Duly noted. By the way, “instructor” is spelled with an “o” rather than an “e.” 
Me and daHubby work for the same agency, so we have had to endure two “retreats” with the entire office. The first one should have been an indicator that doing another was a Bad Idea, what with several younger staff members caught streaking and the director of the agency getting shitfaced and nearly killing herself on a broken beer bottle. The retreat was held at a state park and I can just imagine the rep we had when we left. The only good thing about the whole mess was daHubby and I went horseback riding every evening we were there. It was the only way he could keep me from telling everyone to fuck off and go home.
The second retreat was the last. I guess they finally got the idea that no one wanted to be stuck in a room with people they barely knew was enough.
slaps forehead You mean I could have applied for a job working with Cecil’s team???
screams in anguish loud enough to scare the cats
We have our annual summer outing coming up next week. The intent is to bolster morale, and encourage cooperation.
It starts at about 2pm, goes until sundown. Barbecue (or as close as New England can get to barbecue), burgers, dogs, beer. Volleyball, bocce, soccer, a pool.
Oh, and we all just got the memo: “Due to falling utilization, please increase your chargeable hours that week to avoid charging overhead.” So, those already on overhead (some of whom rarely put in a full forty anyway) go for the whole afternoon, and the rest of us try to get there before all the beer is gone.
My god, Plynck, I think we work for the same company.
As soon as you said ‘falling utilization’ and ‘overhead’, I thought holy shit, this guy is a coworker of mine.
Then I looked at your location and noted that it is actually a real possibility.
Eh, if they want to pay me to go do these inane activities, fine, I guess. It’s a waste of money, though. Can managers be so clueless to think that these things will actually improve morale and teamwork?
My current company’s idea of “teambuilding” is to have a functional working team at work. We don’t do stupid activities. If we want to have a party, we have a party. This means we all go do something fun, with lots of drinks paid for by the company.
I like my company.
Our company doesn’t do “team-building”.
They don’t collect for birthdays.
They don’t do Secret Santa.
And, no one asks for it. It’s nice. Managers that have to do “team building” aren’t good managers.
Hey, these things are great!
At a previous company we got to play laser tag and go out for pizza afterwards. Not bad as I picked up the HR girl I’d had my eye on in the process.
The next time was pure heaven. I worked as part of the Accounting group. I think the average age was ~50 years old. I was just over 30 at the time. They decided they wanted to play ice hockey. You have no idea how hard it is to make it look like you can’t skate. But if you can pull it off you have the perfect excuse to cross-check the 60 year old accounting hag to the ice at full speed. And did you know that if you look like you are going for the puck any number of possible injuries can result from a flailing hockey stick? Also, I fired a puck at the VP of Accounting (and I will swear on a stack of bibles that it was unintentional. Did I mention I was an atheist?) nailing him right between the eyes, breaking his glasses and giving him a nasty cut across the bridge of the nose. Unfortunately, it was only a plastic puck and not the real thing. Oddly enough we never did external team building again. 
I’ll see you at the outing, then, and buy you a free beer if there are any left. Look for me, oh I don’t know, around twilight.
This was my experience with the one and only official company offsite team-building exercise I’ve been on. We went to a very nice resort in the Muskoka Lakes (a couple of hours north of Toronto), we each had our own room, the company paid for meals and drinks, and even though there were lectures, the activities were kind of fun. Overall, a positive experience.
Unofficially, it wasn’t unheard of for the boss of our department to call a “department meeting” on a Friday afternoon. These were infrequent, but generally took place at a nearby bar, where we’d spend the afternoon shooting pool, eating an extended lunch, and having a beer. Sure, we talked business, but it wasn’t in a stuffy meeting room. Again, a nice break.
But as for the onsite team-building activities–the PTB must have been taking tips from the book of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss. Mandatory, inane, and loaded with far too many buzzwords and phrases.
Yep. Real teams build themselves. They go and hang out without having to be ordered to.
And all o’ y’all need to put the movie Severance on your Netflix queues. Look at the “plot summary” line on the first page of the IMDB entry and read nothing else. Watch the movie as unspoiled as possible. Trust me. 
Amen. And it’s part of our corporate culture, so they are required. I just try to make 'em as fun as I can. ::shrug:: What you gonna do?
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edit* Cervaise, I may just have to schedule a team-building and show that movie! 
Does your company have offices in different locations? Cause I work… somewere other than MA.
I got the entire office to watch Office Space, at work, one week.
I was very proud of myself. It was surprisingly team-building, and also helped us eliminate certain things by calling them TPS reports. I should point out that the management also watched the movie.
We also did a few Circleline cruises around the City. That, not so much fun, but it was great to get outdoors for a bit midday. During work hours.
Not to one-up you, but we watched Office Space… at an off-site team-building weekend! Ha ha! In fact, halfway through the movie, some people (mainly managers) were suggesting we turn it off and put on some music and drink. Everyone else voted to finish the movie (beers in hand), including a woman in her late 60s who said, “Oh no! We have to finish it. This is WONDERFUL!”
Finish it we did, with a good deal of drinking too.
We had something liek this once, too. We prepared by spending a good hour or or doing an online survey full of crap like this, and when we got to the site, we found out what “type” we were.
I grew up on this board and my internal monologue is basically a 24/7 Lewis Black rant. I know what type I am.
The site was CA Culinary Academy, and the team-building event was cooking as a group of like 40 people. It was okay, but and the end of the day I was thinking “so they paid $400 a head to tell us shit we already knew and to cook our own goddamn lunch?” Bu thten the manager bought us all a bunch of wine and we didn’t care as much.
At the veterinary school I’m attending, the Big Cheeses decided it would be wonderful if all the incoming freshmen attended a ropes course before starting classes so we could get to know one another. After all, we were a big group of strangers who would soon be spending more time together under more stress than most family members.
They also wanted to kill some of the clickiness students in medicine are famous for.
Because it’s so totally reasonable to have no clicks in a group of 130 people.
See, they had tried this in the past with a group of volunteers, who all gave the program rave reviews. Of course, the fact that their guinea pigs were the exact dipshits who enjoy buzzwords and personality quizzes failed to sink in on the Cheeses.
3 days of precious summer vacation wasted on “get everyone across the lava” and “effective meeting techniques” crap.
And, they ran out of booze the first night.
I agree that, for the most part, they suck. But earlier this week we had a team outing at Whirlyball and it was FUN! 
Most people in cubeland have no idea about one another and see each other as vague threats. If you can pull them outside of a work context and let them get to know each other a little bit, that’s a good thing. The best way to do this is let everybody get drunk on the company tab during work hours, with management showing up early and leaving early. The worst way to do this is with gay activities like blindfolded mini-golf in the company parking lot at 6PM, with a surprise pop quiz at the end about what you’re personally going to do to make the company better (written and documented). The concept is good but the implementation is usually fatally flawed.
Huh. Our “team activities” usually involve going out to bars and restaurants. 