At baseline.io, we work hard, really hard. Our team comes in every day and busts their humps. Our goal: to create the next, big and greatest insurance solution! So far, we're well on our way towards a prosperous future with Drivn, City.works, Baseline, Behaev and Command Center, it's an exciting time to be an employee here. Our staff comes in early, leaves late, does the occasional weekend when they need to. One of our coders claimed to have dreamt in code. Weirdly, that dream code of his ended up being the answer to a coding problem we had for ages.
True story! Have no doubt, our team always gives 100%, they work hard!
While we work hard, we also play hard. We believe that All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! is a motto to live by. Even though there's always something to do at baseline, It's important now and then for our employees to let their hair down. To relax, recharge, to get to know their co-workers as something more than just another co-worker, just another cog in the machine. Sometimes your employees need to play, to see their co-workers as actual living, breathing, human beings. When you do that, people end up being much more than just their jobs and tasks, it makes us closer, makes it easier to communicate and do things easier, makes working better. Together, sometimes you find connections with co-workers you never did before. Me, myself, I found out that I knew one co-worker back in the 90's on a chat group online. I also found out that I had previously worked at another company at the same time another co-worker did for several months. Small world.
On Wednesday this week, we had a Team-Building Day at baseline, like we do every 3 months. Our goal is perfection, these days help make that possible. We need to relax, hang out together, to play, to reflect. Without this reflection, how could you hope to achieve perfection in any form?
We started the day by gathering our team at Baseline HQ on beautiful Ile Bigras, Quebec. The staff at the Ile Bigras HQ welcomed their colleagues from Baseline's Québec City team, who were kind enough to take the 3 hour trip to accompany us on this journey together. We were also lucky to have our colleague Paul Addy join us, he's an expatriate Montrealer who works normally remotely from the astonishing Gili Islands in Indonesia. We hope to meet some other of our remote workers in the near future.
We started off our day by welcoming 2 new additions to our team: Melanie Tremblay - our new Director of Operations and Anna Santone - one of our specialized team of product marketing specialists. We're extremely happy to have these ladies become part of our team, we know that they'll only help make our goals much easier to achieve.
Lunch
Lunch was a mixture of hotdogs on the BBQ, sandwiches, several different salads, cheeses, as well as a mighty fine desert plate. We just enjoyed the hour breaking bread with friends.
The staff was broken 4 teams of 4-6, built around departments for the most part. We participated in several team-building activities that were fun for the whole team and brought some of the comp beasts out in us.
Teams were given construction paper & art supplies. The goal was to create a coat of arms for the company that encompassed 4 things: a recent accomplishment for the company, company values, why the company does what they do and what's coming up in the future. It was great to see the fun that people had with this.
Teams had to figure out the answer to a riddle: if a dog, chicken and bag of rice are on one side of the river and you have a boat to bring them all to the other side BUT could only do so one at a time, how would you do so? There's 2 conditions: the first is if you leave the chicken and rice alone together the chicken will eat all the rice, the other condition is that if you leave the dog and chicken alone together, the dog will eat the chicken. The goal was the figure out how to bring everything to the other side of the river, one at a time, without anyone (or anything) being eaten. Can you figure it out? If not, here's the answer! Everyone of the teams solved this riddle much quicker than we expected to, everyone in the teams taking part in figuring the answer.
Each team was given a wet T-shirt that was frozen into a tiny,ice-ball. The goal was to completely de-ice the t-shirt to the point where the team leader could wear it, using only found objects in the backyard, Most teams found that using water really helped, especially running water. Weirdly, the team that came in last place, used the BBQ on their attempt to "defrost" the t-shirt. Go figure.
Teams were given an egg, straws and a roll of masking tape. The goal was to use the straws and tape to somehow protect the egg when dropped from the height of 2 stories. One team was so cocky with their design that before the drop, they tossed it around like a football to each other. One team built this elaborate "structure" that looked like a hang glider. Pretty much everyone laughed their butts off at them, but it turns out that their contribution was the one that gently flew down to the ground and kept that egg safe.
Each team was given construction paper, elastic bands and popsicle sticks. Using only those materials and whatever could be utilized in the backyard, teams had to build a shelter that could house 2 people and endure a "mighty wind" (or what we call a fan). The team that were such geniuses with the egg drop, were sadly disappointing in this, actually turning a picnic table into something less protective than a regular picnic table. We're still not sure how they did that.
Our final activity was a 'Fireside Chat'. We all sat together, in a forum where anything was on the table, anything could be discussed. People mostly hemmed and hawwed as people do, but then Paul -André tossed us all an idea he had. His feeling has been for a while that his team is essential to his success. To give the staff back a little something for being a part of this great adventure, he didn't suggest giving us $90,000 to leave like last time, instead wanting to install some type of bonus plan for the team members. Whether that be quarterly bonuses, stock options or something else - we're not sure yet. At the end of the day, his goal is for the staff to enjoy any success he has with Baseline also! When you have your own skin in the game, it gives you that push to further make sure those goals happen.
This is one we'll all have to think over.
The wine & cheese
We finished off the day with wine & cheese, pretty much the best cap for a day you could ever have. At that point, we just relaxed and enjoyed each other's company as both colleagues and friends. Some of us continued hanging out together till around 9pm, telling stories and laughing so hard that some of us came to tears.
It was a great day! Glad to be part of my team.
Special thanks goes out to our co-worker Denise Gagnon - who's in charge of our Finance & Administration, who sacrificed such a fun day to man the fort and make sure everything went smoothly at the office while we were gone. She's one of the great people with us that helps make Baseline the great company it is!