How Runtastics Have Fun at Work
Just like last year, some of our most creative (or at least ambitious) craftspeople got together to create beautiful advent wreaths for our office. However, advent isn’t the only time of the year Runtastics decide to hang out together and spend time with each other. Over the years, quite a few rituals have evolved. Here are a few:
Sweat Pants Thursday
Runtastic is a fitness company and proud member of the adidas family. What better way to embrace these circumstances than by wearing colorful (and comfortable) pants and adilettes on Thursdays?!
This apparel proved to be quite practical, since it coincides with Push-up Thursday. What started as a fun initiative by our Customer Support team, has since turned into a small movement and is taking over our departments and agile teams bid by bid.
Running Jour-Fixes, #LunchPump and Runches©
Again, fitness (and running in particular) plays a major role here at Runtastic. And, even though you do not have to be a fitness enthusiast to join the team, the company leaderboard pushes many of us to get out of our comfort zones. In August, one of our Software Testers broke the company record by running over 300k in one month.
Since most of us have a tight schedule, we thought it would be easiest to simply combine our passion for running and the urge to discuss a certain topic. Besides these Running Jour-Fixes, some of us meet for lunch to go for a run just for fun. Now we call these lunch runs – runches©.
Tuesdays are usually “lunch pump” days. We head to the gym and push each other through really hard workouts using the Results app. It’s really a lot of fun and many people (of all fitness levels) join. As you can see, we don’t take ourselves too seriously.
Birthdays and other chances to have cake, cake, cake
Yes, most of us embrace the healthy lifestyle we promote. However, we all need cheat days and we certainly enjoy goodies in our office. Every time we launch a new major feature or an app, we enjoy pancakes (with ice cream or nutella topping) together. These aren’t your typical American pancakes. They are much thinner like a crêpe and we call them “palatschinken”.
Besides our magnificent Fairy Godmother Ursula providing us with nuts and chocolates during the week, Runtastics bring cake for their birthday, when starting out or just because they feel like it. One of the few down-sides of our rapid growth is the fact that you have to be really fast to catch a piece.
Food, Foosball and Love
Another downside of growing so fast is that it’s hard to keep track of our newbies. And to help everyone get to know each other, we introduced mystery lunch. Once a month we grab a bite with someone randomly drawn and the company pays. Additionally, the company breakfast every other week is a great opportunity to chat with people you usually do not work closely with.
Another way to learn more about our colleagues is the obligatory foosball table (that should not be missed in any IT company). As we like challenges, we tend to use events such as the European Soccer Championship to create our own games. The best way to bond, however, is to spread a little love. And that is why “Global Hug Your Co-Workers Day” is marked in our calendars for 2017.
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