aibu regarding icebreakers

[ovaryhill]

When you've to stand up and tell a bunch of strangers all about yourself and your background, oh and and tell a funny fact about yourself on a training course
Would I be unreasonable to say 'it's none of your bloody business, '?

I think it's odd to spend a day or 5 in a room with 20 or so other people and none of you want to even be there.

Say: I won the local shot putting competition in my hometown when I was 15

Or something random yet memorable

I've done training where there were also bad icebreakers, and I have run training courses. I know a lot of people hate them and it's the "awkward/embarrasing" part, but I think they serve a purpose.
I avoid physical, personal ones and use the general ones like "a week fully paid trip for yourself, wher would you visit" or "in 2012 the olympics happened did you like them or loathe them."
If someone can't think or goes blank, I won't put them on the spot and I always tell people they don't have to share and can make something up if they like- the point is just to get people talking, not to force them to give away their information.
The worst trainings I have held and been on are where someone refuses to take part then makes a big scene about refusing to answer, what's the point of this etc. Yes, if you want to say "I'm sorry, please skip me" fine. But they don't, they make a big deal of how awful it is, it's against their principles to be "forced" into this etc etc which really ruins the mood, makes everyone who was enjoying things feel shit or dislike the "complainer". So you don't want to "share" yourself but you are happy to rant on about your feelings about icebreakers and sabotage it for others? Sorry, that does not add up.

I have to do this type of thing at least once a year. The last one had us drawing on large pieces of paper a few things, including the notorious fact no-one else knows. I have multiple complex disabilities, including being unable to write (I use my Ipad / PC) and I use crutches. I was also heavily pregnant and struggles to stand up. The whole thing made me feel completely isolated - do I struggle to try and do it, or refuse and look like a trouble maker?

In the end i left my paper blank and just spoke. My fact about myself was despite multiple disabilities I do my job extremely well, with the aid of new technologies I often forget I'm disabled, as do my colleagues, except when I have to do ridiculous exercises like this, when I don't have the opportunity to be resourceful and then I am reminded of all the things I can't do.

Worse than that was a train the trainer event. The facilitator went on about recognising the needs of those in the room then took us all outside where we had to run about ("Over here if you are a visual thinker! Quick!"). I hobbled after everyone for the first few, then sat on a bench for the rest. Trainer didn't make any attempt to include me or engage with me, and colleagues looked increasingly embarrassed until one of them came and sat with me.

The last lot of training i went on, it was wonderfully easy to divert the lovely trainer into talking about her past jobs. I know more about Ribena and Lucozade than i ever wanted to know. She also spoke endlessly about her wonderful work in prisons (very laudable). She did claim at one point that she would be able to offer suggestions on how we could have made a bad customer service situation worse, not matter what it was. Oddly enough, she had less than no idea how she could have improved the situation that i described to her.

When it comes to courses like that, the trainers should just get on with it and teach the course. The general consensus is that the sooner you get going, the sooner you can go home again!

YANBU! This is one of my pet hates. I don't mind doing an icebreaker along the lines of name, job role, what you want to get out if the training etc, but when they ask you an interesting fact about yourself ir something personal I instantly feel like I am the most boring person in the room and my mind goes blank and worry what to say to create the right impression. That's me completely iced over when I usually would have entered the training quite thawed! Plus most of my training is internal so enough people usually know me that lying isn't an option and the people I don't know I want to make a decent impression on as likely to end up working with them at some point!

Mind you the worst ice breaker I have had was to come up with a 3 word marketing slogan for our latest remit, when I don't work in marketing and don't have a creative bone in my body, and didn't really agree with the policy anyway. Everyone else thought of something apart from me. I was not de-iced for the rest of the session!

bearsinmotion

God I HATE these. If you have self esteem issues already about not being good enough, nothing tortures you more than pressure to seem interesting or have a funny story in front of others who are bound to judge you ie. course leader and your peers. Excruciating and designed to showcase the extroverts , one of whom prob came up with it. Introverts do have skills/merit that this just doesnt showcase. Its an old tired format too tbh. Surely thats not 'modern' HR these days? Or are they still doing this and 'role play'. Yawn.

Bears that is appalling.

I didn't do an icebreaker at the last training I facilitated. It was only a morning session, there were only seven people who all knew each other, it was training that they'd specifically requested to be involved in so I knew what they wanted from the session so I couldn't see the point!

Op yanbu I am introverted but not shy, and quite like public speaking. I'm totally happy talking in a group or feeding back from a larger group but really feel some icebreakers are just to humour the trainer or facilitator. The whole 'tell me something interesting about yourself' is made out to be quite trivial and simple but is actually a value judgement. You are being expected to guess what other people will consider interesting in a v short space of time. Very confident people won't give a shit what other people think but is that necessarily a good thing?

MrsTerry you say that all adult education advice says you should do an ice breaker. Is there a risk this is becoming accepted fact without being questioned. And if it is so absolutely essential why does it happen so little, or less formerly, in children and adolescent education?

I like an opportunity to introduce ourselves and say what we do etc. but anything that's 'forced fun' beyond that would infuriate me.

Thankfully, any courses I do stick to the conventional way of introductions.

How is is an "ice breaker" if it makes someone feel incredibly uncomfortable and panicky?

