Out of office message

[silverfox]

I shall be out of the office until Monday July 27 because my (higher salary bracket) Director has called a three-line whip week-end bonding session to improve office morale.

Human Remains (HR) has furnished me with the itinerary:

Day 1 Friday July 24:

Arrive Snowdonia 8pm. Drinks reception, dinner (local farmers' market ingredients). Please have your two-minute 'If you were an MP3 player what music would would prefer your owner to download?' powerpoint presentation ready to be delivered between the hors d'oeuvres and champagne sorbet courses.

Day 2 Saturday July 25:

6.30am Breakfast (organic, locally sourced).

7am Power walk up Mount Snowdon (compulsory).

8am-1pm Opening presentation from Director 'Overview of (defunct) business model and where the hell do we go from here?'

1.05pm-2pm Lunch (carbon footprint neutral, locally sourced from Dai's deli).

2.05pm-5pm 'It's a knockout' - relaxing afternoon of fun and team-bonding games such as dress up in a chicken costume and undergo an army assault course.

5.05pm-7pm free time.

7.05pm sherry.

8pm Dinner. Please have your two-minute 'If you were a corkscrew, would you uncork a wine that wasn't French, Italian or Spanish?' powerpoint presentation ready to be delivered during the petit four and (fairtrade) coffee.

Day 3 Sunday July 26:

6.30am Breakfast (organic, locally sourced).

7am Falun Gong exercises at summit of Mount Snowdon (no experience necessary).

8am-5pm (lunch is for wimps) seminar 'How to re-apply for your own job.'

5.05pm-7pm free time, pack your bags.

7.05pm Welsh Wine - introductory tasting session.

8pm Dinner. Please have your two-minute 'Is it only twits who tweet on Twitter?' powerpoint presentation ready to be delivered while the cheese and port is being served.

11pm-2am 70s Disco (Mungo Jerry tribute band)

2.05am Carriages

NB 9am Monday July 27. Debrief and skills assessment 'Are you in the right job?'

[Moos]

Laughter!

I really hate the way these kinds of weekends away / graduate training courses / whatever focus on outdoor activities, and usually quite strenuous and difficult ones. Success in such an environment is therefore slanted towards the physically able-bodied and aggressive, larger and stronger people in the group - women, older people, the unfit and the less physically able are at an immediate disadvantage. The message is that success is (literally) embodied in healthy young men, it's prejudicial and unfair.

[Huguenot]

I'd never though about it like that.

In hindsight most of the ones I've been on have focused on teamwork and the ability to put the right person in the right role.

None of them have been so strenuous as to differentiate between the sexes or the unfit, but I guess in some instances they could have isolated the infirm.

But then it's a double sided coin: they might not have to do the sump-dive, but then they probably don't do the coffee or bacon sandwich run either.

[Moos]

The example I was thinking of was when my other half's firm organised a summer time trip to Chamonix for graduates when they went ice-hiking and white-water rafting. I'm feeling kind of killjoyish, and they probably mostly had a blast, but I just found it really easy to imagine the chubby one or the weedy one thinking God, I thought I'd left all this shit behind at school.

Aaanyway. As you say, they're mostly pretty tame and yes it is fun to get people together doing creative team-building stuff. I'm all for building bridges out of paper or whatever!

[annaj]

As the chubby, uncoordinated, weedy and motion sick one, I can safely say that you're absolutely right Moos.

Any kind of hearty, outdoorsy, team activity fills me with absolute dread. I have honestly, as an adult, cried at the thought of the humiliation of the work rounders match.

I also reallt dislike all kinds of indoor team building and trust games. Mostly because it's always so completely and cringeworthily (real word?) obviously what you're supposed to do, but everyone just stands silently or dithers. I'm the sort of person who feels sorry for the teacher (sorry, facilitator) if no-one engages, so end up being all jolly and trying to engage everyone whilst screaming on the inside.

[Keef]

Bo!locks to that, I can't even afford to get away for a weekend with my wife, there is no way I'd go away with a load of people I couldn't stand!

[Moos]

Chubby?!

[annaj]

Well, ok, no, not anymore. But that's a fairly recent thing.

Chubby was how the kind people described me until not that long ago.

[Huguenot]

Bloody hell annaj, crying at the prospect of rounders? That's extraordinary.

I can see that ice hiking could be perceived as divisive, but if the prospect of minor social interaction and a stroll in the park isn't sufficiently inclusive, I don't know what is.

There are many things I'm manifestly b*llocks at, but it wouldn't stop me having a crack at it with a smile on my face. Even if the odd idiot called me names, I'd rather conclude it said more about them than me.

Please, don't stop the rounders.

[annaj]

Don't hold back Huguenot, say what you really think!

It may be extraordinary, and I admire your noble sticks-and-stones attitude, but it's how I honestly feel.

I was a miserable, bullied teenager and games lessons were a regular, painful humiliation. I am completely uncoordinated. I can't throw or catch or hit anything with anything at all. However bad you're imagining, I'm worse. When teams were picked I was picked after the seriously overweight (I was only chubby remember) and hirsuite girl who still worn knee high socks in secondary school and wasn't allowed in assembly because of her mother's beliefs. That's how bad I was.

Now, I'm a sucessful, functional, popular adult, but when someone suggests a hour or two of jolly hitting balls with sticks I'm that girl again and it's horrible.

[Ted Max]

There are many things I'm manifestly b*llocks at, but it wouldn't stop me having a crack at it with a smile on my face.

