[Closed] Argh - virtual work 'fun'

A quiz in several stages pitting teams against each other. At each stage the winners get to ‘go home’

Let everyone knock off TWO hours early?

As a team, who can eat the most Cadbury's Heroes in a hour. Without anyone being sick.

Remind your boss people don't attend work for fun and to stop with the stupid requests...

Absolutely , definitely …. Do Not have a party … not even involving wine and cheese …. Even if it is working get together on zoom after hours 😉

Who has the best Zoom background. Everyone will need to be out of shot so you can see the background. In fact, they might as well go home

I have one of these events in my calendar for this coming Friday. Unfortunately I'm scheduled to have internet problems 🙄

I'm sensing a theme emerging 😀

Though I like the Cadbury's Heroes idea. Might see if I can get some Christmas buckets to put under desks

I'd be scheduled to be having a covid test......tbh its probably more fun than mandated virtual fun with work mates......

I'm co-hosting the work one this Friday PM.

My bit (the quiz) is going to actually be fun (because I used to write fun quizzes for a job), but some of the other stuff is going to be cringe AF.

Someone's doing a quiz already (or I'd try to bung you some cash and beg you to send over a copy!)

Remember kids, there ain't no fun like compulsory fun.

Virtual socials are inevitably terrible, but the least bad one I ever did was a Google maps-based treasure hunt.

"Start from the office, and go as far west as you can without leaving an a road. What town are you in? Now go to the town in Ohio with the same name etc etc etc"

That sort of thing. I think the key was that we could just get on with the task without waiting for a slow quiz master. Rude place names help too.

We did who wants to be a millionaire. The contestants were the directors and the work related questions were written so that they would find it hard to answer. It worked well - people like to see their bosses in difficulty.

We did a virtual couple of Quizmaster rounds.

I was dreading the enforced fun.

It actually was quite fun - and the last round was best zoom background.

Yes. I know

Remind your boss people don’t attend work for fun and to stop with the stupid requests…

That. If they don't need you for an hour then they won't miss you if you all just knock off. If that hour is really important why are they having a party in it?

Air guitar contest, wait till they're really getting into it and then just quietly sneak off

We recently had a Zoom 'social'. There was no quiz, or agenda, or anything. It was awful. A lot of us haven't actually met in person yet so there was none of the 'shorthand' you build up working with someone. Long pauses whilst someone thought of something to say, whilst everyone else had a rictus grin and pretended to be happy. The most exciting thing was someone dialed in on their way home and missed their train stop.

So, er, don't do that.

I’m sensing a theme emerging 😀

Most people on here are miserable bastards?

I like a game of 'will it float' get a big class water holder. Put stuff in it. People guess if it floats.

It's more amusing than you would think people will get it wrong.

Counter view as 'a boss'

It shouldn't be enforced, if someone doesn't want to come then they don't have to. But.. quite a few people including some of your colleagues are not curmudgeonly funsponges and actually enjoy doing something sociable once or twice a year. Why shouldn't they if they want to?

And as the boss, I try to cater for everyone so that means organising something (we had a quiz, a science based competition which revealed some alarmingly psycopathic traits in some of the team 😉 and an identify the member of the Senior Leadership team from a random unknown fact about them - sort of embarrassing, sort of 'we're also humans')

which member of the team used to DJ at a well known London night club (albeit on student night rather than big club night)

whose parents had to remove the snaps from crackers because the bang made them cry

etc.

Then people can opt not to come, far better than not doing something because of Humbug! and the social types missing out.

Oh, and last Christmas at my last job we had a Zoom quiz hosted by a third party quiz company.

It went on for hours - then there was a bonus round, and then another one. Probably best part of 3.5 hours in the end, after a full day's work. Grim.

It shouldn’t be enforced, if someone doesn’t want to come then they don’t have to. But.. quite a few people including some of your colleagues are not curmudgeonly funsponges and actually enjoy doing something sociable once or twice a year. Why shouldn’t they if they want to?

This +1

We* did a few last year, we were all dispersed in various hotels arround town and it was a good chance to put faces to names on the WhatsApp groups. I enjoyed it and usually I'm the stereotypical introvert.

*documentary filming production,so it's a strange mix of an office team, and a load of us on location that may or may not have ever actually met thanks to COVID, or if we have it's been 1on1 not as a group.

Probably best part of 3.5 hours in the end, after a full day’s work.

Seriously? Not on company time?

That's a tough ask.

I've done a few things over the past year or so.

Play your Cards Right and Family Fortunes ( both a PowerPoint Tour de Force ). For PYCR you can use stats from the company - financial, IT incidents per group etc depending on your business.

Quizzes....  yeah yeah, but use the Share Sound option in Zoom and do "Name the theme tune / No.1 hit + year / Movie quotes etc. My favourite round was "Name the Crisp" from a close up of crunchy snacks.

Pictionary. Really easy in Zoom. We used Heads of Departments to draw for their departments - this:

It worked well – people like to see their bosses in difficulty.

We did task master at work, which was good. Totally voluntary teams of 3 or 4. Five-minute call to set the task e.g. make something interesting out of your desk,...then the teams have 24 hours to submit their task. Then the following day points were awarded for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. We did about 4 rounds over a couple of weeks and the ideas were so creative it was really.

