Padel, Partnerships, and (Admittedly) a Lot of Room for Improvement

On the 7th of August the Salesforce ecosystem swapped boardrooms for baselines. Our own Tushar Seth, Co-Founder & Partner, Simon Suarez, Senior Director Enterprise Architecture, and Richard Pitfield, Senior Salesforce Architect, teamed up with Adam McDonald, Christopher Abdo and Will Harrison from Salesforce for the Partner Charity Padel Tournament, and while we'd love to tell you we swept the court, honesty is very much an AbsoluteLabs value. So let's just say the scoreboard was not our finest hour.

Congratulations to Give Clarity, who took the overall win, and to Capita, who topped the beginners bracket. Padel greatness will have to wait for us.

But here's the thing: nobody actually cared about the scoreline by the third rally.

It was a hot, sunny day, and every single person out there gave it maximum effort, the kind of effort usually reserved for closing a big deal, not chasing a small yellow ball around a glass box. There was sweat, there was shouting, and there was more than one dramatic dive that achieved absolutely nothing except a good story for Monday.

What actually made the day worthwhile was the time spent with the wider Salesforce network. Trading war stories on court, laughing off missed shots, and getting to know the people behind the logos a bit better. Turns out partnerships really are built on the same side of the net, even when your side is losing.

There was even talk of organising a dedicated training day ahead of next year's tournament, partly to get better, mostly because everyone had such a good time they didn't want to wait a full year to do it again.

So, no trophy this year. But a genuinely fun day, some great team bonding, and a training day already being pencilled in for round two. We'll take that.