Amna

January 13, 2022

Office Cleanup Day 2022

My friend created an annual ritual at our office; Office Cleanup Day. 

The Cleanup starts with the physical workspace, drawers, papers, and notes. Returning excessive stationery, wiping surfaces. adding greenery and personal touches. 
Followed up by cleaning the computer files, reconstructing folders, removing unwanted files, updating the shared folder, and backing up files. 

I LOVE how this day brought the team together in a sense of belonging and shared experience. My friend, the planner, brought garbage bags, a large cartoon box, wipes, food and planned for a modest celebration of last year's achievements. She kept moving around and motivating others to organize their space and other office areas; closets, library, waiting and meeting rooms, flipcharts, whiteboards, glass walls, bulletin boards, and other vacant offices. 

The day was fun and engaging, no other teambuilding activity beats the meaningful shared experiences- the ones that say we care about our employees' wellbeing, that the employees take to heart and participate in it voluntarily. The beauty of this day is that it came bottom-up. It was planned properly, and had a celebration slot, to remind the team that their work matters and is appreciated. 

I am an orderly person, so I am inclined towards this kind of activity, I find cleaning and tidying up relaxing activities, so the enthusiasm is genuine, but I saw how my colleagues enjoyed the day too. Other teams looked up to ours in admiration. adding to our team's sense of pride. 

I loved how I reevaluated every piece of my almost empty workspace and put everything in its place. I loved when my colleague organized her computer wiring, and when we collected all banners in one store. Photos were taken and shared in the group chat. 

The missing piece is the soft files, which would take a considerably long time to reorganize. I have tremendous belief in my team's ability to do it, we risk being lost in information overload by the so many files in the shared folder.