Here at Butler Branding, we tend not to take ourselves too seriously. Which might explain how, the other week, we found ourselves staring down a team of laser-gun-wielding eight-year-olds:
While we ALWAYS have fun at work, this month’s Butler core value was to … well, Have Fun. Which gave us an excuse to engage in nearly any sort of “extracurricular” activity our hearts desired.
If you know us at all, you won’t be surprised to learn that we near-unanimously voted to spend a Friday afternoon playing laser tag at No Surrender Adventure Park in Clovis. And you’ll be even less surprised to learn that we were excited as heck for it.
However, we didn’t expect we’d be facing off against a party of birthday-cake-fueled children. Before our shoot-out started, I told our videographer, Naaman, that we were dead in the water. The kids we were playing against looked quick, well-coordinated, and fired up. In contrast, our team was comprised almost entirely of tired 20-to-30 somethings, with a couple ringers we recruited from the kids themselves.
The battle was intense and unforgiving. At one point, I found myself surrounded by three to four members of the other team, trying to figure out how fast I could walk away without breaking No Surrender’s “no running” rule. Eventually, I gave up and started running – because there was no other way to escape! Those kids were everywhere!
About half an hour later, the Butler team emerged victorious (and slightly sweaty) – though if you run the numbers, you’ll see that we would have gotten trounced if the 11-year-old who was our team’s highest scorer had chosen to stick with his friends instead.
You might wonder whether it was worth it to take the time to deliberately go have fun together, when we already have jobs where we’re lucky enough to engage in creative pursuits with co-workers who are (usually) cheerful and upbeat. I can tell you that it absolutely was, as our laser tag battle is still making us all laugh nearly a month later – and definitely brought us closer together as a team.
Sometimes, even creatives need a break from the “grind” of everyday work. It’s okay to set aside some time for team building and recharging your batteries when needed – and to remind yourself that there’s more to life than just work. There’s nothing quite like nearly losing a game of laser tag to a bunch of eight-year-olds to remind you that life is wacky, and that maybe you don’t need to take everything entirely seriously.
Until next time, we’ll see you out on the battlefield.