I resent the inherent implication that it's somehow in my best interests to "have a crack". And all the while you all know the investment is only made to make you more productive, to smooth the edges of necessary social interaction in the workplace to generate a better outcome for your employer. Yes, the employer pays my wages - and for that it is right to expect I do my job, contribute to the smooth running of the business, all the rest of it. But to imply that further than that, I require this imposed enhancement to my character - for my own benefit? It's demeaning.

And now there are people who offer work-bonding (training, problem solving, whatever) cookery courses, and community work (picking up litter, painting playgrounds), and art (let's build a scuplture) and drama workshops and so on. You can't object to this, the blackmail goes, we're doing good here. You're learning something useful.

Even the smart employers who just put a few quid behind a bar can't hide the resentful expectation that you will attend and you will have a good time - even if you are the kind of person that finds having a relationship with anything more animated than your knitting needles too stressful.

All of it can't hide the fact that your time is being bought, but unlike Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman you don't say who, you don't say where, you don't say how much. You just take it in every hole for the sake of the monthly BACS transfer.

Drink after work, anyone? I'm cracking company.

[annaj]

Yes, all that too Ted, I hate enforced fun and joining for all those valid and eloquently expressed reasons too......

but it is a lot about feeling like a fat, miserable, teenager again.

[Huguenot]

I think there's a couple of things here.

Sleeping in two foot of slime may fall into the character enhancement area, but I hardly think an afternoon of work for beer and rounders is about trying to make you a better person?

Most people's daily interaction at work is fairly limited to professional chats; beer and rounders are most likely an opportunity to get to know people a little better. A little understanding between work colleagues goes a long way.

If you reject the opportunity for mean spirited reasons that also says something about your views of work colleagues that will undermine the company performance.

A boss would be within his rights to consider all aspects of your approach to work when considering their future plans.

Without a doubt the vast majority of business revenues go in labour costs, not to the shareholders: you're making yourself wealthy.

[citizenED]

I'm probably not alone in being slightly piqued that I have never been on a paid-for weekend beano, complete with bonding activities and sherry receptions at 7.05pm in swanky hotel. Not that I would actually enjoy the false bonhomie, it's just that I have missed out on being able to carp about it afterwards.

[Ted Max]

If you reject the opportunity for mean spirited reasons

It's all in that if. You are looking at a (possibly) voluntary arrangement in which someone says, effectively: "I'm not coming, you're all twats, I'd rather die." In which case, the rest of your post is valid.

We are talking about situations where people feel genuinely uncomfortable and exposed. And then, to compound this, there is the knowledge that this discomfort could then be interpreted as a negative "aspect of your approach to work".

[Huguenot]

Well, not so much as a 'negative' aspect so much as just an aspect.

It would hardly make you a shoo-in for a people facing role...!

[SeanMacGabhann]

That's where this falls down H - how people react in one, artificial, situation is no indicator of how they will in a more meaningful one. And the fact that so many "bosses" and HR depts fail to see this is a source of much irk-dom

Totake annaj as an example, and I hope she won't mind me saying, but she is in an uber people-facing role, involving more courage and bravery every hour than you or I will need in a year, it's her bread and butter. And she is damn good at it from all accounts.

If she was discouraged at an early age to not do her job because of her reaction to an awayday beggars belief.

[bigbadwolf]

I've never been on one of these excersions. If, for instance, you were taken away to somewhere like Amsterdam or Prague would you still be getting paid for it.

Unless the destination was somewhere like Prestatyn or somewhere like that I'd be well up for it but then again I'm physically quite fit.

[HonaloochieB]

Ted Max Wrote:

> Drink after work, anyone? I'm cracking company.

Sure thing Ted. The CPT?

Although we've never met I'll know you.

There's a face like yours in evry pub.

[Ted Max]

Lovely chap Hugey - brilliant at generating a brief, understanding the needs of the client, invaluable in pitches, but unfortunately refused to perform the first salsa on the dancefloor at the summer party. Noted.

[Ted Max]

Sure thing Ted. The CPT?

Although we've never met I'll know you.

There's a face like yours in evry pub.

EDF posters meeting up in real life? It'll never catch on.

[paulino]

many of you are clearly not the target audience for these team-bonding sessions. you sound like the kind of people who hate your jobs (or at the very least tolerate your jobs due to the payout you get at the end of the month), don't particularly like the people you work with, and have no desire to get to know them better. fair enough.

believe it or not, there are some people who do not share this outlook. yes, you probably dismiss them as the brown-nosers, the lickspittles, and the corporate whores. but some people quite like their jobs and quite like the people they work with. these kinds of exercises can help encourage a little more of such bonhommie. shock horror, yes, the ultimate aim is to improve the way you perceive your job, work harder and stay with the company.

[bigbadwolf]

Are you a manager Paulino?

[Ted Max]

many of you are clearly not the target audience for these team-bonding sessions

No, no. We absolutely are. If you're already on board to suck it all up, then they're wasting their money, surely?

[Moos]

paulino Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

you sound like the kind of people who hate your jobs (or at the very least tolerate your jobs due to the payout you get at the end of the month), don't particularly like the people you work with, and have no desire to get to know them better. fair enough.

I think that's a bit harsh, paulino. I like my job, I think I'm good at it and I don't just do it for the money. One of the reasons I do it well is because I can get on well with people. I think company socialising is a good idea - especially when it's encouraged but not required. I just think companies should judge their people by how well they perform their jobs (including getting on with people and team work, if relevant), not by how well they climb mountains, and I think team-building events that are excessively physical are exclusive and even humiliating for some.