Ice Breaker WHY?

[Icebreakhell]

A work meeting next week has scheduled a 1 hour!! Icebreaker where we’ve been asked to bring a photo or object that is meaningful and talk about it for 2 minutes!!

What sort of arsehole invented this stuff. I’m not an oversharer and I’m working on my weekend at the minute as we’re so busy. I font have time for this bullshit.

Feel like getting out if it will cause more stress than sitting there cringing, slowly dying and not listening to a word others stay as I’m do mortified.

Surely this sort of thing is now being discouraged by HR?

Ironically this was an ASD training course and apparently the aim of it was to make us feel how our autistic children feel when they're asked a question. So they were just basically trying to humiliate us and make us feel awkward and that was the whole point. I should have just said I had a cold and shouldn't get too close to anyone.

That reminds me of an old thread about CVs, where somebody had asked a friend to help her to compile a good one and, in the 'achievements' section, he put that she had invented jam and once shot a man in Reno just to see him die!

IIRC, she forgot to take the jokey bits out before submitting it, but she got the job - either the recruiter had missed that part too or had a great sense of humour!

The trick is to volunteer to go first, while everyone else is still thinking about having to do their turn.

No matter what you actually say, You get extra brownie points for offering to start, You can usually rely on an extra enthusiastic well done by whoever is facilitating the meeting, to encourage everyone else.

And ... crucially, no one one will be listening to what you said, as they will be thinking of their own part. You will not be repeating anything anyone has already said

And you get it over with and can enjoy seeing what sort of a hash everyone else is making of it.

Trust me, I'm known to be good at this sort of thing and this is how I do it. Enjoy.

🤣 I get it! Honestly, I do. I've never made anyone draw anything, let alone a pig but it did make me laugh. Like I said, it sounds cringeworthy. I wouldn't want to be drawing pigs, standing on chairs or staring into Bob from Marketing's eyes for 15 second either.

As to why these events are run it really depends. In my company it will be because the team manager has requested we run a session. It could be a generic team building thing for teams that work globally but are all in the UK at that time but more often than not it's on something reasonable like line manager training or safeguarding etc. The generic team building sessions are the worst for bringing out nonsense activities. If you can't say what the benefit of doing the training was, then it's been pretty crap training.

HATE Ice Breakers, thought they'd died out though haven't done one in ages

Isn't this the kind of thing they do in primary school?! It's called Show and Tell. Who thinks it's a good idea to bring into the work place?!

Posts like this make me even more grateful I took early retirement!

Presumably the icebreaker is at the beginning of the session ... can your bus/train be a bit late that day ?

Most recent one I attended, we had to explain the story behind our names. Who named us, why, what it means, fun facts etc.
Was incredibly boring, nearly all of us were 80s/90s babies so most were called Rebecca, Jessica, Rachel, Martin, Daniel, Sam etc.

'We had other people showing pictures of their family pre divorce then bursting into tears, crying over the death over their grandma and someone else divulging their pagan practices.'

I'm cringing myself inside out on your behalf! Some people don't know the concept of boundaries 🤦🏻‍♂️

I deliver a lot of training and I never ever do icebreakers when I'm in charge. I find them pointless and embarrassing, like all types of organised 'fun'. Most people seem to hate them, but I promise you that some people absolutely love them 🤷🏻

I hate them too. I get the worst anxiety. I make stuff up. It has to be linked to a truth, but is actually a lie. So for instance, I work on the a tube in London, and I say I once helped Leonardo di Caprio (or other celeb) get to Hampstead Heath (or other destination). Total bollocks.

Oh I love the story behind your name icebreaker.

Did it in a group that on the surface looked very monocultural but turned out to be very diverse, the guy called John Smith realised he was quite unique being the only solidly White British person there.

However this was also relevant to what we were doing, not just a random icebreaker.

Mine is "my mum liked it"

Mine is 'my dad secretly fancied a celebrity with the name and they thought my English relatives could pronounce it'

They couldn't.

Ours was 90% solidly white British people with very British names, mainly named because those names were in style at the time. 50+ people talking about why they are called Sarah isn't exactly a fun way to spend an hour

50+ doing an icebreaker? That's insane.

Last week, I had 'what would you cook if you were on Come Dine With Me'? Some people (not me) got really into it and started sharing recipes.

Love this! Maybe I should add my Duolingo streak to my CV

They aren't exactly going to be timing it and tell you you have 37.7 seconds left. You're over thinking it.

Take a vibrator

This is one of the pleasures of early retirement…

And one of the pleasures of self employment as I am free to choose my training course providers and any of them who do stupid ice breakers don't get any repeat business. And I'm not afraid to tell them that in post course feedback and if they phone up or email touting for more business. They're know exactly why I won't be using such firms again!