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I am feeling stabby and want to kill him. Several weeks ago, he asked me and a colleague to organise an awayday for our team. He said it should build on the last one. OK, we said, we can do that, but people will want some fun activities as well. He, and another colleague, have emailed us a vast list of "helpful" suggestions as to what we might do on the awayday. We realised there were some politics here, so said yes, how helpful, we will look at these and see what we can come up with.
We came up with several options for the day using the Shit Sandwich approach - a fun, team building warm up exercise, which will take around 45 minutes, then a quick coffee break, and onto the next exercise, which is his serious work one, finishing with a fun, but relevant activity after lunch.
He has vetoed every single fucking suggestion we have come up with, both for the fun activities and the serious bit in the middle. We are now a week away from the awayday, and I cannot tell you how much time we have wasted on this, as he won't consider ideas, but wants concrete plans, set out in writing.
We have come up with what we thought was a good plan, still using the Shit Sandwich approach. I have emailed him to tell him our latest suggestion which is exactly what he said he wanted for the serious bit. I have said that I don't want to divulge details of the two "fun" exercises, as it is important that everyone comes at these "blind" and doesn't have time to think about them.
I've just got an email (yes, sent this evening). He has vetoed our serious activity and has said we don't seem to have thought about Susan's suggestions. We did think about them, but Susan is as mad as a box of frogs and her suggestions were too. He has also vetoed our "fun" parts to the day, unless we can tell him concretely what they involve.
We have one week to go.
AIBU to tell him to shove the whole thing up his arse and he and Susan can come up with something between them.
And then to crack his fucking head open with an axe and leave the building?
Well done! 
But the quicker you are out of there, the better I would think (unless your boss would go of course ... that might be a real win-win)! 
Yay! Well done 
That Susan is a loon
Hurrah for Wang and his theorem! Everything about this thread has reminded me of the US The Office...this scene in particular but it could have been so many www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJo1rqNGCeI
Ha, you can thank him fir the vote if confidence, butW anker has chosen not to renew your contract. <innocent emoticon>
Or is that too shit stirring?!
I'm so pleased for you.
I suppose it's completely missing the point to ask if anybody learned anything?
Right, well, just to update you all. Susan confirmed that she is indeed as mad as a box of frogs. She had forgotten it was on, and called my boss to ask where everyone was and why she was the only one in the office. She finally turned up almost two hours late (no idea why) and sat there smiling like a Mormon, without participating in any activities, until I forced her to get off her arse and to be the scribe at the flip chart.
First activity (which Susan missed in its entirety, and which I was leading) went really well. Much better than I thought it would, though my boss sat there looking like he was sucking a lemon throughout. Keith and I went onto the serious activity, which we had decided to lead ourselves, splitting the group into two. Boss complained at this, and was told that everyone would come together at the end to share ideas on the two themes. This was a bit dry, but we have some very enthusiastic people, so we split them between the two teams and they sort of carried the exercise through (this was the shit in the sandwich) and got everyone else going. We managed to slip a bit of Susan's jargon idea into this, which increased her smile to that of spaced out druggie.
We kept an eye on the clock and it ran bang to time (that was another of his concerns, that we would run over). We had lunch, which was excellent, and much better than dull old sandwiches, then cracked on with the final activity, which was a fun one (but not actually ludo) and went down well. We finished bang on 4.30, whereupon Keith and I brought out the wine and everyone perked up. Everyone gave us three cheers, and the head honcho (my boss's boss and head of the office) who had appeared for the lunch and the last activity, said he thought it had gone exceptionally well, and made a joke about Keith and I starting up and running awaydays professionally. Everyone laughed dutifully, except Susan, who was in the corner with a bottle of Chardonnay, and my boss, who made his excuses and left at this point.
I didn't see my boss on Friday as he skives off works from home on a Friday, but Keith and I got a nice note from the head honcho thanking us again, saying how much everyone had enjoyed it (cc'd to my boss) and would we be prepared to run one for another office? So I would say, this was a win-win solution, with our strategy paying off, and all horizontal issues covered. Not to forget Wang and his Theorem. 
Was today the away day? Are you currently trying to drink yourself into oblivion in the hope that you'll forget everything? Have you been arrested for forcing an open, but still full, bottle of caterer's plonk into your boss where the sun don't shine? (And then maybe pumping it in and out a little to create a vacuum seal so that he needs medical assistance to remove it?)
Result!or get Susan to drink it all beforehand and find out if she is shagging the boss
I think I love you FW. I would employ you like a shot ... if I had a business.
Fantastic thread! Wang's theorem
I loathe awaydays with a passion and really want to go freelance just to avoid useless trainers trying to explain the difference between pre-pre consulting and pre-consulting (they couldn't, of course).
When is the big day? Can you keep us updated - a live corporate shite thread?
What an utter twat!
I have laughed so much at this thread, but karma has bitten me in the bum this week and given me a new boss who appears to be an asshole so far...
Let us know how the day goes!and don't forget lube for the baguette
Definitely the baguette manoeuvre, and could you make sure the training session is being film please.
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