It didn't shock me on my first day at DMC to learn that everybody loves games. We have a ping pong table, foosball table, pop-a-shot, and chess boards around the office. Along with my fellow new hire, Peter, we decided to embrace DMC's love of games for our welcome party. Since we had just finished our new employee training classes, we decided we would play 7 games, one to represent each of our Core Values for our game night. Some of the Core Values related very closely to the games, while others were, well, a bit of a stretch.
Before the competition, we chowed down on delicious pizza from Marcello's and enjoyed a few craft beers. We divided into teams and even had colored bandanas for each team. Our creative side came out with our fantastic team names, like my team: Mikey Mike and the Funky Bunch.
For our first Core Value "Hire Smart People," we played speed chess. The competition was fierce since many of us play speed chess together on a regular basis and are quite skilled.
My team pulled ahead by using all our questioning skill to win Guess Who, the game we picked to represent our second Core Value "Respond To The Customer." At DMC, we feel that part of being able to respond to the customer involves asking the right questions and listening, just like Guess Who.
We moved on to our seventh Core Value, "Tell It Like It Is," and played Geoguessr. The game drops you in the middle of 5 locations on Google Maps and requires you to place a pin on the map where you think you are - it's a favorite among many at DMC Again, my team dominated the field to win this game with the help of DMC's other Mike, who solidified our lead by nailing down our location to the exact island in Hawaii.
We embraced our fifth Core Value "Share Information" by playing Space Team. In the game, the various controls and devices on the ship must be activated in a particular sequence. Players need to share information, just like our Core Value says, to verbally tell the each other which control needs to be activated. The game was chaotic as we had to simultaneously shout out information to each other to keep our spaceship operating.
We had so much fun playing the games that we lost track of time so we postponed the game for our third Core Value "Make Things Happen" (Armegetron), our fourth Core Value "Be Profitable" (chubby bunny), and our sixth Core Value "Have Fun" (peanut butter on Plexiglas licking contest) for another day.
At DMC we love to play games almost as much as we love to drink beer. So, the prizes for the teams were all beers. Last place got PBR while the winning team (my team!) enjoyed 21st Amendment Brewery's Hell or High Watermelon.
I had a blast playing games and learning more about DMC's Core Values. The evening was a great way to get to know my new coworkers and enjoy a little competition!
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