Sometimes it’s the little things about a place that make it stand out from others. 5 weeks into my internship at Lab49 I have made (and forgotten and subsequently re-made etc) a number of ‘little’ observations about the way things are done here which really help to give the place a certain…character, much like a pair of rainbow coloured shorts or shoes in one’s wardrobe would.

So imagine my delight when halfway through interviewing one of the guys who founded the company (yeah I get to interview them, pretty cool) he starts talking about the unique personality of Lab49 and how we should focus some of our marketing efforts on letting this shine through.

Finance is viewed by some (myself included until recently) as rather dull and uninspiring. Here at Lab49 Tower this view is challenged as cutting edge technology is introduced to large financial institutions and all kinds of finance related applications are built by talented and interesting people who often come to work in equally interesting shorts/sandals combinations. No stuffy dress codes here then, the only people who wear ties are those who really like ties (me). The kitchen is well stocked with biscuits, crisps and sometimes pizza and cupcakes, especially if it’s Claire’s birthday. Meetings are conducted in a very laid back and informal manner in a variety of locations from conference rooms to bars to a couch with a very fetching embedded surface computer table thing in front of it, complete with microchip laden tree-leaves. Seriously. I could go on. All of this has shattered many a preconception in the Jones-iverse. I have looked on with delight as any reservations I had about what the place was going to be like before coming here vanished quicker than the cat-burglar who has been terrorizing the rooftops of NYC recently. Don’t worry though, dear readers, I don’t have a cat so I am in no danger from him. Anyway, The Lab is a fun, interesting and overwhelmingly nice place to spend your time, and I’m sure this will be one of the reasons that the best talent on the market will continue to be drawn to work here.

Now, by virtue of a happy coincidence, my summer internship coincided with the company’s summer day out. Fantastic. On Wednesday morning the entire office and more than a few children and partners (CHAPS?) piled onto a bus armed with refreshments, snacks and a volleyball net and headed for Harriman State Park in upstate NY. The park ticked almost all the boxes you’d expect from a US country park, with Rangers, burgers, a deer x-ing sign, pickup trucks, the deer the sign was probably made for and quirky little houses which featured American flags and (probably) 5 generations of the same family under the same roof. All that was missing was a grizzly bear and perhaps a group of boy scouts for it to eat.

Good times were had by one and all as we ate, drank, played volleyball, forgot to take photos and got sunburn. I am now sporting a white left arm and pink/red right one thanks to the position of the area of the volleyball field (court, pitch, rink, stadium, complex, arena, ENDZONE, who knows?) which I was deployed on.

Thankfully the fun didn’t end when the return bus finally managed to negotiate its way through the unreal but slightly hypnotic Manhattan traffic. One of our co-workers, Gretchen, who has been blessed with not only a great knowledge of the New York social scene but also with a really cool name, led a group of us to a couple of really nice (and not wallet destroying) bars in the trendy East Village. I’m not sure if it’s actually a trendy area but I saw a guy with his entire right arm tattooed into a kind of strange, green, designless sleeve and a pair of adjoining, competing, fairy light decorated restaurants which featured PR guys dueling for consumer attention on their communal front stairway so that’s trendy enough for me.

Next up this week was a trip to Blue Smoke BBQ restaurant on Thursday night with Ross and his wife. Good Southern cookin’ (yeehaw!) was the order of the day here as we sampled various different beef/pork/rib/ combinations and rounded off the evening with a flight of bourbon. Sounds like heaven for someone who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at the prospect of ordering a chicken and beef salad minus the salad right… So did I enjoy it? Can Geico save you 15% on your car insurance? Actually no one who hasn’t watched US TV will understand that so I should probably say do bears go to sleep in the woods?

So even though I’m in another country I can hear all 3 of my faithful readers back home positively clamouring to ask what a flight of bourbon is. It is like the sour mash equivalent of a murder of crows, a troop of ponies or a deck of devil dogs. The flight consisted of 5 drams (probably not the correct word) of different bourbons from around the US  which we all sampled and was rounded off with a very striking 18 year old blue label hint-of-vanillaic-aromas-you-can-taste-the-peat…thing. Ok I’m not an expert in whisky lingo yet but the final drink in the flight (since it’s a flight how about we refer to this as the final descent onto the runway, with flaps in full landing configuration, deflected 25 degrees) was very tasty.

The weekend is shaping up to be no less frantic as the Boston interns are coming down for what is sure to be an astonishingly brilliant visit in which I hope to turn them into fans of devil dogs. With only 3 weekends left at our disposal, insert generic time is running out comment here.

Finally, I’ve noticed a number of people have been concluding their blogs with a famous, profound or interesting quote so I’m going to give it a go myself and leave you with the following words, made famous by a kilt wearing Scottish athlete who found success in the U.S:

“Just when you think you’ve got all the answers, I change the questions.”

If anyone can name the guy who said that (without the assistance of Google) I’ll be very impressed.