Burning questions like, “Is cheesecake actually pie?” are answered.
Asa Lanum and her coworkers at the Home Depot Direct Fulfillment Center on Wiggins Road in Plant City love making their time at work enjoyable. “At Home Depot I am employed as a general warehouse associate, which is what most of the crew is,” Lanum said. “We each undertake a variety of roles within that from driving various material handling equipment, fork trucks, order pickers, reach truck, to loading product onto warehouse shelving to be picked and put into boxes to be sent directly to customers.”
The facility is only a few years old, but there has been a longer tradition of formal company-organized meals on the third Wednesday of every month called a “Meal in a Box,” which the company sponsors and covers the costs of the meals. “Top management briefs all the employees across all of the various shifts about the performance of the center for the previous month and year to date,” Lanum said. “There have been a few group potluck dinners for a number of months. We had a large one at Christmas. Our top manager for the overnight shift, Virgil Cabigas, has encouraged team building through games and activities the entire time I have been there. Simple things like trivia questions while we are working to games during our breaks.”
Lanum and her coworkers decided to take their monthly meals up a notch with some fun! “It all started with a simple question,” Lanum said. “What do you like better pie or cake? Then a discussion about whether cheesecake is pie or cake, and the decision it was pie since it had a crust. Finally, what is your favorite dessert? We used all of that to set up the first dessert night buffet for the team. We had about two dozen different desserts that night at our 12:30 a.m. break. One of every kind each person said was their favorite along with vanilla and chocolate ice cream. Desserts deserve ice cream.”
After the dessert night, the next question was, “Which is better White Castle or Krystal?” “That was a heated discussion, except for those that only knew one or the other,” Lanum said. “The only way it could be settled was with a taste off.”
Cabigas is a strong believer and proponent of team building and knows that family is stronger than team. “Team members support each other, but family always has each other’s backs,” Lanum said. “He also feels that one of the most important things families do is to break bread together. Families gather around the dinner table and share activities, concerns, values, etc. These build stronger bonds. Food and sharing helped bind their collective identity.”
So, the first team meal was White Castle brought in fresh from Orlando. “The burgers were brought in on Wednesday night before our meal as an appetizer for each of us,” Lanum said. “Since it was too close to have the White Castles and Krystals back-to-back, it evolved into the first Thursday of every month as team/family dinner. The upcoming dinner in March is Cuban sandwiches and the team just had an anonymous taste-off to decide where to order the 40 Cuban sandwiches.”
Cabigas and Lanum hope the team can take control of the meals and make them their own. “We take time to recognize one person each week with a ‘Homer’ award and the team is taking over granting the award from the management,” Lanum said. “Our friendships are expanding beyond the realm of our work. We give each other rides back and forth to work when they are needed. I recently had one of the other people offer to come over and help me put my motorcycle back together and there is a movement for Friday morning breakfasts, which are outside of work hours.”
The work is tiring but it gets better when Lanum and her team are together to help each other. “Communications among team members to ask for and give help is greater,” Lanum said. “Can you do most of it all by yourself, yes, but having a helping hand can make a lot of difference.”
