Ice breakers - I hate them with every fibre of my soul but have been asked to organise two for Friday

[catin8oots]

9 colleagues. 4 new, never met before. All women if that's relevant?

Please help me before I quit my job 😀

say that you hate them, as do about 90% of the population so everyone will say a quick hello and introduce themselves.
Why would you do ice breakers?

Are they wanting you to do one of those wanky team building days? Because yuck and no.

Just have a coffee afternoon?

Do you have a budget this game is more fun than it sounds and is good for breaking the ice and getting to know each other wavelength

If not a quiz / dingbats / GCHQ type problem solving

See if there's any printable packs you can download from Etsy

Tequila slammer endurance
Russian roulette
Iron maiden escape challenge

I hate icebreakers, as do most people - I'm sure they'd all be grateful if you just didn't do it!

However, if you have to, one that I've used before is to put it a bowl of Smarties or M&Ms and get everyone to take 2. Then everyone has to answer questions based on their selected colours, so blue might be "Where did you grow up?" and green "Do you have any pets?" Etc - obviously you change the questions for something more relevant, but nothing too pressured.

I've also done one that was a bit more interactive, where people submitted a fact about themselves beforehand - doesn't have to be particularly outrageous, just something that's reasonably likely to be unique (doesn't matter if it's not completely unique though - something like "I have a sausage dog called Brian" or "I once met Noel Edmonds"). Then everyone gets a "bingo card" with all the facts on it, and they have to go round the room and match people to facts. It's not completely horrific and you learn random interesting things about people.

I'd quit. Fuck that shit. Every single person hates them.

Last year we had to do something similar with colleagues we'd never met face to face- we all WFH.

We each had to name 3 things about themselves, but only 1 or maybe it was 2, were the truth. We could pre-plan before the day, and had our 3 things ready. Such as:
-I am a champion slalom skiier
-I crochet stuffed animals
-I enjoy making sushi

The others had to guess which was the truth.

Another activity was personality types. I think we each had to answer about 20, multiple choice questions on our own, which then said you are personality type A, or B etc. Each type had strengths/weaknesses.

I'm sure there are better/other activities though.

That absolutely does sound horrific.

Stranger bingo.

" It's not completely horrific and you learn random interesting things about people."
It is horrific
I don't want to learn 'interesting' facts about any colleagues
Most people make shite up anyway when forced into that sort of thing

This is the only answer you need OP.

We didn’t do traditional ones recently - one was build a tower with spaghetti, tape and marshmallows within a time frame.
Another a work based group quiz. People naturally talk, no need to force it.

and these are grown ups? ( and those really really aren't different ideas)

I mean, I'm taking it as read that all icebreakers are horrific, but I promise this one isn't too bad because you're never on the spot with everyone watching you, and you have time to think of your fact beforehand - plus it can be a very mundane fact, so no pressure to sound interesting.

I agree about not wanting to learn fun facts about my colleagues, but isn't that the point of icebreakers? No one wants to talk to anyone else in the room, let's face it, but OP has to come up with something!

Engineers so I guess they like building stuff 🤣
tbf it was alright for an icebreaker, better than talking about yourself

Two icebreakers. Fucking two! Isn’t one bad enough. Who do you work for, the flipping Spanish Inquisition? Nah, fuck that shit. Round the room saying names, and what job you do is more than enough.

5 Questions

An app on your phone you would recommend to people
A favorite photo on your phone and why
A timesaving household hack you would recommend
A childhood TV show you loved
A question for the next icebreaker

Well because my manager asked me organise. I have a great job. Good salary.Fully remote. So flexible. So I will just have to suck this one up

Different within my team.

We did two truths and a lie at the last one

but she doesn't have to come up with anything other than introductions.
All ice breakers are horrific as I don't want to be treated like a 6 year old building spaghetti towers when I'm meant to be doing grown up work

The only way this would be acceptable is if you ate the marshmallows, cooked the spaghetti and used the tape to lasso the facilitator to a tree while you all fucked off to the pub.

Working is bad enough as it is. Why make it even worse with all this bullshit?

I know I know my soul
Is telling me to quit but I need this job.

Please help me

Do a pairs game
Fish has to find chips
Bread has to find butter etc

They simply just chat and find report a fact back that they didn't know about each other. Very informal. Noone under pressure

you really don't.
Politely say the vast majority of people hate them so best not to do it.
if people keep going along with this bollocks it will carry on

So don't do it. Keep it simple.

Get everyone a brew, sat round the table, pass the biscuits round and just ask everyone to give a basic "Hi, I'm Cornish, I live in My Town, I have a dog and 95 cats, I came here from X company and I have 450yrs experience in the role".