The Wheel We Spun When the Room Went Quiet

It was one of those company events where the formal part had just ended. You know the feeling—the music was a bit too low, and everyone was just sort of hovering near the snack table, phones coming out. I’d been in that spot before, the person who feels the lull and wants to nudge things forward without making a big deal of it.

The Moment It Became a Game

I’d brought this little spinner app on my tablet, just in case. I held it up and said something like, ‘Alright, who’s feeling brave?’ It wasn’t a grand announcement. It was more of a quiet invitation tossed into the middle of that awkward silence.Someone from accounting, who’d been pretty quiet all night, was the first to volunteer. I think they were just relieved someone had suggested *anything*. The wheel had silly, low-stakes stuff on it—nothing that required talent or preparation. The first spin landed on ‘air guitar solo.’

How a Silly Challenge Changes the Air

He did a surprisingly committed air guitar performance right there by the water cooler. And the thing is, nobody laughed *at* him. We were all laughing with him, or just cheering because, well, why not? It broke some invisible barrier.The energy in the room shifted completely. It wasn’t about the wheel anymore, not really. It was the excuse it provided. People started gathering around, not to watch the tablet, but to watch each other. They were suggesting who should go next, egging each other on for the next silly challenge.It turned a group of colleagues standing in the same room into a group of people actually sharing an experience. The conversations afterward weren’t about work. They were about the terrible impressions and the surprisingly good dance moves we’d just witnessed.