#InThisTogether: 09 NOV 2020

Fun themes and close teams

As you log into your team video call, you quickly adjust your sunglasses, straighten your visor, and make sure your coconut cup is in the camera view. With your beach towel draped over the back of your office chair, you’re ready for your team’s fun-themed vacation call, or at least you are if you’re a part of Winston-Salem’s Sustaining Engineering team.

Earlier this year, after their team started working from home during the COVID-19 quarantine, they started to realize that they might be away from the office a little longer than they had initially anticipated, and so the weekly video chat meetings began.

“Our team has always gotten along really well, and has always really enjoyed being around each other, and then I had the idea for how we could try to maintain this energy while working remotely. After I shared my idea, there was a resounding ‘Yes!’ from the team,” said Stephanie Rivera, an Endoscopy team lead and Sustaining engineer at Cook Winston-Salem.

Every Thursday for 11 weeks, they held themed team meetings. While dressing up for the themes was optional, a resounding majority of the 20 team members regularly participated and even submitted new ideas as well.

Their first 11 themes were wearing your favorite sports team attire, dressing up to represent your favorite vacation destination, inventing creative personal protective equipment (PPE), Kentucky Derby hat day, crazy hair day, wearing USA attire for Memorial Day, dressing up like a superhero day, essential worker appreciation day, favorite mug day, dressing up like a character from the movie Men In Black, and mustache day.

After those initial meetings, the group made the decision to switch to monthly themed meetings instead of weekly ones. They’ve dressed up as the professions they dreamed of having as children and also tried out the theme of where in the world, where they changed their meeting backgrounds to interesting places across the globe.

Check out some of their fun theme photos in the gallery below!

“It can sometimes be sort of isolating and difficult with the changes in work environment, but the themed meetings are fun to look forward to,” said Marissa Schwartz, a materials scientist on the Sustaining Engineering team. “They have boosted the morale because the themes allow us to laugh and have fun. Sometimes there are stories behind someone’s themed outfit or prop, and that is always neat to hear more about.”

“So, what was your favorite theme?”

“My favorite theme was when we were able to thank Cook’s essential employees,” said Paula Griswold, a post-market sustaining specialist within the Sustaining group. “They work extremely hard and have every right to be proud of their work. I think that they deserve every bit of recognition that we can give them!”

“I liked thanking our essential employees because it felt like a way to connect with our Cook family who have been on site during all of this,” Marissa said. “My other favorite was Kentucky Derby hat day because it was super wacky and silly. People stuck pots on their heads and did some other really ridiculous stuff.”

“My favorite was Men In Black day. It’s one of my favorite movies, and it is so funny to me with me dressed up as the lone, weird alien in the photo,” Stephanie said.

“I thought mustache day was just plain hilarious, and for mug day, we had a pretty interesting variety of mugs. And each person gave a little background on why their specific mug was special to them,” said Joshua Davidson, a post-market development engineer.

“I really liked crazy hair day. Being able to see one of my colleagues have her ponytails stand straight up, that was really cool, and it was a fun challenge for me because I don’t have a lot of hair,” Hilbert Brown, a Sustaining engineer for the Cook Medical Endoscopy specialty, said with a laugh.

“What did you like most about your themed team meetings?”

“It allowed us all to laugh and be silly together during a time of uncertainty, and it also gave us all something to look forward to since we didn’t know how everyone on the team would interpret the challenge,” said Stephanie.

“For me, these meetings have helped us to maintain our relationships and stay connected with one another,” Hilbert explained, “I think it’s been awesome because it has added adventures and new sets of challenges for all of us, like being creative with your costume and breaking up the normal routine of working from home.”

“Camaraderie like this has always been a big thing for our team, and I am excited for everything else our team is looking to do together in the future,” said Paula.

“This was a simple way to inject some fun back into the daily routine that we often find ourselves in,” said Joshua. “Our team works hard, but we also like to have fun together and this was our way of doing that while working from home.”

Looking to the future

Looking to the future, the entire team seems psyched to continue with their themed meetings. They even have a list of brainstormed ideas for future chats.

“I am up for anything – the funnier the better,” Paula said excitedly. “And I think it would be awesome to see if other teams did stuff like this too.”

Even with the pandemic and being separated from our team members and work families, the Sustaining Engineering team at Winston-Salem has found a way to stay connected and #InThisTogether.

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By Alexandria Stanfield, an Editorial Content generalist in the Corporate Marketing and Communications department.