MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan -- Marine Corps Community Services employees gathered at the Strike Zone bowling alley here Oct. 10, 2012, for a day out of the work space and fun. The MCCS workers divided into random bowling teams to allow each person the chance to get to know someone less familiar to them.
“Today, what we try to do with our exchange employees is get them outside the work place,” said Staff Sgt. Sydney Shanfield, Marine Corps Exchange retail chief. “So, quarterly we try to get our regular exchange staff all together in the same place to blow off some steam from work and build a much more cohesive work place.”
With all the employees gathered at the Strike Zone bowling alley, who ran the establishments aboard station?
According to Shanfield, all of the supervisors of the establishments took on the day-to-day roles of the regular employees, such as working the registers and other various tasks.
Working in a varied environment like MCCS, with so many departments scattered across the air station, can make it difficult to get to know many coworkers.
“It is hard to get everyone from separate sections together and we want everyone to meet and learn about each other,” said Shanfield.
Many of the establishments aboard station are open six to seven days a week, with many of the employees working every day from start to finish.
“We spend all of our time at the exchange and MCCS supporting the station, the Marines and sailors, as well as all others who live here. We do this for our employees just to give them a day for themselves,” said Shanfield. “We try to create a fun, safe place to work. We want it to also be a place where employment and promotions are things that people want to achieve and make the exchange and MCCS not only a positive working environment, but also a fun work environment where people actually look forward to coming to work.”
After long days of work, employees of MCCS had a successful day to "bowl" off steam with their peers and fellow employees.