Being an adult living in a city different than where you grew up, it takes a lot more effort to create community. The office can be a hit or miss in terms of making friends, mainly because of the added professionalism boundary that most of us establish with our coworkers, which is good. This gives us little time and energy after work to really create community. You come home after a long work day and all you want to do is what? Cook, eat, and watch TV? Reset and do it all over again. Where is the place for fun? Where is play?
Why Play?
Burnout is a significant issue in the tech industry. So, facing high-pressure stakes, what can we do in the office with our coworkers to mitigate this burnout?
This is where Play comes in. It’s where we toss out pressure for a small time and incorporate a little play. Play allows us to get back into knowing who we are again: our personality, the way we laugh, the creative things we think, the things that bring us joy come through play. We want to discover new things, so let’s play.
What is Play?
The pattern with the office is to find small ways to bring joy to your everyday routine. There is no need to fear that people are not working anymore. That’s not what this is about. (And if that’s your fear, then maybe take a look at some strategies for employee retention.)
Nope. This is about making sure people shine through the work they do. We’re making sure they bring themselves to it, not hiding themselves or pushing themselves away.
Create small bits of joy.
Ever seen an office bingo card lunch planner? Or a quirky whiteboard note on the wall. You can do this in many ways. Look around and see how you can bring about joy.
One easy way to do this is by taking short breaks for social interaction. Make sure they’re low stakes and highly collaborative. An example of that is jigsaw puzzles at work. At our office, we’ve been slowly cracking at large 500- to 1000-piece puzzles. The great and neat thing about this is that you don’t have to learn how to play it like a game. So, it’s really easy to pick up when you have a few minutes, and its really easy to drop it when you need to get back to work.
If you don’t have too much time, leave a treat in the office. Do this secretly. Leave a sticky note on the kitchen counter. Write on it: “For someone with an extra stressful day.”
Find common external interests.
Building bridges is about reaching out and being there. Think about whether there are people in your office with common interests. Where do people like to gather after work?
At our office, we formed a musical group. There is something interesting about programmers and music. I’m not sure what the correlation is or if it’s accidental. But there is something that fits our brains about understanding music and its intricacies. Chances are, there are lots of things your coworkers do well, not just programming.
Our band definitely brought us closer together. Its pretty easy to have honest and meaningful conversations with people you do something you enjoy. Sometimes there are setbacks, which become easier to overcome when you have a good range of positive experiences with someone.
There have been many of times where is becomes easier to ask questions, to ask for help, to help, and to keep pushing because the people you work with you care about.
Why is this good? Because then it becomes a lot easier to push forward. It’s pretty hard to build a community at all. Especially when you don’t spend the majority of time naturally with them. So leverage your existing community. Don’t underappreciate it. Care deeply and become curious even if it feels like you have nothing in common with people.
Bring others in.
A really great way to extend your community is to bring other people into your community. It’s important to extend community to others, especially those struggling to build it. Ann Arbor is often filled with transitory people who sometimes only spend a few years in the area and then promptly leave. This means that people have less time to spend building community. I often meet transplants from other parts of the country like Texas, California, and Puerto Rico, and even from other countries. I often hear how hard it is to adjust to a smaller place. This is something I struggled with myself.
So, have a happy hour! Great! Stay a bit longer and invite an outside friend. Great connections start by bringing people to the table. Offer joy for the sake of joy, and make the necessary changes to make the thing you do every day more enjoyable for everyone.