Connected From Afar
Photo by Nathan Dumalo on Unsplash
By: Nicole Caci
At LaunchSquad we love our people. Our culture is a huge part of who we are, and we’re lucky to work with such bright, talented, kind and funny people every single day.
Like so many other companies that have gone fully remote, we have faced challenges in finding the rhythm that kept our offices humming pre-COVID. Of course we miss things like catered Monday lunches, frequent basketball games and cornhole tournaments, volunteering in our communities and more. But we’re working hard to find creative ways to stay connected, even while remote for the foreseeable future.
Over Zoom we’ve held a Top Chef competition, hosted Spirit Week, battled each other in Trivia Nights, and launched virtual Eat and Meets. We heard from a few Squadders about their favorite moments from the past few months. Here’s what they had to say:
Amanda Molaro, an Account Manager in our New York office and enthusiastic participant in Spirit Week.
“It’s hard to feel close when we’re not all physically in the office, but our NY Spirit Week had me feeling like we were back in 373 Park Ave. There were a lot of laughs and I learned a ton about everyone—the embarrassing prom and graduation stories were my favorite. Truly a bright spot in the past 5 months of WFH.”
Gabrielle Wesseldyk, a Senior Account Executive in our New York office, and winner of the prestigious LaunchSquad Top Chef Competition.
“If there are two things LaunchSquad loves, it’s a dose of (healthy) competition and (not-always-so-healthy) food—and our virtual Top Chef delivered on both. The fact that we were able to exchange recipes and learn more about each other in the process (apparently we’re on a chickpea kick?) was the best part. Oh, and after my award winning veggie coconut curry I can now claim bragging rights over my partner, Jamaal, who has always considered himself Top Chef in our household.”
Claire Schillings, an Account Director in our San Francisco office and the trivia night emcee.
"Trivia has been a long-time staple of LaunchSquad’s company culture — I remember going to trivia nights back in 2013 as a brand new employee. It was great to get everyone together on Zoom to reignite the tradition virtually. And do you know what car sold more than one million units in 1965? Because we do."
Lauren Wry, an Account Executive in our Boston office and part of the inaugural Eat and Meet, where we randomly selected members from the company to have a Zoom chat over lunch.
“In the office we always had Monday lunch or a coffee run to take a break and catch up with everyone—something I’ve missed while we’ve been remote. The Eat and Meet was a nice way of recreating those fun conversations. It was great to have time to reconnect with people I haven’t spent a ton of (virtual) time with lately and hear what they’ve been up to outside of work.”