Thank you three for taking the time for this interview. Please introduce yourselves briefly.
Fabian: Hi, I’m Fabian, joined meinestadt.de in early 2021 and work in the IT department as a front-end developer.
Ann-Kathrin: I’m Anni and I’ve been working as a Scrum Master since 2019.
Christopher: And I’m Chris and I’ve been working here since 2018. You know me from the UX department, where I represent the needs of our customers.
Fabian, seit deinem Einstieg bei meinestadt.de Anfang 2021 bringst du sehr engagiert Kollegen zu z.B. virtuellen Pub-Quizzes zusammen. Was motiviert dich dazu?
Fabian: I once read an interesting article about this, which agrees with what I feel: “you spend more time at work than with family & friends.” For me personally, it’s important that I feel good about where I spend time – that includes work. No matter how great the work is in principle, there can also be stressful days, and then I think it’s good if you can also talk about other things after work. In the best case, colleagues are people I can have fun with. At my previous companies, I always organized activities such as board games or gaming events. At meinestadt.de I started in the pandemic, but I didn’t want to miss getting together. That’s how I came up with the quizzes. And since I heard that the meinestadt.de team is very good at drinking, I just made it a pub quiz. (laughs)
Now there are three of you and you have founded the “Agentur für chillige Feierabende” – A.C.F. for short. How did you find each other?
Chris: I took part in one of Fabian’s pub quizzes and thought it was so cool that I offered to support him. Until then, he had done everything on his own – including building a virtual game where the pub quiz is depicted. I thought it was very cool – especially in pandemic times, to revive the meinestadt.de spirit, to get together with colleagues after work and just have a few good hours. It’s a very cozy way to do things.
To further professionalize the whole thing, we brought Anni on board. Three of us are simply better positioned. After a bit of spinning around with our initials, we ended up with our name “Agentur für chillige Feierabende” or ACF. Now we have the plan to organize digital events on a regular basis. First of all, we are collecting feedback on what people would be interested in, so that we can pick up as many and different people as possible and not always just meet the same faces. Everyone is welcome.
And what is for you personally a chill after work with colleagues from?
Anni: For me, it’s very important on a chill evening with colleagues that you don’t talk about work for a change. So a pub quiz is great, of course, because you have topics of conversation right away and because you also learn a lot about the people with whom you spend your time all day. That’s actually what makes for a chilled-out evening with colleagues: at that moment, you’re with people and not with work colleagues.
Fabian: For me, it should also be as uncomplicated as possible. That’s why the pub quiz was the first idea, because it simply has a very low barrier to entry. Anyone can participate. Of course, I sometimes think up categories that not everyone can answer. That happens, but it’s not a bad thing. So far, everyone has been able to laugh about it together and at the end of the evening there is something for everyone. The real life Pup quizzes are much more difficult than mine.
At the end of December you hosted the first quiz as A.C.F.. How did the evening go? Can you give some insights to the colleagues who missed the event?
Fabian: Oh yes! It went pretty cool. We had all kinds of categories prepared: ones where you have to use your brain, anagrams that tend to lead to despair, guessing flags… Two new colleagues also joined us this time and had a lot of fun. We played from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and then took a break because some of them realized that they should have ordered something to eat (laughs).
The schedule varies depending on the number of participants. If we are very many, we play in groups. So far we have held two types of quizzes: with and without buzzers. The last one was buzzed. Everyone logs in briefly online beforehand and the person who buzzes first has to answer. It’s all about speed. Whoever has answered the most questions correctly at the end gets applause – and a place in the virtual Hall of Fame of A.C.F. We will implement the latter for the next quizzes.
Chris: The nice thing is that there is something for everyone in the categories. These are so general knowledge questions, funny or nerdy quiz questions. But also sometimes Gossip. Everyone finds a place to show their skills in a category. And at the end of the day, you always learn something new, which is a lot of fun. You get together comfortably and casually and have a nice evening and learn something. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Anni: Exactly! The nice thing is, even if you can’t do something at all, you still have fun. I’ve discovered for myself that I have no idea about our solar system and that’s already become a running gag (laughs). There’s no need to be ashamed, everyone can’t do something, and it’s all the more entertaining when you discover that you have gaps in your knowledge on one subject or another. After all, it’s not about winning, but about having fun.
Sounds like a successful evening. Do I have to prepare myself as a participant or can I also quiz as a newbie?
Fabian: Oh, prepare actually not. If you are very curious, you can ask about the previous categories, but we actually always try to find something new. After all, it should not be boring!
For all colleagues who are now curious, when will the next chill-out after-work event take place and what can colleagues look forward to?
At the end of January, things get animalistic. Questions from a wide variety of habitats await our colleagues: We’ll be going on safari and diving into the underwater world, among other things. All in all, we want to try our hand at new formats in 2022, in addition to the classic Pup Quiz. As always, we will announce information about this on all channels, such as Currents.
Thank you, for the interview 🙂
More Info:
- A.C.F. Infoseite
- Currents Community: Feierabendevents
- google-Chat: Feierabend Events