October 24, 2013
We had a team-building day at The Company I Am employed by. This was odd because:
A- Our team has not changed.
B- There are only 4 members of my team.
and C- No one else had a team-building day.
We began by having one-on-one interviews with our superiors from Langley Wilmington. It seems to me that one-on-ones totally defeat the point of team-building but what do I know? I’m only college educated. Next, each member of the team gave updates on whatever projects we have going on. Sound like fun yet? This was followed by lunch. Counting our superiors and one extra person from a related area who sat in, there were seven people in the room. They brought in enough sandwiches for, easily, five times that number, and that assumes that each of us would eat three sandwiches each. Which none of us did. Oddly, all these sandwiches were accompanied by four personal bottles of water (for seven people) and a two liter bottle of Coke. (Trust me, I got both a bottle of water and a glass of Coke. I felt pretty privileged, believe you me.) there was also some salad and some pasta salad, in more or less appropriate amounts.
After lunch, it was game time. Sigh.
We were split into teams (one of us was the “host”) and played a game where we were asked questions at random and awarded a point for no readily discernible reason. When it was my turn I was asked “if you could be one cereal box character, who would it be? My response? Frankenberry. Why? Because he is big and strong, yet friendly, and with Halloween around the corner I am sure to clean up when it comes to trick-or-treating. (Yes, I am an adult.)
This caused an argument.
Why not Count Chocula?
He can only go out at night.
Why not Boo Berry?
He’s an intangible ghost.
Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy have their own drawbacks as well.
Why not Captain Crunch?
Now it’s on!
But Captain Crunch is a Captain!
He’s been a captain his whole career. If he was so hot he’d be an admiral or a commodore by now. (Commodore Crunch has a nice ring to it.)
He’s a decorated war hero!
Not only do I not buy that, but his ship is made of wood. Not exactly state of the art. Plus look at his uniform. I’m not totally convinced that he’s an American captain. War hero? For all I know, he could be a war criminal.
He has authority!
He has no authority over land.
And that won me the argument. My teammate totally lost it and cracked up and the other side had to admit that Cap’n Crunch’s jurisdiction did not extend to land-based trick-or-treating, especially over civilians.
So my side won, although there was no prize (except maybe whatever the point of team-building is, which eluded me and my team, who have been together for a year and a half.)
On the other hand, we all won because once the game was over, we were all allowed to leave work early.
Score!
OK, let me understand: there are people who conceive this kind of event and even manage to convince whoever is above them that they are actually useful and profitable for the company and they even get paid?
It’s an odd world we live in…
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You have it exactly right.
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Scary…
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A lot of money spent not well today.
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This isn’t going to help me sleep better knowing the world is safe for democracy!
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It might need to be safe FROM democracy at this rate!
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