Happy Friday everyone!
In the most recent episode of the podcast (you should give it a listen if you haven’t already!), the team spoke about how the Olympics have started. After talking about Eugene Amo-Dadzie, the world’s fastest accountant, the discussion turned to office Olympics.
That got me thinking that with the Olympics going on, firms are probably using it as an excuse for team building days and sports days.
I was wondering whether any of you have any experiences of being forced into corporate sports days, do you have any funny stories?
And do any of you enjoy taking part or is it something that you dread?
Hope you all have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!
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Staff prefer a good meal out.
All we have done is hire the bowling alley a good few times, at a local with a superb ex Army chef. Every body brings their children. Nobody chooses not to attend.
Sports day teambuilding would not be popular if people had the choice of a paid day off as the alternative.
I suspect most contributors are in fairly small firms.
A superb ex-army chef… heh heh!
An old boy I once worked with, of WW2 vintage, once told me how they’d take turns in the NCOs’ mess at shouting out “Who called the cook a c*nt?”Whereupon the entire mess would chorus back “Who called the c*mt a cook?”
Team effort! Just sayin’. No podcasts available.
Cannot imagine anything that ghastly. Now I appreciate Edinburghers are retiring individuals, not given to good cheer, but I would rather have sliced off my ears than participate in such an office event.
Years ago,1983, on graduating , I was applying to Bank of America for roles as an investment banker (having studied Eng Lit I can work out the rhyme) until I discovered that they had a company song that was sung in the mornings in their offices- I binned my application.
I learnt the hard way to try avoid these things after I ended up in casualty after a Big 4 paintballing event (driving myself to hospital with just one functioning hand was the main challenge/achievement). I still have the (quite impressive) scars.
Big 4 paintballing… seriously?
That sounds rather moral-sapping. Who would dare splat a senior partner? We who are about to dye salute you!
Bit off the subject of corporate team building events, but more on paintballing,
about 20 years ago I didn't know what paintballing was. I had seen an advert where an artist was throwing tiny balloons full of paint onto a giant canvas and then proceeding to create a work of art from it, and thought that must be what paintballing is.
So, on a family holiday to Centreparcs I booked myself and 11 year old daughter into a paintballing session, thinking we would be taking part in a creative activity.
Thankfully I found out what it actually was as my husband and son took off on their archery workshop and I cancelled our "paintballing" event before the two of us got blasted black and blue with paint bullets :( :)
Me too. We've had to endure constant football, then tennis and now the olympics?
:( Why suffer more of that with work mates?
Work time is for work. Time off is for spending with friends and family.
"That got me thinking that with the Olympics going on, firms are probably using it as an excuse for team building days and sports days."
Really?
I guess there must be at least one firm out there whose mind works in that curious way ... but none that I've encountered (whether small or conglomerate, and all points in between).
TBH I haven't found anyone remotely interested in the Olympics.
A trawl of a few drinking establishments in central London this afternoon found plenty of giant TV screens (often multiples in different areas/rooms of the premises) ... with Cricket, Football even overseas 'sports' = Yes. But whenever a commentator mentioned forthcoming Olympics events, there were generally shouts of derision and calls to change the channel.
"whenever a commentator mentioned forthcoming Olympics events, there were generally shouts of derision and calls to change the channel".
Oh come on ... not even any interest in the Break Dancing?
I attended a live music event last night and had the misfortune to be seated next a man who talked about nothing but the Olympics, something I have no interest in. I tried my best to steer the conversation towards music (ie the band we'd both apparently paid money to see..) but he looked totally blank at me and just mentioned the Olympics again. I suspect he was on the autism spectrum, but then some people have suggested that about me. He must've been much further up the scale than I am!
The ghost of Long John Baldry?
For those too young to recall, Long John sang the Mexico Olympics’ official song. “Take it from me, there’s so much to see, in Mexico…”. And what a better song it was than the England team’s “Back Home” effort two years later in the World Cup (which was also held in Mexico). Why on earth did we bring Bobby Charlton off when we were two-nil up! Just saying.
