In keeping with the tone of the highly spirited wireless networking space, the Aerohive has had a very, how shall we say, “active” holiday season competing with one another. The Aerohive elves were at once generous and competitive, and all of the efforts by this group are greatly appreciated.
As far as the competitive-yet-generous spirit, it was in full force when it came to the Second Harvest Food Drive. We pitted several departments against each other in a food gathering contest, with the Finance team winning the competition at a whopping 281 pounds of food collected.
Aerohive’s team of “Opportunity Development Representatives” (aka ODRs or lead gen dudes) came in second with 216 pounds, but boy was it close. And people were throwing food on the pile until the last possible moment (vying for bragging rights of winning this year’s competition).
Competition aside, as a company we collected 770.5 pounds of food! That’s an amazing accomplishment for a company that only occupies a single floor of an office building!
Another source of competitive-fever? The Family Giving Tree’s Holiday Wish Drive. The gifts collected for Family Giving Tree filled the entire backseat of Jenni Adair’s (fun committee chair and mastermind behind many of Aerohive’s holiday activities) SUV. One of my favorite gifts was the Razor and helmet (I love anything that gets kids outside and active), but in all we fulfilled all of the 24 gift tags and were able to provide many wonderful gifts to a handful of needy girls and boys in the Bay Area.
The cube-decorating contest was crazy competitive (and I think the only benefactors from this activity were the retailers where people bought their <insanely creative> holiday decorations). The point of the cube-decorating competition was to get the Christmas spirit going in the office. Guess what? It worked. (If you don’t believe me, check out these photos of decorations put up by hard-working coworkers who brought Christmas spirit to the HIVE.)
Some of our holiday activities had a lighter focus. Last week we held a potluck and a White Elephant gift exchange, and both were big hits. I know I enjoyed all of those yummy dishes. Jenni seemed a little too happy with her gift – a framed photo of the executives dressed up and dancing in their elf costumes (and totally hilarious).
White Elephant side note: Our CEO David Flynn couldn’t hold on to a gift for anything. If you know anything about a White Elephant gift exchange (a.k.a. Yankee Swap), prized gifts get stolen and re-stolen as the game goes on, and it’s all supposed to be done in the name of fun (although feelings of disappointment are sometimes inevitable when a prized gift gets taken straight from your hands.) In many companies, employees playing this game let the CEO have his way. At Aerohive, not so much. David was a really good sport about having his Giants Chicken stolen more than once, and everybody (including David) got a good laugh at the friendly teasing. Just a little glimpse into the kind of camaraderie and friendly spirit that is part of the Aerohive way.
Speaking of dancing in their elf costumes … last but not least, here’s a visual of the Aerohive elves themselves. We couldn’t let you leave this blog without seeing our CEO and our very own Devin Akin groove to some holiday tunes, right? Enjoy!
