Tag: team building

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 986: Vancouver, BC – Back To The Gym

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a much quieter day today.

He did some tickets and admin throughout the day, and did have one team meeting which he ran. He had to get updates on projects from his team and ensure it was all on track.

In the late afternoon, he did some team building with some people from his team and played some games with them until the end of the work day.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a really great day and it was such a wonderful way to end the week! She started by waking up late and was really thankful for Curtis helping load the car up. She then drove to a nearby town to meet some teammates there to show them the laptop set up process.

Once she arrived Kim took all the laptops up to the board room in the office over a few trips. Luckily on the final trip Kim bumped into her teammate. Everyone got comfy in the room then Kim and her manager joined a call to discuss some IT stuff.

She then did a little admin before walking everyone through the laptop set up process. They all took a break to move their cars and then Kim had a quick chat to discuss a candidate, but most of the people weren’t able to turn up. So Kim took the time to work with her teammates to pack up!

They all then went to a nearby restaurant to meet two other teammates and it was so lovely! They all then left to head over to a nail salon for pedicures, ok the way Kim took a call to discuss the candidate that she wasn’t able to talk about earlier. She then had a wonderful break getting pampered and just relaxing.

Before everyone headed home a few people joined a call to discuss another candidate and the next steps there!

Evening

Kim got back home and we had some snacks pre-gym. We are finally able to head back to the gym after Curtis’ surgery, and having the time!

We did a 1 hour workout, but took it much easier than last time as Kim has been to pole a lot this week and Curtis didn’t take any breaks last time, and he really felt that!

After going to the gym, we undid all of our good work and ordered burgers for dinner! Curtis has been craving a burger since he had his surgery and now was his chance to have one!

We ordered from a place called Juice Joe’s which is a horrible name, but the burgers were really delicious!

We hung out for the evening and relaxed. We were meant to be going to an outside gathering with people from Kim’s work tomorrow but it’s meant to rain so that got cancelled.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 902: Vancouver, BC – End of The Workshop

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Most of Curtis’ day was full from the Microsoft workshop again, which had its final day today.

Curtis learned a lot again today, but also had many questions which he was able to get answered easily.

Curtis also managed to get something else for a project completed. He needed to figure out how to write a script and was able to find enough things on Google to get one working, which felt really cool and he felt that he achieved.

The workshop ended quicker than expected, which meant Curtis was able to join the office based meeting which was a few updates and a few other bits of information.

Curtis then watched hockey, the final Leafs game of the regular season!

Kim’s Day

Kim had a few quick meetings to start her day and then had another smaller meeting about recruitment with a department leader. She then decided to join a Dev team meeting where people show what they have been working on. It was so cool to see new and exciting things!

She then joined a two hour meeting with department leaders and the executive team. Then she joined a chat to discuss different software options to make a system easier.

Kim then joined an interview and had a quick chat after to discuss next steps before having an end of week chat with her teammate to go over a couple of quick updates. After that Kim showed a colleague how to set a couple of things up on their Wiki pages and drive.

For the rest of the afternoon Kim worked with a couple of people to iron out a communication and survey for a team to complete. It was great to sit down and get it done with the help of two people who understand what we are trying to achieve a little more.

To finish the day Kim hosted an impromptu games night! It was so much fun and everyone had a great time. Once most people left a few stayed back and had a mini, accidental meeting. It was really nice to get some things sorted!

Evening

We ordered Korean chicken from our favourite Korean place and watched some TV and did absolutely nothing over the evening.

As of writing this, we are still waiting for our emails to get our first vaccination, but we are being patient and know we’ll get it at some point!

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 895: Vancouver, BC – Double Curry

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a brief chat with someone at 09:15 and after that he had some security data work to do as well as some tickets and admin.

At 12:00, Curtis had a team building session with his team in which each person had to pick another and write out answers to questions on their behalf, to see if they could get it right. This was pretty entertaining.

Curtis then played a game of werewolf which was also pretty fun and funny.

Once that was finished, Kim picked up some chicken katsu curry for lunch as Curtis got a $40 lunch budget from work for the team building.

We ended up getting enough food for lunch AND dinner, which we can’t complain about. That being said, the food wasn’t even that good.

