Tech Team Building at Facebook Yields Company Record!

Tech Team Building with the Messenger Team at Facebook Yields New Company Record!

Tech Team Building with Facebook yielded a new company record. A team from the Messenger App at Facebook has beaten the company robot build record of 51 minutes and 7 seconds by a wide margin posting a spectacular time of  43:31. The existing record had stood for 4 months and dozens of Facebook teams. Beginning the event at 4:00 PM gave us unique access to the hallway outside the meeting room for the robot battles as many people had gone home by the time we began at 5:00 PM. It also provided a moving audience of those burning some late night work oil who gave a panoply of inquisitive looks as they meandered by our battles. It was great marketing for TeamWorx as many people brought their bosses back over to say “Hey, can we do this tech team building in our group?” Thank you Taleah for that!

The battles were great beginning with a series of 1 on 1 robot fights and then briefly entering into three way combat before one of the robots decided to take a dive off a 5 foot table. Unfortunately it found it’s one Achilles heal among an array of invincibility and smashed its attack arm clean off. Don’t fret, we have stabilized the robot and its recovery looks extremely optimistic. The addition of beer to the combat enthusiasm was a definite stimulate to exciting battles. Slightly tweaking both dexterity, outlook, and aggressiveness led to some entertaining and lively robot smashing.

As usual, the Facebook team was ridiculously smart, easy to get to know, and included a rich set of stories of how they all ended up at Facebook. From an outsiders perspective, one who has seen hundreds of companies and company cultures, it appears that Facebook is a delightful place to work. Long hours and high expectations are balanced by a fun and supportive environment.

Most interesting to me was the ways the Messenger app is used in different countries. You really get a feel for the global reach of Facebook and Messenger talking with folks that so clearly get how digital communication works in places like India or in smaller third world nations. Often many people share one phone, so texting is lacking in privacy and efficiency. However a Messenger app allows 6 people sharing a phone to each have a free way to communicate that is also private.

Thank you to the Messenger team for a wonderful experience. I am looking forward to the other teams at Messenger to throw their hat into the ring and compete for a World Record build time!