Oh, dear, we're team-building

[Musicwoman]

Ah yes, the Fish Video.  As I sat there watching it, I had a vision.  A vision of a woman (very similar to me) who wants to buy a fish for dinner.  A woman who has been at work all day and is tired and grumpy.  This woman is not in the mood to witness fish being flung about the premises, to hear her order merrily shouted back at her by several men at once, or to watch people juggling lobsters.  She just wants to go inside, buy the damned fish and go home and cook it. 

So she goes to Woolworths. 

[Bijou]

I hear you.....

At my last company they showed us this video about the guys who work for the fish market in Seattle.  These are the guys who throw the fish to each other while cracking jokes all day.  Something about how if you look at work differently, you can help make it fun for you and those around you.  This was part of a two-day offsite in which we learned to do things like make art projects that represented our process flow and say things like "wow, great idea, please tell me more!"

Then a few months later, they had the guys come and see us IN PERSON *swoon* (in case you didn't know, that was sarcasm).  They entered throwing fish back and forth to each other over the crowd.  I was a lucky one who had a rather large, smelly fish thrown at my head.  My hair was ookie and smelly even after I washed it.

I could have spent this time being productive and making the company money, but instead I had fish thrown at my head.  Pretty much sums up my experience in my later years at that particular company.

Yikes!   I have horrible visions of this gigantic king salmon soaring through the air, scales flying, slime raining down, slamming clammily into the head of this poor soul who made the bad decision to wear her favorite new dry clean only designer dress to work to set off her fabulous $150 hairstyle.  I would have been furious even in my jeans, tee shirt and never-been-inside-a-salon hairdo!

[housewife2k]

I worked for one comapny that did teambuilding. This was eight years ago, I was twenty years old, and working for a mortgage firm. My supervisor wanted to write me up for not attending the teambuilding events that they had all week long. I calmy and rationally explained to HER boss that even though they felt the team building was important, I felt that getting the huge stack of paperwork processed on the eight loans we had closing the following monday was a wee bit more important. I would gladly do the teambuilding if he wanted to call the customers and explain that their homeownership would be delayed because I had to sit in a conference all week.

From what I've heard freom friends who are still employed there, they only have team building events on weekends, and they are now voluntary.

[kingsrings]

Oh, those stupid team-building exercises are very sophmoric, silly, condescending, and do nothing but waste time and make people feel like they're five years-old. Fortunately I have never worked at a company that does them. My present client does them occassionally, but they are actually work-related exercises that are decent and also mostly consist of someone passing around free trinkets (usually good stuff!) and/or free food. That fish-throwing thing sound like something that should of appeared in 'Office Space'. But kidding and humor aside, I think that it is bordeline assault to throw smelly, dead fish at people and very unprofessional business-wise.

[twinkletoes]

I am so THANKFUL that my company doesn't participate in this nonsense.  My boss is many things, but "deluded enough to think these activities actually mean a dingdangity" is not one of them.  Want to motivate me?  Give me a raise or a bonus, or give me a great review, or give me a challenging project.  Heck, even bringing in the occasional 'pizza for lunch' or 'sweet rolls for breakfast' is nice.

[Lexophile]

I worked for a company that actually hired a motivational speaker who brought a hand puppet with her. The presentation lasted half a day. I had nightmares for weeks thereafter.

Same company sponsered a "Tropical Day." THe VP of HR got all hyped up about it and planned it for a day that coincided with a pretty crucial editorial deadline. None of the editorial team felt we could really spare an 8-hour day for cubicle volleyball and mocktails, so we didn't go to any of the activities. VP actually got up from her desk and walked around demanding that we all drop our work and participate in her little activities.

Man, was I glad to leave that job.

[kingsrings]

I worked for a company that actually hired a motivational speaker who brought a hand puppet with her. The presentation lasted half a day. I had nightmares for weeks thereafter.job.

LOL. I wish I could of seen that. Or taken a secret video and youtubed it for everyone to see just how downhill corporate America is going nowadays.

[CosmicPossum]

Well heck I love my job, but he sometimes makes it a living hell.  So while I am trying to get the JOY in my work, he seems to go around sucking the joy right out of it, raining on my parade.

As a friend's daughter said, "You are a vampire, sucking all the fun out of my life!"

(I think I used to work for that guy)

[itiswhatitisn't]

We have a BBQ every summer.  It's forty minutes away from work and over an hour from my house.  You have to go to work first as it doesn't start until 11:30.  And if you don't go you get docked a vacation day.  So this year I got to work really early, got to the BBQ late, had cold food, and left early to go back to work.  And because I had to leave I couldn't participate in the scavenger hunt.  More importantly, as a new employee who had a ton of work to do I didn't get to meet anyone.  But somehow I didn't mind missing the scavenger hunt with total strangers.  

[Sirius]

I HATE this stuff!!

I participate with gritted teeth, trying to calculate how much they paid for it and wondering if this is why we no longer get Christmas bonuses or free insurance. I have an equally strong reaction to the little company-logoed trinkets they hand out, and the shiny, four color brochures they send to my home to tell my how much I'm "valued" as a team member.

Pay me, respect me, and treat me fairly, and I'll give a 110%, get along with everybody, and have a morale so high, you'll need a ladder to get a good look at it. Just stop patronizing me with this BS created by someone who's never held my job.

Hear, Hear!  POD!  Word!  And every other word of agreement I can think of.  I work at home by myself, and I am SO thankful I don't have to go through that baloney. 

[supotco]

We had a motivational speaker once, when I worked for a multinational accountancy firm, who discussed a failed trip up Everest which cost him two toes. It was apparently supposed to be along the lines of 'if at first you don't succeed...', though I thought it far more illustrative of  a failure to notice when something was clearly not going to work and save the situation by trying something else.

Then at another accountancy firm, they tried to organise us on a gokarting trip. A team of 9. One with a whiplash injury (me), one with arthritis, one pregnant. They told us it would be fun. We assured them it would not be. They told us we had to do it. We informed them that we did not, and if they tried to make us, we'd call in our doctors and our lawyers.

[Lexophile]

Kingrings -

I can break it down for you easily. Try to imagine Sandy Duncan on a stage with a large puppet that looks like a little boy. Now imagine that Sandy talks for four hours about what it means to work together. She finishes up by singing (in two voices because her "friend" is singing with her) a song she wrote herself entitled, "'Cause we're a teeeeeeeeaaaaaaaam ... " accompanied by a boom box the belches canned music.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

[IndianInlaw]

Laugh or cry?

How about have a migraine, which I'm sure happened to more than one of you coworkers.

[kingsrings]

Okay, somebody take all of this material and these instances and pound out a script for 'Office Space 2'.....

[buckeyefan]

I used to work for a school district. At one of our in-service/team building meetings we learned how to say "hello," "how are you," and the proper way to applaud and shake hands from a man who made Liberace look like a Chicago Bears defensive player.

All I wanted to do was go back to my classroom and finish decorating the bulletin board.