadlines, but higher pitched.) Generally at the first pause for breath I let them know that the particular software they need help with isn't something I know in great depth, so I'll pass them through to someone who knows it better than me... It's a nice way of learning about the products, however. I will see how many snippets of data I need to collect before I don't have to pass people through to support any more.

Other calls can be stranger. Some are trying to sell things to the company, and generally ask to speak to heads of department. One chap didn't, and gave me his entire sales pitch for some web analytics software shortly following 'Hello', despite a number of suggestions that I wasn't altogether the right person. He seemed to be putting his heart and soul into it, and almost believing himself when he said they were a market leader - I didn't have the heart to stop him. His sales pitch seemed to be fluff held together with buzzwords and enthusiasm. The poor man sounded like he knew.

Most rewarding are the calls where the first thing the customer does is to tell me how happy they've been with Red Gate - the products themselves, and the service. I wouldn't believe there would have been so many of these if I hadn't heard them myself. Most are from customers who've been with us a good number of years, but a significant number are from those who've just starting using our software and are over the moon at how much easier things have become. Brand new users have even told me how pleased they are with the software at the same time as they're phoning in for tech support to work out a few programming eccentricities.

Sitting in at the desk in the office itself, the atmosphere is great. Most of the company walks past the desk at some point in the day, and you get to say hello to people every minute or two. Plenty will stop for a chat, if there's a quiet moment. Red Gate is an unusually friendly company. People are genuinely happy to be there, and working at the reception desk in the middle of an atmosphere of peace and contentment is really quite luxurious. Particularly with a fresh cup of tea and one of those yoghurts with the little chocolate biscuit things from the kitchens.

Post by Phil Scott

Imagine waking up with the knowledge that the day ahead will be one to remember, but not being entirely sure what to expect. This was certainly the case for the Marketing team who looked forward to their day-out on 15^th October 2009.

Each of the teams here at Red Gate have the opportunity to take time out of the office to spend together and enjoy a day-out. I joined Red Gate just two months after the Marketing team's first day-out of 2009, which I hear was a fun day climbing in trees at Go Ape, as well as making and tasting chocolate. About a month after my first day Red Gate celebrated Independence Day. The celebration was a surprise day-out spent in a field building engaging in medieval activities; such as Falconry, archery, catapult making, and the day finished with a delicious BBQ and drinks.

Many of the other teams here at Red Gate had already taken their days-out during the summer, and it was now our turn. Twelve creative minds were certainly not short of ideas for what to do: punting and a BBQ in Cambridge, a trip to the beach in Norfolk, wine tasting and a trip to the museum in London, skiing/sledging in Milton Keynes. We had to choose something that would please everyone. After numerous votes were cast, no true favorite emerged; But then out of the blue sprung a new idea from Andrew...

He knew of a beautiful place in Suffolk that would welcome us all for a day of Pottery. Everyone in the team was instantly won over by this idea. Andrew handed over the details to Sarah who did an excellent job of organizing everything to set us up for a great day-out.

Travelling an hour south of Cambridge to Suffolk passing through country lanes with twists and turns we finally saw the sign that pointed us in the right direction "Red Gate Pottery Day": Naturally, the 'all girls' car arrived first. We were welcomed to the open 'Old School House' by Ivan. Autumn leaves crunched below our feet as we walked through the gate into the courtyard. Sandy our pottery teacher then greeted us and took us into the house for tea, coffee and biscuits. The rest of the team arrived in dribs and drabs and we soon made our way into the pottery house for our team briefing at 11am.

It was very 'hands on', and we were each given an amount of clay for which we could make anything. After peeking at everyone's creations I saw many bowls, vases, cups and also some interesting pieces such as; a newspaper-filled pig, a gargoyle with features resembling some of the team back at the office, and also the much commented-on chimney-***-vase. All the different creations showed that we were allowing our inspiration free rein.

We were able to paint some of our drying pieces before we went for lunch. The caterers (Gemma and her mum Phillippa) served up an amazing selection of Moroccan food, consisted of; beef and cranberries, fish and figs, couscous and feta, runner beans and pomegranates, salad and olives. Finally to finish we indulged in a pomegranate pavlova cake and profiteroles and cream along with a team photograph around the table.

The Marketing team at Lunch. Clockwise around the table, from the left: Anthony, Kathryn, Alice, Chris, Matt, Tony, Andrew, Richard, Emma, Annabel, Sarah, Sofie.

