Last weekend the team went crazy!

Last winter our Clever Ads team participated in Google’s Shopping Marathon, a competition aimed to “reward partners for adopting Google Shopping campaigns for their existing customers and for recruiting new customers on Google Shopping as well”. Our team excelled in the worldwide competition, scoring second place overall.  This past Saturday we decided to celebrate the beginning of summer, spending the money we won from the competition on team building exercises and socializing. Feeling (a little too) adventurous, we decided to play paintball, go go-karting and do an escape room all in one day!

 

Paintball

 

 

Do you ever just want to kill your colleagues? Same here. We decided to let out that frustration by shooting each other in a (rather enthusiastic) game of paintball, Action Live Paintball, just outside Madrid and we split into two teams. We are not quite sure who won, but we all have bruises as battle wounds to account for our participation. I suggest this as a fun (and legal) way to get back at your boss. We had so much fun hiding, running (sweating), shooting and splattering each other in paint.

 

Go-Karting

 

       

We then satisfied our need for speed with a go-kart race! This was a fun test to see who can actually operate a vehicle without crashing. We decided to let our CEO, CTO and COO win because we all like our jobs and did not want to hear them complain the rest of the day.

Pasiones Argentinas

 

Sweaty, dehydrated and hungry, we decided to grab a bite to eat at Pasiones Argentinas. (I would like to formally apologize to the other patrons at the restaurant who had to smell us.) We ordered numerous entrées to share as well as some beers and of course some sangria. We finished our meal by stuffing our faces with some fabulous cake.

Escape Room

 

 

After lunch (and some much-needed showers), we met back at the Fox in a Box Escape Room here in Madrid. We split into two teams, and are sorry to report that only one team made it out alive. The first (and coolest) team escaped from a serial killer’s home and made it out with time to spare. Unfortunately, our COO, Fernando, was on the losing team, so we decided to promote our interns.

Terraza Atenas

 

 

We then finished our day by going out for some amazing drinks at Terraza Atenas. What started out as innocent fun eventually turned into a social experiment, proving which employees can actually hang. As the numbers dwindled, the party victors proved to be our oldest employees, our CEO and COO, rather than our youngest interns. I guess this is why they rule the company.

Sitting here in the office today, still covered in bruises (some physical, some emotional from losing), I can definitely say I know my colleagues better. From the overly competitive IT guy, to the intern who couldn’t reach the go-kart pedals, we have learned to make fun of one-another, laugh, and share our lives outside of the office. I am thankful to work with such a fun and competitive team and cannot wait to spend our next team-building day on a boat!