ASHLEY RUNION: (1) "Getting a higher yield from the leather with Justin was a huge breakthrough!" (2) "Having candy at work is always good!" (3) "I got tea with Sean & Ken to talk about the book they recommended to me, The Happiness Advantage. It was really nice to talk with them about the topic of happiness and I am excited to finish the book."

BRODIE GORDON: (1) “Killing old SKUs!” (2) “The higher leather yield is great, too. That really killed some stress. Now I can focus on doing my job rather than worrying about leather flaws.” (3) “Coming in on Saturday to work on a personal project to make a headboard from our wood scraps was very fulfilling.”

ALEX BOEPPLE: (1) “Our super-team success on Friday! Everyone was in a groove and we were really flowing well together. I could just feel it.” (2) “Friday pho lunch with the production team was a great way to end the week.” (3) “Edmund really knocked it out of the park with the Valentine's event!”

BEN WOOD: (1) “Seeing Ashley and Justin take over leather quality issues was such a relief.” (2) “Seeing Victor input G-code by hand on Falcon (our CNC machine) was a proud moment for me. (3) “Going out for pho with everyone one Friday was great.”

SYLVIA CHOI: (1) “Scheduling a CE lunch, which is long overdue!” (2) “I’m used to working alone so learning to work in our new collaborative workspace has been nice.” (3) “I also really enjoyed the packaging workshop. I enjoy helping out with shipping because I get to not think about problems but rather use my hands to focus on craft!"

VICTOR NGUYEN: (1) “Johnny handed off the MacBook dock. It was good to get rolling on that. (2) “‘De-Johnnifying’ the mills and returned the machining area to Grovemade standards.” (3) “Going out for pho with the crew on Friday was a great end to the week.”

SEAN KELLY: (1) “Kevin and I paid a visit to Ted Walker, a holster-making company, which was the first time we had been out alone together to work with another company.” (2) “We're working on a deconstruction blog for Design Milk!” (3) “On Thursday, Ken got stood up for lunch again, so we took him out to ramen at Noraneko, which was great.”

DASHIA FONTLEROY: (1) “Pho Friday: Yes!” (2) “Having pre-cut leather so we don't have to think about QC-ing the leather at every step. It saves so much time.” (3) “We changed the laser file for the folio cover so we can make the covers more flexible.”

EDMUND SANDOVAL: (1) “Writing the Design Milk deconstruction article was fun. I thought it turned out great.” (2) “Noraneko was great food.” (3) “A tie between cupcakes and the two power naps I took.”

JUSTIN ABUAN: (1) “The look on Ben's face after presenting the leather tool was precious!” (2) “ I had a really encouraging conversation with Sylvia that was a big confidence booster.” (3) “Edmund wrote me a note that said ‘You are A-OK.”

DIXIE GRIFFIN: (1) “Lunch at Pho Dalat with the production team was great!” (2) “Shipping/packaging workshop was educational.” (3) “Feeling competent in CE (our Customer Experience department) and finishing early enough to be able to rotate back to help out in handwork afterward.”

CHRISTOPHER DONN: (1) “Shooting my team portrait with Max was fun! (2) “Payroll went super fast this past week thanks to some help from Jim.” (3) “Ann helped clarify a lot of things for me as well.”

MAX BROWN: (1) “I was gone for most of the week so I only have one. Shooting our portraits was so much fun on my end, and everyone looked so happy! Side note: I would encourage everyone to get their shots retaken next round. It’s too much fun.”

KEN TOMITA: (1) “A potentially awkward conversation I had to have with someone about goofing off too much took six seconds rather than the anticipated 20 minutes!” (2) “Fried chicken at Noraneko made me tear up it was so good.” (3) “On Wednesday, I arrived at work at 7:48 and every single person was already here, locked in, and going at it. Felt great!”

JIM HASSERT: (1) “Met with Mohammed Ali, our FedEx rep, about how they can help us with international shipping.” (2) “CE has been falling back into handwork after they are done with tasks in the early afternoon!” (3) “Leather quality sorting is going great!”