With our tummies sufficiently full, we then turned our hand to painting some 'as Sandy made earlier' pots. This was another activity that really got our creative minds working. Mixing white, copper and turquoise glaze against a black pot would make for some interesting and unique pieces of Raku ceramics for us to take home. Once complete we needed to let the colors take effect in the reduction chamber. With these roasting away in the kiln we were let loose on the pottery wheel.

None of us claimed to have any extensive experience of potting on a wheel. Given that fact, I think we all made some exceptional items. My favorite item from the wheel has to be Anthony's candle stick, which looked like the wax had already started dripping down the stem! It was so easy to go too far on the wheel. One minute you were looking at a lovely bowl, and the next minute your hands had moved a millimeter in the wrong direction. It was like watching your favorite Red Gate mug fall to the floor and shatter into a million pieces! This is where I believe practice makes perfect, and that you cannot be expected to make something of the best of your ability on first attempt. Try and try again until you are completely satisfied.

The day was drawing in and the sun that had brightened us all day was moving behind the clouds. It was time to extract our painted pots from the 1040 degree furnace. The process for their removal was rather interesting. Four bins full of sawdust were waiting on the grass. The pots were removed from the boiling hot brick container and dropped into the bins. As they were placed into the bins they caught fire immediately. We covered them with more sawdust to douse out the flames. Every time we needed to memorize whose pot went into each bin. It was a smoky 10 minutes that we weren't quite prepared for. After coughing and waving away the smoke, all the pots were fished out of the bins and put onto the ground. As they cooled we all became very proud of our artwork. We cooled them off in buckets of water and buffed them up with a sponge to further reveal even more beauty.

We left the Old School House with our paints pots, and with the knowledge that Sandy would be painting our handmade clay pieces in the colors of our choice. I for one am looking forward to seeing everyone's finished pieces when they are delivered this week.

All in all everyone came away from the day out feeling proud to have made something from 'nothing'. Everyone got to learn a little more about their colleagues and a lot about the skill and art that is pottery. We will enjoy sharing our experiences with everyone at Red Gate, our family friends, as well as others in the community who are interested to find out about the perks of being a Red Gate employee. It was a day-out to remember.

Post by Annabel Bradford

Many of us are cautious before applying for a job, especially in an office.

When I was fresh out of University, my only experience of a workplace had been the Coffee House where I’d worked as a waitress serving people their afternoon tea. I wasn’t the only one to worry that I would now find myself working in a place much like Ricky Gervais’ Office that we’d seen on television, and was therefore unsurprised when it happened to me a couple of times before I came to Red Gate, three months ago.

Before I applied to Red Gate, I decided to do my own research, so I found this Red@Work blog, and was able to see what sort of thing I could get involved in, if I joined Red Gate. I was able to hear the experiences from the people themselves, rather than seeing it on a company website, especially written to entice you click the ‘apply’ button. It gave me some insight into the people that work at Red Gate, and some of the activities that happen both in and out of the office. I liked Red Gate’s ‘transparency’.

Yesterday evening, just three months after I’d had to use forensic skills to make sure I was applying to a company that was good to work for, Red Gate opened their doors to 108 potential employees who wanted to come and have a look around the office.

It was remarkable to walk into the servery and witness a change from the usual scene of ravenous Red Gaters indulging in their daily lunch, to a somewhat more civilised picture of people chatting over a buffet. Albeit with a huge picture of James Moore, our General Manager for our DBA Tools Division in the corner of the room…

It was great to walk around and hear other Red Gate employees talking about how much they enjoy working here, and for other people to be interested in hearing about these experiences. Away from the servery, I walked past a visitor being guided into a packed meeting room, where demonstrations of Red Gate products were taking place.

I hope that for the people who took the time to visit the office, they found the experience worthwhile. We have already had some feedback from people who looked around yesterday, but it would be great to hear from more. Also I’d like to know if any of your companies have tried anything similar. Or if indeed, you have ever been to an event like this? As I have said, for me, it was a unique experience, so I wonder how many other people have actually had an opportunity like the people visiting Red Gate did last night.

It's not every day at work that you are serenaded by Santa Claus* playing a ukulele. It's not every company in which you find yourself in a jester's cap being shouted at by the Mad Hatter to swap places with the person sixteen places along from you at a huge, crazy tea party and then start playing 'pass the parcel' with different varieties of cakes and buns.

But then, Red Gate isn't just any company. And CSR events are never just any ordinary day.

The CSR panel (Corporate Social Responsibility) at Red Gate is not only about organising fund-raising events and charitable activities; we are also involved in anything that can make Red Gate a more socially responsible and environmentally considerate company. So, we're always looking for ideas about how to increase our levels of recycling, how to encourage employees to car-share or cycle or behave in an eco-friendly manner.

