Ultimate Fun

Today’s guest blogger is Erland Injerd, a developer who works in the Network and Systems department at Logos.

So you’re sitting at your desk at the end of a long day inside. The sun is shining outdoors, and the sky is the deepest crisp blue you’ve ever seen.

“Hey,” a coworker drops by your desk. “Let’s play some Ultimate Frisbee.”

This sounds promising.

“There are eight other people already on their way — meet you at the park!”

Off to the park you go…and sure enough, there’s a whole crowd of familiar faces, ready to start running in a friendly game of Ultimate.

Sound like a pleasant, post-lunch daydream?

Not at Logos Bible Software. During the summer months, what better way to work out some stress, get a bit of fresh air, and enjoy God’s creation than a game of Ultimate Frisbee, right after a hard day’s work?

“But getting enough people together is like pulling teeth,” the skeptic might say. “Schedules conflict, people leave early, no one knows exactly what park you’re going to…the list goes on.”

Fortunately, we work for a software company full of enterprising developers. Several years back, one of our devs made a website that manages the Ultimate games for interested employees. Just tell the site what days you can play, and it will send you an E-mail in the morning, asking you to sign up that day. If enough players sign up on a given day, all the Ultimate Heroes get a “Game On!” E-mail — we’re headed to the park! The game is always at the same place and the same time, so no one gets confused, and if not enough people sign up, well, no one arrives at the park wondering where everyone else is (we hope).

But it’s not enough to know that some of Logos secretly plays Ultimate. How do the games go?

Thankfully, nowhere in the hiring process at Logos does it mention “skill at Ultimate Frisbee.” While some of us are fairly gifted at running and throwing and yelling (or just yelling), most of us are pretty casual, average players. The little website that schedules our games is also smart enough to take past results, crunch the statistics, and figure out the real movers and shakers. They all get stuck on one team, and everyone else….
Actually, the teams tend to shake out pretty balanced, after each player has a few games recorded. There have been some embarrassing 15-3 or 15-5 final scores (yes, we play to fifteen), but for the most part, the games tend to end up fairly close.

Of course, that keeps things interesting. When the score is 13-12, and it’s 7PM, people start getting focused. Do you really want to throw long? How about we send someone to the end zone. Cover that guy, he’s getting physical…just give him a little elbow. Some of us are good at throwing, some are good at catching, some are good at guarding — and there’s my personal favorite: running a lot.

But when the day is done, and everyone shakes hands, gives high-fives, talks a little smack about “that last pass,” you know the Ultimate game was worth it. Lots of exercise, lots of sun, lots of great times with friends — what a way to end a day’s work for an awesome company. So, the next time you’re wondering: how do we do it, remember the Ultimate. Sometimes, making software isn’t all about a computer screen.