Articles
The bank is holding a team-building event off-site this weekend. Because of the current trend of cost-cutting, however, the "off-site" will be held in Hong Kong, on an empty floor in our office building. People have therefore started calling it an "on-site". But, really, it's just a ruined weekend.
The programme consists of a morning of presentations and an afternoon of team-building. Team-building normally means some sort of game or activity that makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
Typical team-building exercises are things like leading each other around blindfolded, building some pointless contraption, or play-acting in front of a camera. I've never understood how making people do things they are nervous about, particularly involving physical contact or video cameras, is supposed to improve morale, but it's very much the norm these days.
So the day starts with a few introductory remarks by the CEO, and then the first presenter takes the stage and we all pull out our BlackBerrys. I'm the last speaker before lunch, and in the vain hope of livening everyone up, I start off with a joke and say how glad I am to be at this "off-site" because I really have nothing much else to do on the weekend. Nobody laughs.
At lunch I make the terrible mistake of sitting next to the new head of Southeast Asia M&A (mergers and acquisitions). Today is his first day officially working with us and I thought I'd be friendly and introduce myself.
"Hi, I'm Alan Alanson. You must be Barry. How's your first day at work going?" I say.
Barry turns from his plate and with a mouth full of food says: "Oh, I was hoping one of those young babes would take that chair." He then laughs unnervingly loudly at his remark as I try to avoid the spray.
I reply, trying not to sound too serious, "If this were your first day at high school, I'm still not sure that would be an appropriate thing to say." He assumes I am joking: "What's the matter? You like the boys better, do you?" and again launches into raucous laughter. Everyone around the table begins to look very uncomfortable.
I know this is a normal way of communicating for a lot of people, but I got bored with this kind of humour about 20 years ago. The standard approach is to be concerned about not offending the offensive and to change the subject. But on this occasion, I can't be bothered, and since I'm more senior than this guy, I feel I can speak my mind.
"Do me a favour and drop the dumb jokes, would you? I'm starting to feel embarrassed to be sitting here."
This has no effect at all. "Gee, where's your sense of humour?" Barry says before getting up to refill his plate at the buffet. To my relief, he doesn't come back, but I can hear his uncomfortably loud laughter from the other side of the room, where he is talking the ear off some poor female analyst.
Once lunch is over, it's time for the team-building exercise. The responsibility for designing this part of the programme has been given to Melanie, one of the office managers. Melanie seems to like organising things. She is the one who manages the fire drills, sets up the monthly drinks and heads the social committee.
The exercise Melanie has come up with is called "Frog Catapult", which involves building something.
We are split into teams of five or six and given some PVC pipes, rubber tubes, string and a bunch of toy frogs filled with sand. The aim of the game is to build the most powerful and accurate catapult and then fling the toy frogs at large targets shaped like water lilies.
I don't know where Melanie got the idea, but I'm pretty sure this game was not originally intended to be played indoors.
When the first group to complete a prototype flings a test frog, it goes directly into one of the fluorescent lights above and showers the whole team with shards of glass.
The second team to test a catapult fires the frog right into the refreshments table, creating a spectacular explosion of potato chips and peanuts.
The third frog narrowly misses the CEO, who absent-mindedly wanders across the lily pads while looking at his BlackBerry.
But we soldier on. Melanie announces that time is up and the teams all line up for the frog-flinging competition. The game certainly proves that bankers can't do anything practical, as none of the teams can land a frog anywhere near the targets. All is not lost, though. When Barry's team has its turn, instead of the frog flying forwards, because of an engineering miscalculation, the entire catapult flies backwards - and lands on Barry.
He is uninjured, but his glasses are knocked off his head and broken. Not having a spare pair, he has to head home. The good news, however, is that he won't be back in time for dinner. This news immediately results in a great boost to morale and proves, even to me, that team-building exercises aren't always a waste of time.
A frog-flinging competition and a lost weekend: the joys of team building
Sunday, September 7, 2008
