Meme To Success // Christian Arca

Working in a small team is amazing. There’s a lot of collaboration, you build close knit relationships with your fellow co-workers, and everyone feels like they’re part of a small little dysfunctional family. It’s definitely a great experience. However, sometimes when you’re part of a small team it’s really easy to get into all work and no play mode, especially when you’re nearing deliverable dates.

All work and no play makes so and so a dull boy or girl. That expression definitely holds true. Running full steam ahead for days on end can become stressful not just for one person but for everyone. In a larger company it’s easier to not succumb to the energy of one person, after all you interact with many different people in a day. But what if you’re interacting with only 10 other people? That energy whether it be positive or negative becomes infectious and within a few days you can find that team to be suffering from a stifling plague. A plague that limits freedom, creativity, happiness, and fun.

The past couple of weeks have been not necessarily stressful at the studio but they have definitely been busy. Everyone on the team has been and continues to do outstanding work and plenty of times we find ourselves not taking breaks or not allowing ourselves to have fun. In other words, the plague looms. Yesterday, Robert (one of our developers) replied to one of my tweets and within a few seconds a Toy Studio meme was born called Ility That Shit. After Robert’s tweet I replied back within a couple of minutes. The replies continued and as the replies continued we started laughing out loud, and as we started laughing out loud other co-workers started asking about what we were laughing about, and soon enough they were in on it too. Within a couple of hours everyone was laughing, joking, and anxious to hear what the newest Ility That Shit was. Our productivity didn’t suffer, we still got everything done that we had set out to do, and we had some damn fun while doing it.

There’s no reason to have to be serious all the time when getting work done, especially in small teams. You might not realize it but the energy of one person can drastically change the way everyone feels. So try to remember that while the team is small everyone is there with the same goal and that you need to find trust in your work family. So next time you’re in the thick of it and things seem a little tense, go ahead and start yourself an office meme with your work family. You and everyone else will be happier and more productive for doing so.

Here are some of the Toy Studio ility-s (Join in on Twitter with #ilitythatshit) Which is your favorite?

ChrisA9 @Jessferatu @ryan_olsen @bobbylox @squall410 @dsolano78 Durability. Can’t break it. #ilitythatshit