“We should have a high school spirit week around here!”
What started out as joke during a company meeting talking about culture, turned into a week full of festivities, fun, and more importantly, bonding as a small company striving for an inclusive and close culture
Company culture involves so many things, accountability, friendships, family, relaxed environments, and company-wide activities. At Springthrough, we pride ourselves in being a trendsetter in all of these areas. We recently notched up our company-wide activities with “Springthrough Spirit Week,” where just like high school, each day had a different theme, with the week ending in a big party celebrating the start of a 4-day holiday weekend.Signing myself up for coordinating an event like this was a tad overwhelming, especially once the requests and ideas for themes started pouring in. How do you please everyone and make sure everyone feels included? Well, when you work with a bunch of guys who like superhero’s, sports, and beer, it’s easy to start whittling the ideas down. Once the days were set with their themes, the fun part began: promoting the theme days, picking out prizes, and planning the end of week party.
Promoting weeks leading up to the big week was, to say the least, hilarious. From the reactions around the office of, “Oh, we’re actually doing this?” to “I’m going to win for this day!”, were encouraging and somewhat surprising. In a male dominated office, participation was a small concern of mine. Would people actually dress up and was anyone going to think this fun? I was pleasantly surprised when jokes and small competitions on outfits spread throughout the office. As a planner for this event, everyone’s excitement and participation was my favorite part of the whole week.
We started our week out with Mahalo Monday (Hawaiian ShirtDay). I spent my morning making sure everyone had a lei and some tropical juice on their desk to start spirit week and their Monday morning with a little fun. As great as the juice and jewelry were, it was nothing in comparison to all the great tropical shirts floating into and around the office that morning. Best dressed for Mahalo Monday was one of our Lead Developers, Jeff, who came dressed to impress in a full grass skirt (ok, not full, because it was his daughters and was skimpy to say the least), his own colorful lei, Hawaiian shirt, and even a Minions Hawaiian t-shirt underneath. His grand prize… A dashboard hula dancer for his car!Tuesday, Comi-Con Day, was probably the most obvious for high participation levels with an office full of tech guys. Surprisingly, no full-on costumes entered the office that day, but we did get A LOT of people sporting themed superhero and villain t-shirts. Our winner of Comi-Com Tuesday, in a witty Darth Vader t-shirt, was one of our Support Services Technichicians, Chris, who was happy to be walking home with a prize of an Iron Man figurine.
Winning Wednesday brought a lot of team spirit to the office, with attire ranging jerseys to t-shirts and even team polo’s. We saw teams represented from high school track and field teams, college football, international soccer teams, and professional football teams. The winner of the day was from one of our developers, Joe, who was sporting a vintage Soviet Union Hockey Jersey! Joe won a miniature football as his prize and office respect for the vintage jersey.
We of course we had to do our own version of the “throwback Thursday” which resulted in a throwback 80’s Thursday. A few of our team members really brought their A game for this days theme. We had an 80’s rocker, a full Top Gun jumpsuit, and several 80’s inspired t-shirts. The winner was one our developers, Nate, who was inspired by Brett Michaels and donning full 80’s rocker wear that included bandana’s, tight pants, and even eyeliner! He of course took home the most 80’s inspired prize, a Garbage Pail Kid figurine!
Our final themed day of the week was our USA Pride Day on Friday. Everyone came into work finding USA inspired beads to sport, colorful posters (designed by Mila!) decorating the office, and a catored lunch for everyone to look forward to.This day received a lot of participation, with the biggest rival on best dressed between myself and Ryan, our Technical Sales Accountant. We both came to win fully decked out in Red, White, and Blue from head to toe. Ryan ended up walking away with the win and the prize of green army men figurines. He quite literally had Red, White, and Blue on from head to toe including socks, shorts, shirt, and even a festive hat to top it off.
This luncheon is a perfect example of what the intention of this whole week was about, coming together, bonding, and expanding our company culture. As I sat and watched everyone laughing, stuffing their faces, and swapping funny stories from the past weeks events, I knew that my job was complete and was overjoyed with the results I was witnessing. This is just one more notch in the Springthrough belt towards expanding our already growing culture.
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