#MondayCubed: Smash Bros Melee or Connecting beyond your department

For #MondayCubed I want to talk about a favorite Gamecube game among me and my siblings: Super Smash Bros Melee. Well, there isn't much to say to say about the gameplay itself. It's a fighting game. You choose a character, you fight other characters. There are a bunch of games like this.

What makes the Smash Bros series cool and different is that it's a crossover game. "Melee" offers a selection of 26 characters from the Nintendo universe.  So you can settle once and for all who is the best warrior. Mario? Link? Pikachu? You can even choose characters that usually aren't the heroes, like Princess Peach. 

Not surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, "Melee" was the best selling game on the Gamecube console.  People like the concept of crossing over, whether it's video games, music, or even, I argue, the workplace.

Did you ever hang out with folks outside your department? HR folks do this by default (at least, I hope you do...). It's our job to connect with employees beyond the HR office. Honestly, some of my favorite days during my HR internship were when we visited other departments, especially when said departments were having some kind of celebration (#freefood). 

Some organizations create structures for employees to connect with others outside their wing with book clubs, affinity groups, and volunteer initiatives to name a few. However, if your company doesn't facilitate inter-department activities, I highly encourage you to make the effort yourself to meet people outside your department. If your company is large, look up and connect with folks on linkedin. Take your lunch in different areas so you meet other people. Attend work parties and other social functions with the goal of talking to three people you don't know (or one person if you are especially introverted).

Of course, this is all good for networking, but it's also just kind of fun to build connections with people outside your bubble. Everywhere I worked, for example, the maintenance staff was my my favorite group outside my department. They especially helped me as I continued to learn how to "adult," giving me all kinds of advice for the general upkeep of my own home and even my car!

As the Smash Bros series shows us, we love making connections, and crossing over beyond what's familiar fulfills our need to connect. 

So who is your character of choice in Smash Bros? Mine, of course, is Kirby.