However, there's no doubt that it's the charity events that really capture the imagination of people at Red Gate. Our most recent event, to raise funds for CAMTAD (a charity to help people with hearing difficulties) was a lunchtime "buskathon" at which various musically talented members of Red Gate played a selection of pieces, classical and modern, for the benefit of lunchtime diners. The music ranged from Crowded House to Shostakovich, from Van Morrison to 1920s ragtime. While tapping their feet to the tunes, there was also a quiz sheet to complete – lyrics from songs and album covers to recognise. The tie-breaker question was to write the words for a Red Gate company anthem. Simon G bravely 'sang' the top three entries later in the day. And of course, there were home-made cakes to buy. There are always home-made cakes at CSR events!

Perhaps our most successful CSR event was the one before 'Buskgate' – the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. I remember clearly how the idea germinated ; the CSR panel were trying to think up possible charity events, and the discussion had turned to some kind of 'dressing-up day'. "What about if everyone had to come in wearing a silly hat?" suggested someone (most likely Dom). "So, pay a pound, and wear a hat to lunch…. hmmm. How about we actually have a tea party… a Mad Hatter's Tea Party?" someone else said. From there, the ideas came thick and fast. "We could ask the caterers to provide silver tea pots and china cups. We could ask Red Gate people to bake cakes (of course) to buy at the tea party. We could play silly games. Pass the Parcel! We could have a prize for the silliest hat. Or the tallest hat. The most historical hat…."

Not all the ideas made it to the final event. Some were deemed too silly, even for a Mad Hatter's Tea Party. For example, Dom suggested that as people enter the SQL Servery, they should walk past a large brown parcel. On the next table would be a sign saying "Congratulations. You have now passed the parcel." Events like the tea party and the buskathon take a surprising amount of planning. Emails fly back and forth between members of the CSR panel for weeks beforehand. Someone has to design a poster. Someone has to arrange for volunteers. Someone has to speak to the caterers about what we need from them. Someone has to find some music for pass-the-parcel. Someone has to organise the cakes (of course). I remember when I first saw the tea party laid out on one long array of tables lined up end-to-end from one side of the canteen to the other, covered in a table cloth, with silver tea pots at intervals and a proper cup and saucer at every place setting, and of course the ridiculous, enormous volume of cakes, muffins, buns and brownies that stretched as far as the eye could see – I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear. I then spent the next hour tying "Drink Me" labels (very kindly and patiently made by Agata) to each teacup, and "Eat Me" labels to the platters of cakes. And blu-tacking posters of teapots to the wall.

And then the tea party guests trooped in. I was gobsmacked. I've never seen such a diverse, inventive, eclectic, crazy collection of headwear in my entire life (and I've occasionally watched footage of Ladies' Day at Ascot). Marine had made her own giant papier mache hat in the shape of a teapot. Elizabeth, clearly with an eye on the 'tallest hat' prize, had a medieval maiden's bonnet that was at least five feet tall. Someone else, with a questionably interpretative approach to the rules, had tied balloons to their hat to make it reach the ceiling. There was a shiny silver helmet from a suit of armour, complete with beaver. There was a genuine sapper's cap from the second world war. A Dr. Zeuss style hat. And a "hat" made from a pair of shoes.

We learned a number of things that day. Firstly, that hats made from shoes will start to smell after a while. Secondly, what looks like a centuries-old suit of armour isn't necessarily all that old (actually manufactured in a small Indian village quite recently). Thirdly, that there is a limit to the number of times you can shout at people to switch places before they start to grow disgruntled at having to get up and be dragged away from their tea and cake.

We made £1015 in total from the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, which is pretty decent for a couple of hours' munching cake and sipping tea, and everyone seemed to have a great time. A fair chunk of that money was Simon G bidding for Marine's giant hat, which I'm told is now proudly mounted on his living room wall. I guess it makes for a fascinating conversation piece at dinner parties…

The tea party is a great example of an idea casually thrown out in a meeting being breathed into glorious reality thanks to the hard work of lots of people, and the typically passionate spirit in which Red Gaters throw themselves into any and every event here. But these kinds of events don't magically create themselves, even those set in Wonderland. So it's vital that we have a top crew of dedicated CSR people to lend their brain power, time and energy to all these activities.

What's next for the Red Gate CSR? Well, no doubt you'll find out in due course. In the meantime, we're always looking for helpers.

