Blogs

You may have heard that we've reorganized our entire service delivery structure at Umbrella. Three teams, each managing a subset of our clients. After seven months, we've found our stride and things are going well.

The initial restructure brought some challenging moments

There were lots of meetings.

As a tech company it won’t be any surprise that we have, and even promote, the geek culture here in the River Market. As part of that culture, we have an arcade console at the front door of Umbrella. It’s the old Pizza Hut, Pac-Man style, table top console.

We really love sports at Umbrella. Whether it's hockey, soccer, football, basketball or something else, there's always a group that gets formed to follow it. The biggest sporting event that Umbrella takes part in, is Fantasy Football. This was Umbrella's fourth year hosting a league, and things got pretty intense!

Fantasy football consists of taking all of the players in the NFL and drafting them individually in order to make a “custom team.

Hello once again audience! Teamwork. I think it's one of the most crucial elements a company needs for everything to run smoothly. I thought it would be fun to tell you a story of the best team building experience I've ever had with coworkers. It started with an idea that turned into a ten day "Brocation" with my buddy and fellow Umbrella employee, Lucas Pieper.

Hello once again audience! If you weren’t aware, we really like to get into the Halloween spirit. A lot of us were pretty excited about this year’s Halloween, but little did we know how much of a treat we were in for. Within the last few months, Umbrella has gained a new manager, Luke Ciurej, on Team Gotham who henceforth will be referred to as The Halloween King!

The Halloween King has been collecting and adding to his Halloween decorations for around ten years.

UMS Q3 meeting was held on October 13th and without any planning, it took on a Halloween theme. We had apple cider to drink and managers brought yummy treats. Luke even decorated his brownies as tombstones!

Our icebreaker was to transform employees into mummies using toilet paper.

This is how my typical day starts:
5:00am: Up to check email and plan my day
6:30am: Showered and dressed
6:45am: Greet my beautiful wife and dreary-eyed kids Cora, Simon and Sawyer.
(Cora is 1, Simon is 3 and Sawyer is 6 years old.)
7:00am...
Simon: ‘Dad, you go to work?’
Me: ‘Yeah Bud, I have to go to work.

If you didn't know, Umbrella has three service teams named Bravo, Gotham and Watchmen.

I was excited when Team Watchmen invited me to attend their group outing to see the Kansas City Royals on September 12th vs the Oakland A’s. Our tailgate fare was nothing fancy.

Our most recent "all hands on deck" company meeting was held on August 4. We hold these meetings quarterly as a team building exercise and to take a minute to celebrate what we've accomplished together.
Growth
Our staff count is now at 27! We've grown into the 3rd floor of our building.

While I was on site with a new client recently, I asked if they would show me to their wiring closet. They replied, “The spaghetti room? Right this way."

When the door was opened, I was taken aback for a moment. It took a second or two to sink in, but I quickly understood why they called it the “Spaghetti Room.