Straight Outta Caliraya by Rodj Tulang ( QA Engineer )

Company summer outings are like a tradition for a tropical country like the Philippines. This is a great time for employees to bond, relax, and have a legit reason to get drunk with officemates. Last May 9, inDinero’s Makati office had its summer outing at the Caliraya Resort in Lumban, Laguna, some 3 hours away from the city. Almost everyone from all of inDinero Makati’s teams – Data, Onboarding, Enterprise, Payroll, Tax, HR, Engineering, and Admin are well represented envisioning the company’s All Teams, Same Team core value.

This is my first summer outing with the company and I was so excited to bond with them outside work. Someone said you would know someone better when there is food, booze and a beach (or a swimming pool in this case), that someone being me. After settling to our respective rooms and having a short siesta time (the call of the bed is too tempting), we went on to do our first set of activities.

Caliraya Resort is a great place for team building activities with their wide array of activities everyone can enjoy. So we did just that. Our first sets of games are logic games that require teamwork, and technique. The games include flipping a piece of mat upside down without stepping outside and forming a perfect square out of a rope with all participants blindfolded. Our team failed at those games and was dead last on the rankings. Spoiler alert: we kicked some butts after that horrific start.

After the mind and logic games, we went to the best part – the physical games. We went to do obstacle courses, spider web, kayaking and everyone’s favorite, the huge volleyball, which we won, thank you very much.

After those team building games, it is free-for-all time. Some went swimming, mud sliding, played Avalon and some good ol’ bonding time. The night capped with a chill time at the huts beside the lake. It was a great day to know everyone at who they really are outside work.

We all went home the next day with some bruises, body ache, a lot of new memories (both clear and blurry ones) and a couple of new friends. Cheers to everyone who joined, and ‘til the next outing.