We actually allow team talk time every day. The IT meeting is supposed to be about discussing what we've done and what we'll do, sorta scrum-style, but management knows and allows it to run as long as we like while we socialize. This was even the case before we went fully remote for Covid. I believe the CSRs do the same, but I haven't been to their meetings.

They tried a scheduled after-hours happy our with the whole company, but people showed up for a few weeks and then it died off.

We have Discord and have a few channels including #general and #random. We haven't found the need to get more specific since there's only a few of us. It might be nice to have those specific ones shared with the entire company instead of just the team, though. I think I'll suggest that.

The photography one in particular caught my attention because a few people on the team wanted to do a flat-lay photo contest with a prize, but CS just wasn't into it. We're still considering doing it unofficially.

Thanks for the info!