I used to belong to a group that aimed to improve individual skills and, ironically, there were quite a few 'Team Building Skills Sessions". After a while, however, you should realise that the real aim of these sessions is to sort out the leaders from the followers (hence the improvement to individual skills). So in any team building session, make sure that you end up the leader of the session team and not just a participator, but you will require the skill to do this without the others realising what is going on.
Every team needs a leader.
I gave up way back in around 1988 ... when my (already cynical) eyes were fully opened at a 'Management Development' weekend.
Lovely accommodation (large manor in vast acres of rural idyll) and a free bar-tab (mistake).
After a boring Induction session on Friday afternoon, we were split into groups and all given the same task - prepare a business justification proposal for X, and after scripting it and allocating 'parts' to team members, film it on the video camera provided. The winner would be voted tomorrow after all the films had been shown.
I had one of my instant 'good/mad' ideas, suggested it to my group and was promptly voted leader (possibly because no-one else was brave/stupid enough).
My idea?
As soon as all the other teams had rushed off to organise (and argue about) who was responsible for which activity ... The Apprentice didn't exist then but you get the idea ... whilst my team repaired to the Bar to explore the finer vintages.
Except for those who'd been given one of the other teams as their 'target' .. and were on watch for the key moment when 'their team' gave up for the night.
Why? Because their job was to note exactly where the video camera had been left in that team's room.
To my dismay, some of the teams then locked the door to 'their' room (untrusting souls) ... but several didn't.
And at around 2am we visited all the unlocked rooms and 'borrowed' the video camera (and any tapes just to be certain) for secure storage elsewhere.
Emboldened by the ease of this (and no doubt fuelled with alcohol), some of the team volunteered to try a little house-breaking (well hotel-breaking) - which involved scrambling up drainpipes to the windows of the target locked rooms (on the first floor) and joyfully finding the windows open (it was Summer!)
Result?
We expected to win - since we were now the only team with an ability to film anything - and retired for the rest of the night.
With bleary eyes and throbbing heads we got up at 7:30 to film anything (no story, no script, anything is better than nothing) ... only to find that the other teams had discovered their losses and (after accusing each other of incompetence) had gone 'running to teacher' - and we were now DISQUALIFIED!
I briefly tried to explain that if the other teams were our competitors (and given that we'd committed no crimes or fraud), I'd probably have been made a Director.
Instead I resigned on the spot ... and went on to better things (having learned that bosses, and indeed clients, rarely say what they actually want)!
We recently had a team building treasure hunt day, followed by a meal. That wasn't so bad. Not inspired by the olympics, and our office has enough people (around 50) that we rarely interact with a lot, so came in handy to meet some new starters etc.
Unfortunately, I was driving, so couldn't join in with the beer at the meal, but it was warm, and sunny, and I drive a convertible, so I had my own fun.
Our last team event was a 45km cycle ride around Lake Annecy, with a lunch stop towards the end. Ebikes for the less able (me!), the hardcore cyclists were at the front and back looking after us all!
We have done a Strava challenge where we walked, ran or cycled to cover the distance from our French office to our UK office. My contribution was a few kms of walking but every bit counts!
There are also ski days, I am in the "can't ski so have to go to the spa" group!
Location is pretty significant. Chamonix is a very sporty town so the team is made up of ultra marathoners, mad mountain bikers, skiers and climbers.
A company I worked for in the 90's had regular away days, and one of them was on the theme of a school sports day. We had to dress in vintage kit, and then undertake old fashioned sports (sack race, tug of war, etc).
The only thing was the hotel we were at was also hosting the local BMW dealership's launch of the new 3 series, so every five minutes we were passed by a convoy of cars containing the local successful businessmen / women. They tried to pretend that we didn't exist...