Curtis’ after then consisted of another meeting with his team to wrap up projects for the last couple of weeks and then he did some end of week admin and some more ticket work.

Curtis just played games whilst Kim was out window shopping.

Kim’s Day

Kim had a lazy day! She slept in and then had some breakfast while she watched part of a movie. She answered a few work questions while she watched the movie too. Then she popped out to pick up some lunch.

After having lunch with Curtis Kim finished her movie and then packed up all the things going to the charity shop. After dropping things off at the shop Kim had an afternoon of window shopping and walking around downtown! It was lovely

Evening

As mentioned, we had curry leftover for dinner, so we ate that and watched some TV together. Kim did need to get some admin done once she got back from the shops, so she did that before dinner.

This Time Last Year

Mr And Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 384: Vancouver, BC – Handstand Training!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a pretty quiet day.

Curtis did some tickets in the morning and he spent a while trying to fix something with regards to an email mailbox which he worked with someone on for about 30 minutes before lunch and then a bit of time after lunch too.

Curtis had a team building session in the afternoon but on 4 people in total joined that, so they played some games.

Curtis got some admin done to end the week.

Kim’s Day

Kim started on the UK social call and it was good fun. There were a fair few people on the call and we went over our to do lists that we are all putting off. The UK had a bank holiday this Monday and America and Canada have one this monday coming, so everyone had lots of little tasks they have either ignored or planned to ignore!

Once she was in the office Kim focused on putting together a survey that would be sent out later in the day. She hadn’t used SurveyMonkey before but she figured it out and even managed to get a page break with info there! Not bad for a first try. Kim then made a few changes to the Wiki page from yesterday before moving on to change another Wiki page to follow the same format of latest news at the top, but with previous information just below. Once that was all done she sent them all off for review.

Just before the survey went out Kim went in and updated the Wiki by replacing old pages and linking all of them together. She then joined east coast call but only had one person join, ask what it was about and then leave. So she ended the call and focused on adding some more information to the floor plan page. Kim thought it would be a good idea to include some photos of the new things in the kitchen, so she took some photos and added them to the Wiki.

In the afternoon Kim went out with a friend for ice cream and it was a disaster! Before they got the few steps back to the office the ice cream started melting. When they finally got to start eating them they had to use a plate and a bowl to stop it going all over the floor and themselves. It was a good ice cream though!!

She ended the day by joining the west coast social call! It was a good group of people and Kim really enjoyed it!

Evening

Kim went off to training once she got back from work.

Kim went to a handstand class and had a great time! It was a good workout and she got a few good techniques from it that she will use for sure!

Once she got back, Kim got showered and then we had some frozen pizza for dinner as we couldn’t decide what to order!

We are that and watched some TV and played some games!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 370: Vancouver, BC – Another Long Day

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a busy day, but varied, which was nice.

Curtis had some tickets to get done and then had his team meeting, which lasted a bit longer than normal, but that was good.

He hopped right into another meeting/discussion after that to talk about an issue that had arisen and how to combat it.

He did some more tickets and then just before lunch he had a meeting which was to get some information on a company initiative and it was informative if not a little confusing.

Curtis had lunch and then right after he and his team did some team building, which was just playing some video games!

When he was finished with that, he did some more tickets and then he did an offboard right at the end of the day.

Kim’s Day

Kim joined a department team meeting in the morning from home and then went into the office after.

Once she made it into the office Kim spent the morning packing up and sending out two laptops. She then joined the east coast social call and had a wonderful time! There were so many people joining and dropping off the call and loads if faces Kim hadn’t seen in a while!

After this Kim had her 1-1 and they went over the first summer party and plans for the next ones and it was great! She then spent a little time working on the quizzes and other bits of admin before joining a couple of people in the kitchen and making some cocktails! Kim was impressed she could make a pina colada from memory, its not a hard drink, but its been a while!

Kim then stayed in the office for a fair few hours to make a big dent in the next few summer parties. She got all but 3 questions written out for the media and news rounds and its such a relief to be able to start next week with a good foundation.

Evening

Once Kim eventually got back home, we had some chicken with potato and some baked beans whilst watching some TV.

We watched some more TV and played some games for the evening.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 342: Vancouver, BC – The IT Crowd

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a moderately busy day today.