Doesn't solve your problem I'm afraid but we enjoyed it when we couldn't couldn't have a laugh in person.

Maybe try a version if that.

PYCR you can use stats from the company – financial, IT incidents per group etc depending on your business.

Or...not.

Strip poker.

Strip poker.

Someone else suggested Directors' Naked Attraction

Some great ideas here - thanks. Taskmaster/ Pictionary/ making something are definite contenders.

'Will it float' sounds bizarre and brilliant

My boss hired a magician last Christmas. It was actually great and very entertaining. Get your boss to stump up for a Kahoot subscription and make a quiz.

Use a face app to combine two directors faces (senior or well known people in the company) and post the result. Trying to work out the virtual 'love children' of 'couples' of all sexes gets quite wierd but fun. Hopefully you can do it without being fired!
IF that is too risky (shame on you) just use celebs...Boris and any female (oh no he's trying that in real life)

Who has the best Zoom background

I won that one, mainly as I have a huge photo collection of intesting places and would change my background photo every couple of minutes...

We've done bring your own cocktail, various quizzes etc. Actually not that bad to be honest....

But.. quite a few people including some of your colleagues are not curmudgeonly funsponges and actually enjoy doing something sociable once or twice a year

Those sort of people really are the worst kind imaginable.

‘Will it float’ sounds bizarre and brilliant

Yep. Its especially funny if the person has been clever enough to leave a bit at the top for the volume of the items... But not their hand to retrieve them...

We've done a virtual escape room. Split up the group into teams of a suitable size. Might be a cost involved

Can anyone direct me to a ready made quiz to “adopt”? Also, what’s the best method of keeping scores, is there a sort of vote/multiple choice function on teams?

Ugh, got this on Friday with a 'quiz' which I fully expect to be terrible as the organiser is the crazy cat lady from HR.

The first time I was invited to something I asked what time it was. It was after work so i said no thanks, I keep work and personal stuff separate, happy to join in during work, or maybe lunchtime, but nothing outside of working hours.
They said fair enough, and I've not been invited to anything since.
Just be up front with them, it works, you don't have to go to any of this rubbish.
My colleagues who do go moan about having to go but won't just say no🤷‍♂️

(Actually, they did invite me to a Christmas party this year but it started with 'I know you'll say no but I'll ask anyway' Takes all the awkwardness out of saying no)

Those sort of people really are the worst kind imaginable.

Maybe, but because you don't like it why should we stop them enjoying their wacky quiz?

I've made no effort to stop them

You know when you get the email invite, just ignore it.

Still shows as tentative in my calendar but no one ever asks why I'm not there, they just assume either I've something else on, or don't want to.

+1 for something Taskmaster style.
Set the task in the first 5 mins. Go away and you have 40 minutes to complete then come back to show the result. Those who want can spend the full 40 minutes going for it. Those who don't can spend 10 minutes half-arsing something and then chill for half an hour. Spend the remaining 15 minutes mocking everyones attempts and failures.

Just remembered that I had a virtual leaving do for my last place. I was at least one beer and a whisky in and the guy that joined the most recently (that I recommended against hiring because he was arrogant as fsck) said that it was a shame we never got to work together.

Cue very uncomfortable silence on my part as I failed to respond with "yes, such a shame, etc".

Ah, happy days.

It shouldn’t be enforced, if someone doesn’t want to come then they don’t have to. But.. quite a few people including some of your colleagues are not curmudgeonly funsponges and actually enjoy doing something sociable once or twice a year. Why shouldn’t they if they want to?

That's fine - just don't delegate organising it all to an employee!

Remind your boss people don’t attend work for fun and to stop with the stupid requests…

hello, the 90's called and wants its opinion back.

We were doing one every other month in round 1 of the pandemic, 100% optional and normally 95% turnout. everyone seemed to love it. Escape room was great and i remember virtual horse racing being good too (even if you could google the winners). Wasn't a fan of the casino one but any kind of card based gambling seems to invoke anti-luck for me.

Our business has had a very hard time in the pandemic and the staff were asked for a lot but moral remains high and those helped for sure.

I'd not like to work somewhere that wasn't fun.

I agree about the compulsory 'forced' bit being a bit cringe.

As mentioned above, there are some decent online escape rooms, so you could split up into smaller teams and do one of those

Thanks all. We're going with a Taskmaster style challenge and a bit of time outside in the fresh air.

Something for everyone!

ive played a few "online" game. One person has a subscription to the service or buys the game, but lots of people can play the game. Hang ona mo.....

https://www.jackboxgames.com/quiplash/

This was it, (or one ive played), you do it on your mobile device, so you run a regular zoom call, but go to website on your phone and put in a game code to enter the game.
Seems all the ones ive clicked on are limited to 8 players though.

I do like the virtual treasure hunt idea! thats smart.
test your google fu.

Mrs kilo’s company did a comedy gig, got three pro stand ups went down well iirc.

We have a virtual quiz via teams at 5pm, feel free to bring your own drinks!

Sadly I think I'm washing my hair.....