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Nightmare Number Nine!

Expedition Technology · November 1, 2022

A row of mason jars wrapped in white tape as mummies with googly eyes, beside a small black fabric pumpkin.

Another year of life at EXP is in the books. As we look forward to our 10-year anniversary in 2023, we took a break from our creative work on Friday to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve. We have a number of annual traditions at EXP: π Day, a chili cookoff, the Advent of Code competition, and (our favorite) the summer interns. This year, we added the Halloween Decoration Contest.

When it was first announced, I naively expected to see a couple scattered jack-o’-lanterns and that one crazy person who over decorates everything. However, I underestimated our team because we apparently have a lot more than one crazy person in the office. Our teammates doubled down on the holiday spirit with webs, bats, skeletons, fog, zombie jars, and even a gangplank. I shouldn’t have been surprised; the creativity required to tackle our customers’ problems attracts the sort of teammates who thrive on a fun competition.

If you’d like to join one of our competitions, watch this space over the next couple weeks to learn how to join us online for Advent of Code. If your creative juices can’t wait that long, come visit! We need people just like you.

An office bay decked out for Halloween: a life-size hooded reaper with a lit skull looms over a candlelit table, cardboard RIP gravestones stand along the desks, and cobwebs, hanging shrouds and red string lights fill the room.

A graveyard laid out across the office carpet in stretched cobweb, with hand-lettered cardboard gravestones bearing colleagues’ names and programming mishaps as causes of death — one reads “Pylint Error: Trailing Whitespace”.

A pirate-themed bay: a fabric-wrapped anchor and skeleton arm hang by the door, fishing net is draped between desks, a plank runs out across the floor and a framed zombie poster leans against a desk.

A glass-walled team room sealed off behind purple “DANGER” tape, its windows covered in cobwebs, bats, bloody handprints and messages reading “HELP” and “DO NOT ENTER”.

Office glass papered over with black plastic torn into ragged holes, blood spatter and grey handprints pressed against the gaps, a large spider and black webbing on the lit doorway beyond.

A tray of sausage rolls on an office kitchen counter beside a hand-written card reading “Severed Toes in a Blanket”, each roll finished with a flaked-almond toenail.

Glass office doors covered with dripping red posters reading “HELP” and “DO NOT ENTER”, silhouetted figures pressing against them from inside, and a doormat reading “Welcome, we’ve been expecting you”.

A gentler corner of the office: paper bats and googly-eyed monsters stuck to the window blinds, a string of Halloween lights along the wall, and a “Happy Halloween” banner with pumpkins and ghosts on the glass partition beyond.

A carved pumpkin filled with celery and carrot sticks, set on a platter of crudités and autumn leaves, labelled “Jack O’Lantern filled crudité”, with sliders on a tray alongside.

Two small Day of the Dead skeleton figures hanging in a window, one in a flowered top hat and tailcoat, the other in a lace veil and red and yellow skirt.

A glass office door wrapped from top to bottom in white crepe streamers like a mummy, with a pair of cartoon eyes peering out through a gap in the bandages.

A soft toy in dungarees with a plush jack-o’-lantern for a head, propped in a wicker basket beside a carved pumpkin lantern and autumn flowers.