*OK, so it wasn't the real Santa Claus – but Phil Factor has that same Avuncular North-Polar quality, and he did don the red suit at our last Christmas kids party event.

Post by Brian Harris on behalf of CSR.

Our expert team of conference-goers recently returned from PASS, and laughed in the face of jet-lag to fill us in on a varied taste of what went on during these last few non-stop days in Seattle. I’ll open to floor to the lovely Claire, who reminisces about the good times…

The SQL Server Central party, complete with SQL-fuelled, happy website members, buzzing casino tables, purple nachos and a mountain of charcoal gray T-shirts to give away, surely has to be one of my favourite evenings during PASS.

My attempts at blackjack were all too reminiscent of the days when I used to play (and bitterly lose) POGS in the yard at school. The chips may have practically dissolved on the green felt of the table before me, but my spirits were greatly lifted when we all saw Dan McClain, Exceptional DBA of 2008, accept his trophy, awarded by Rodney Landrum and Brad McGehee, two of the Exceptional DBA Awards' judges. Rodney, Dan and Brad all made great speeches, and, cheesy as it may sound, I really enjoyed seeing Dan's peers cheer his achievement, particularly as there will probably have been quite a few people at the party who voted for the awards' finalists. Dan has worked hard in his career, and I'm sure Dan encouraged many DBAs in the audience to enter these new awards in their second year in 2009 too.

Here's a photo of Dan with his crystal trophy – Dan, if you're reading this, I hope the baggage handlers at the airports were gentle!

Next up, we've got the inestimable Theo, and his rapid-fire round-up of preparing for software demonstrations…

Software folklore dictates that the best way to find bugs in your software is to prepare a thoroughly checked and rehearsed demonstration and then try to reproduce it with a customer watching. Fortunately all Red Gate software is scrutinized by our rather thorough testing department before being released, but even without software bugs there is a lot that can go wrong.

Due to our unshakable faith in Murphey’s Law, the Red Gate PASS team spent the day before PASS sitting on all available surfaces in our apartment with laptops balanced precariously on our laps working on our demonstrations. Questions were raised like “How do you demonstrate SQL Prompt if you haven’t written any SQL in the last 3 years?” (solved with a crash-course SQL refresher) and “How do you demonstrate a server monitoring tool on a single laptop without an internet connection?” (Daniel had set up an appropriate virtual machine before we left for the conference).

Whilst the preparation was somewhat painful, it meant at the conference demonstrating the software went smoothly (most of the time anyway). Careful practice helped, but much of the credit for this must go to Dom for designing interfaces that even guys like me from marketing can learn to use fluently in less than a day.

And last, but by no means the least, I present our very own Tony, and his tale of Seattle Surreality...

Sometimes weird things happen at conferences. After a long day in technical sessions, followed by the vendor reception, I was looking forward to winding down with a burger and a quiet few beers. I really did not expect to find myself, instead, taking photos in a Seattle tattoo parlour at 10PM, as Rodney Landrum got what must surely be the world's first Red Gate tattoo.

I think this was a "one off" PASS experience ;)

Post by Chris Massey, Claire Brooking, Theo Spears & Tony Davis

Red Gate recently attended the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, CA, and when we weren’t consuming copious numbers of oysters and steaks, we found a lot of time to chat to attendees. I always seem to find myself having similar conversations with people during the course of a week. No bad thing of course, but it definitely means that the more interesting conversations always stand out.

The one that most definitely stood out for all of us was Joey deVilla. A Developer Evangelist for Microsoft Canada, Joey regaled us with some sweet, sweet music on his … accordion. To be precise, Joey serenaded a rather dazed and confused crowd around the Red Gate booth with a particularly unique version of Britney Spears debut single ‘… Baby One More Time’.

Alice could hardly contain herself, so we had to get a picture to remind ourselves of the musical masterpiece. As the saying goes, it definitely takes one to know one, and in this case it just had to be our very own Red Gate crazy that picked out another crazy from a crowd of thousands!

Joey deVilla, his accordion and Alice Easey at the Microsoft PDC

It’s worth noting that according to Joey’s business cards he will ‘play for beer’. I hope Alice kept his card. I think I might find out if he’s free for my birthday next year during Microsoft TechEd Developers …

Post by Rachel.

Microsoft PDC is upon us again for the first time in three years. There is a packed 5-day agenda running from Sunday October 26^th through to Thursday October 30^th.