Curtis started with admin as usual, and then some tickets came in so he took and completed those.

Curtis had a team meeting in the morning and then later in the morning, there was an office wide zoom call in which everyone got a colour from the pride flag and made a pride flag on zoom with everyone’s faces in it, which was awesome!

After that, Curtis had some lunch and then after lunch he did some teams building with his team, which was to watch The IT Crowd together, which was fitting for his team!

After that, Curtis wrapped up a few things and then was done for the day.

Kim’s Day

Kim startes nice an early today as she had to move the social call earlier for a company wide Q&A from yesterday’s meeting. The social call was great, there were a fair few people on the call and they had a wonderful catch up. The meeting after was informative and interesting.

When Kim got into the office she sent a few emails chasing for information and direction. She also received the laptop that had been hard to ship back! Which was great news, it had been a headache!

Kim spent the last bit of her morning working on her credit card and the expenses. She did that right up until the next social call, where she waited for people to join but only one did! They had a little catch up. After the chat Kim finished her credit card expenses.

Late afternoon Kim popped out with a couple of friends to get ice cream! There is a great place just down the road so they got one there and enjoyed them back at the office.

Kim finished her day by joining the West Coast social call for a while. She jumped off to tidy up after a few deliveries and then went home!

Japanese Curry

Kim got home and we played some mini golf but then got hungry, so we ordered Japanese curry to have for dinner.

It was ok, not as good as in Japan of course, but it was fine.

We ate that and then Kim had a bath & relax whilst Curtis played some games.

We joined back together and watched a movie in the evening. It was an easy to watch movie called Overboard.

We then went to bed fairly early as we have a long big day tomorrow!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 328: Vancouver, BC – New Chinese Food Place

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a few things to do in the morning and then once he did those, he had a team meeting.

He did a bit of admin before lunch and then after lunch he had a project meeting.

After his project meeting, he did a few more tickets and then had a team building session, which consisted of playing some rocket league.

After team building, Curtis got a group created which took a bit of time as there are a few steps to that and then was pretty much done for the day.

Kim’s Day

Kim started even earlier today, as there is a follow up meeting from yesterdays meeting which means she has to move the social call a little earlier. So she joined that and had a great catch up with 3 other people and that was lovely. She went from this call to host the Q&A from yesterday’s meeting and that went really well. As it didnt overrun Kim was able to get the recording uploaded to the Wiki quite soon after.

When she got into the office Kim continued cleaning up the meeting room, she worked on breaking down more of the old notebooks. She then nipped put to grab some lunch and enjoyed that before the east coast social call. There were only two people on that call today but it was still fun!

After the call Kim set up a few desks for people to use on Monday as there will be a few extra people in the office. She measured to make sure all the desks are far enough apart, moved tables to ensure that the safe distance is maintained, got screens and finally sanitised the desks.

For the rest of the afternoon Kim worked on drafting a form that will be needed in the coming months. She finished the day with the west coast social call. There was a good turn out today, so after some chatting Kim hosted a jackbox game and that was fun!

Chinese Food

We fancied Chinese food for dinner, so we ordered from a chain called Peaceful Restaurant as it has good ratings.

Kim got General Tsao Chicken with rice and Curtis got Ginger Beef with noodles.

We enjoyed the food quite a bit.

We watched some TV and played some games with our evening and were looking forward to getting some sleep.

Curtis has a haircut tomorrow, too, which is his first since the barbershops re-opened.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 286: Vancouver, BC – Better Luck Next Time!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis was up early to get ready for his Hackathon presentation.

He and his team got onto a call and ran through the presentation a few times and really nailed it down!

They were first to present and it went really well!

They were asked a lot of questions and a lot of people were interested!

Plenty of people are using the app now and asking for new features which is exciting!

Curtis and his Hackathon team had a discussion about how they thought it went and had a bit more of a conversation around possible future features and then the winners were announced!

Curtis’ team didn’t even place top three, which they thought they would, but there were some really good applications in this Hackathon!

Curtis had a quick meeting around security with his team and then had some lunch.

After lunch, Curtis played some games with his team as team building but then called it a day as he started early and was very tired!

