Teamwork… Dreamwork??
Each quarter with work, we have a week-long, everyone-in-the-office team-building thing. This is that week. The remote workers are here, work-work is postponed, and we’re focusing on teamwork and goals. Barf. (Sorry).
Today we met off-site for a full day’s worth of speeches, going over core values and competencies, and a long… and blindfolded team building activity. They split us up into 30-person groups, blindfolded us, and gave us each a colored, eclectic shape. They told us there were two shapes missing, and to figure it out. No other instructions. I had the privilege of sitting next to the CEO and director of grants and programs, arguably the two most important people in the organization. 30 people took to describing their shapes.
“Mine is a triangle with a hole in the middle of it that my finger can go into,” someone said. The CEO mumbled next to me, “well, that sounds interesting out of context.” Had I not been blindfolded, you would have seen my eyes get wide. I should mention my CEO is a Catholic monsignor.
“My shape is long but not that wide,” someone else chimed in. “Are they supposed to fit together?” Another mumble from Monsignor next to me. The director chuckled next to me, now cursing about the stupidity of the exercise. I’m certain my jaw dropped.
We ended the day with a BBQ lunch around 2pm at Virgil’s. My nightmare! For context, I cannot eat red meat, corn, or beans. So when the waiters brought trays of ribs, brisket, corn bread, beans, hush puppies, mac and cheese, and coleslaw, I nearly audibly groaned. I was hungry. It was 2pm. We had not eaten anything since the breakfast buffet at 9am. I had had some fruit then. I could eat, quite literally, nothing at this lunch.
“Why aren’t you eating?” “Do you not like this food?” “Is it a preference?” “What’s wrong with you?” Holy cannoli! Shut up! (Sorry. Again).
The day was funny, extremely irritating, and I’m looking forward to getting back to regularly scheduled programming next week.
The Bam Cam 