I always get excited about going away with Red Gate. It’s such a big change from the work that we all do in the office. Much as I like being in contact with people overseas I can’t help but relish the time away from my PC. The chance to meet so many new people, and the opportunity to catch up with people that we only get to see face-to-face maybe once a year at most is really refreshing for developers, tester, sales and marketing alike.

I wanted to take a minute to introduce you to the Red Gate team that will be jetting over to Los Angeles, CA to get involved in the action next week, and to encourage you to come and talk to us!

First up is our beloved Head of Development, Tom Harris. Tom was the third Red Gate employee, which means he’s been with the company for nine years! He was the brains behind the original version of ANTS Profiler and has since turned his hand to Mixology – the art of cocktail creation. He is a mojito connoisseur and will leave LA knowing where to go to find the best one.

Second in line is Alice Easey, Test Engineer Extraordinaire and subject of the best staff photo on our company intranet. Alice has a plethora of interesting jobs on her CV, the highlight for me being a muse for a comics’ artiste … dressed up as a dinosaur. Brilliant.

Next we have one of my favourite sales people, Angus Chudleigh. Angus takes care of the Northern regions of the United States, so if you’re based in Vermont you may well have been in touch with him. A keen golfer and wine-lover (although not before tee-time!), he used to work as a Deputy Manciple (wine steward) for a Cambridge University college. If you’ve got any Californian recommendations for him, stop by the booth and make his day.

Charles Brown joined Red Gate as a Product Manager earlier this year. If you ever want to relax with a cup of tea and the crossword from the Guardian newspaper, make sure you are there before Charles and the rest of the Product Management team. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve narrowly missed the opportunity to exercise my cerebral capacities because I was too slow! The upsetting part is, he only uses the crossword to warm up his synapses before moving on to the cryptic crossword!

For all those motorcycle enthusiasts at PDC, you’ll find a friend in Greg Tillman our .NET Sales team leader. One of Greg’s most prized possessions is his Suzuki GSXR 600 (apparently the ‘600’ makes all the difference!). Greg is going to be taking a road trip to visit a few of the sights around California and Nevada after the conference. If you have any top tips drop by and let him know.

Ben Hall is one of our SQL tools project leads, and like all true developers and Simple Talk authors, he is a big fan of beer. He was awarded his C# MVP status on July 2nd 2008 for "extraordinary efforts in Visual C# technical communities during the past year." Pretty impressive. But when you bear in mind that Ben lives, eats and breathes software development it’s difficult to see why he wasn’t nominated sooner!

Finally there’s me. I’m Rachel, and I am responsible for community marketing at Red Gate, which is a corporate way of saying I look after Red Gate’s presence at conferences and community events. Resident gossip queen and purveyor of more than one embarrassing trade show photograph of Red Gate staff, I’ll be the one on the stand who can’t stop talking and would very much like you to stop by for a chat.

The Red Gate PDC team will be at booth numbers 410 and 412. Let us know if you’re going to be there and leave us your messages below.

We’re looking forward to seeing you!

Apropos of nothing, we’ve just moved into a new office to house our ever-burgeoning workforce, and naturally there are a few important tweaks that need to be made to make the place fit for use. Like upgrading how much sweet, sweet caffeine the new coffee machine will dispense in one go, for a start. Until 2 weeks ago, it gave precisely half a cup of coffee every time you pressed the button. Ok, not a problem, just press the button twice, yes? Except that you now have a mug so full that surface tension is the only thing keeping the coffee inside it. And its temperature is best described as ‘volcanic’, so sipping it down to more practical levels is not really an option.

One of the more prosaic benefits of having seriously technical people in the building is that they are very good at tinkering with anything electrical. In this case, they managed to convince the coffee machine to give us a decent cup of coffee at a temperature more tolerable to human beings without fire-proof throats (and for that we are all eternally grateful). They’ve also had a go at reconfiguring one of our fridges, though I was too afraid to ask exactly what they hoped to achieve *. Email in the desserts, perhaps.

It amused me to walk through the kitchen and hear this hushed conversation:

“Ahhhh…”

“So this is…”

“Yup, and then you need to press …”

“Right… so how do you get the next…?”

“Just press it again”

“Oh, ok.”

… and then turn around and find Nigel and Rob peering into the innards of the refrigerator. When I finally got the courage to ask them about it later, their only comment was:

“We are 133t h4x0r5”

I'm too scared to ask what’s next on their hit-list. Has anyone else hacked / modded an appliance?

post by Chris Massey

* I subsequently discovered that they were trying to get the top shelf of the fridge to cool down, as it was, at the time, actually hotter than the ambient room temperature.