Kim’s Day

All of the social calls for this Friday were great! They all went over the allotted time and it was wonderful to see so many different faces and have people just enjoy themselves and catch up with people. Kim’s first call was the UK call where we had one guy from the UK and one of Kim’s colleagues in Vancouver join for the call and it was great fun.

After the call Kim spent some trying working in the mailing project so she ended up spending a lot of time setting up shipments for next week and had to call FedEx too.

She then jumped on the east coast weekend windup where we had someone from both east coast offices, one remote worker and a couple of people from the Vancouver office! It was brilliant and so much fun!

Kim spent a lot of the afternoon researching and setting up orders to be placed next week and she did some more stuff for the FedEx shipments next week too. To finish the day Kim joined the Vancouver weekend windup and that one was also fun. A lot of familiar faces and it was great to catch up with them all.

Back To Takeaway Fridays

We both finished work and just did nothing for an hour or so…just relaxing.

We then thought food would be a good idea so we ordered some and spent the rest of the evening eating and relaxing. Back to takeaway Fridays!

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 236: Vancouver, BC – All Interviews Complete!

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had a few meetings planned for today, and that pretty much all he did!

He had a project interview at 09:30 and then a team meeting at 10:30.

After those two, he had his final project interview!

Once that interview was done, Curtis did some training and some tickets and then we had lunch.

After lunch, Curtis had team building which lasted for a while, and then after that he had a webinar held by Zoom about their recent security updates.

Curtis then had happy hour with people from his office, which was a nice end to the short week.

Kim’s Day

After the company wide meeting that happened today Kim set things up for her Easter Quiz! In the quiz she featured clips of what happens next, Easter baking fails and an easter egg hunt. She had a fair few people join on the quiz, which was amazing!

After yoga Kim spent some time going through her checked items in her inbox. Many of the items were old or had been completed, so it was great to have a spring clean.

Mid afternoon Kim joined the east coast social catch up and they ended up playing jackbox games and it was so fun. The first game was a trivia game and the second was a ‘who is a liar’ game where you had to find the aliens in the group through detective skills. They were fun games! As they started a new game it all stopped working, so they played a game of Skribbl instead.

Shortly after that call, Kim had a call with a few of her team and it was great to catch up and close the week together!

She then started to make a list of things she wants to work on next week. She had planned to use her time to focus on the hack project, but its been postponed until roughly the end of May to give people more time to process all the daily meetings and get all the information first.

Pesto Pasta

We did our workout, following a bit of mini sticks, and then we made chicken pesto pasta for dinner!

The food was pretty good and we ate it whilst watching something easy on YouTube.

We then watched a Norwegian show on Netflix called Borderliner, followed by a couple of other shows and games.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 223: Vancouver, BC – Supporting Local Businesses

Kim & Curtis Hale

Curtis’ Day

After a rainy morning walk on which there were very few people, we got back and Curtis began work.

Curtis had a few meetings today, including one long presentation which lasted 1.5 hours but was very informative and helpful!

Curtis got down to just 3 tickets today which was great, and in the afternoon did some team building with his team and then Friday drinks with people from the office over Zoom.

Kim’s Day

After the company meeting Kim went on and held the UKs weekend windup, it was great! She met someone new and everyone had a great chat!

Kim kept herself busy for a short amount of time before she helped set up a live Cello performance from a fellow employees daughter. It was a beautiful 40 minute set and everyone loved it. It was a perfect escape!

After this Kim picked up a few smaller tasks and worked on her project for a while before jumping on another call to help with the weekend windup for the east coast. For this call we played a game that was online but similar to pictonary and it was hilarious! It was so much fun!

Kim then spent the afternoon sending out updates to everyone, sending out the recorded live stream footage so people can watch whenever they want! She also sent out an invite to a pokemon quiz for next week.

To finish the day Kim had a chat with people from the west coast for a weekend windup. It was so nice to see some faces that she hadn’t seen in weeks!

Supporting Local Businesses

We did our workout which nearly killed us and then Kim did some stretching.

We ordered a curry to support the local business and we got it within 30 minutes!

We chilled out and played some games as well as watching a bit of TV.

We’re looking forward to getting some sleep tomorrow.

This Time Last Year!

Mr & Mrs Hale