What I learned from IT Week

Written by: Kayla Kirby

Approved by: Eddie M. Neville

Being a secretary for an IT company has given me so many opportunities. I have been given the opportunity to work with such intelligent people.

Every morning, I come into work and make coffee for my team. Without coffee they would be robots. They could make the coffee for themselves, but I like to do what I can. Because there’s a lot that I can’t.

I can’t help them with their projects and I can’t help them when they have a roadblock. I can’t help them because I simply don’t know how.

This week was National Healthcare IT Week and I wanted my team to feel appreciated. I had something fun planned for every single day.

On Monday, I brought cookies and we played a game called “Take What You Need.” It was just a simple icebreaker game and I didn’t think they’d like it. After all, I’ve never planned anything like this before.

Tuesday’s game was “Two Truths and a Lie.” Another icebreaker game but we all learned something new about each of our team members. We all had a good laugh at the silly lies we told.

Wednesday we played salt and pepper…which turned out not to be salt and pepper. There was a hiccup in the rules of the game and so we changed it up a little. We had a ton of fun that day. We all had a secret word on our foreheads and we had to guess what the word was. I moved my team out of the icebreaker comfort zone and into that part where we’re all a little bit scared, but a lot more curious.

Thursday was charades! Everyone loved it. No one was embarrassed and I’ve never seen the team let go of everything that was holding them back until that day.

On Friday we had a potluck and my team had conversations about something OTHER THAN WORK! I am so glad to have seen that. It truly made my work worthwhile to see everyone so happy and comfortable. I got to see my team become a team.

In my heart, I do believe that they enjoyed these games. It was the first time we were all getting to know each other. We could be as open or as closed as we wanted and it was still okay.

Maybe I’m thinking too much into it. Maybe they didn’t enjoy the games as much as I’d hoped. Maybe they don’t feel closer as a team, but I do. I can see it in each one of them that we are one step closer to being able to let go and do that trust fall.

Posting on my bosses board, expanding our horizons.