Perhaps some people are happy to not have the 'ice broken' anyway. Just get on with the course and tell us what you need to tell us.
Or better still just print it off and give it us.

bearsinmotion raises really good points - all the dashing about physical type stuff which some trainers like can be really uncomfortable - she was obviously treated really badly in those sessions, but people can be made uncomfortable by a lot less. I did NCT classes with SPD and our teacher used to, I suppose, "break the sessions up" by making us all sit on the floor in a different part of the room at a certain point and I started dreading it, I would ache badly for hours afterwards. I didn't have the nous to say "I'm bringing my chair with me" but I don't know why and I don't see why I should have had to. You can't make assumptions about people's phsyical capabilities.

I think sometimes the trainer's job is not just to impart information but to bring the group together, where it's an internal team being trained. Then you can see why they feel forced to put emphasis on this sort of stuff but I still feel that the employer is kind of crossing a line in deciding that it is necessary or even always acceptable to decree that people have to bond emotionally (be exposed to their colleagues emotionally) to work well together. In fact this can go very badly wrong where decisions at work get made that people don't like and they feel personally betrayed, rather than inconvenienced. Then you get tantrums and rancour and wide ranging repercussions.

I often wish, in lots of situations, that we could have more blatant clarity about what function certain social activities are supposed to fulfill. Like - all the things the church does seemingly every saturday night - if they are genuinely intended as fund raisers, I don't believe this is the most efficient way of getting your regular congregation to throw more money in (this is what it amounts to, a top up donation from a hard core bunch of regulars, there is no new money or new people contributing at these things). If the intention is to bring new people in, it;s not working. If the intention is just to provide outlets for people who like socalising with their likeminded community then fine but really let's just be clear about it, it's not for everyone and that's fine. I do feel sometimes a little aggressed by the notion that to be contributing to your community you have to be physically emotionally socially full time present.

When I was training in my old job I missed a day so had to sit in and catch up with the newer students. One had just done a laughter therapy course, seriously, so our tutor decided we should spend an hour laughing. For fucks sake.

YANBU OP. It's like creeping death waiting for your turn to come around. I would much rather just do a straight introduction and get on with the training!

Actually the ice breaking stuff can sometimes get in the way of what I actually want to know:

full name
Job, where you work

I don't really care that John has two holes in his socks. I want to know that he is John SMith from the Luton office of x organisation who works in marketing and reports to a name I recognise.

I would agree with PPs that the thing I hate about it is the pressure to share your whole self with your work. I used to work in an industry where there was a lot of "change in the business model" (= redundancies and relocations), it made me rageous to see how my talented scientist colleagues were being screwed, and the veneer of politeness and professionalism I developed to cope with it was pretty thin, enough to get through the working day, but not sufficient to get through training courses, where you're both being asked to share your whole self, and also be really, really happy about every aspect of your job.

I read somewhere (Dorothy Rowe) that we go around the whole time with unspoken compacts with the world, that, if they are broken, we really go off the deep end about. For me the compact with my work has always been that you have my time for x hours a day and while I am there I will work, I'll try to change things where they are being done wrong and if a decision goes against me I'll suck it up and take my orders, and that in return I get my money and the right to have my own opinions. It works for about 99% of the working year On the one or two days of training I usually have an existential crisis followed by a large

Aah but parking some of that can be covered by writing it on the cardboard triangle that you have on the desk, and the attractive sticker on your top that you are made to wear.

I feel the same, really dread and break out in a cold sweat as my turn approaches. I never feel that I have anything interesting to say and really dislike speaking up in front of a group. I hope the trainers on here don't see that as a slight on them, the vast majority of trainers I have encountered are very good, and I don't blame them for it

In my job there are a couple of courses that, legally, we have to do every year. It is with the same people you work with day in, day out and the trainers are also people you work with (they have been trained as trainers). Luckily, most of the time we skip icebreakers, I doubt anyone would take them seriously anyway.

The training courses where we have mixed departments usually start with who you are and where you work. That is fine and useful. Anything more than that, I feel is unnecessary and intrusive.

I really don't get the point of 'icebreakers' - what ice? and why does it have to be broken? I went on a training course on Friday and specifically requested no stupid icebreakers: we just introduced ourselves and briefly outlined our experience with the area we were being trained in, as much for the trainer's benefit as anyone's. Perfect.

I went on one [council delivered] course that the icebreaker was to split the group into teams and make them play table jenga.

At the end she said that it was specifically chosen as a teamwork exercise.

I might have said 'how is Jenga in any way teamwork, and if that's the council's idea of teamwork then heaven help us'.

It went on to be the worst course I have ever been on.

I knew it was going badly when I travelled 50 miles to get there and turned up early and they delayed the start because three people hadn't got there [in a group of 30] because there had been a local traffic incident. I said 'I've got here early and had to travel 50 miles to do so - don't you think it a little rude to all the people who got here on time?' No visible understanding from the tutor of why this is an issue.

I got used as a learning case at a training session once. We were all being trained to do out of hours work that involved emotional work and the potential of having to deal with recently bereaved people.

The "icebreaker" for the session was to tell your partner about the last funeral you were at. I tried to tell my partner about it - my cousin had died tragically - and I ended up bursting into tears and having to leave the room.

I was mortified and furious (this was my first professional job, the job I had wanted all my life, and I was humiliating myself in front of my new colleague).

The trainer said, when I pulled myself together and came back into the room "you see, that's a demonstration of how you bring your own history and emotions to everything you do".

I didn't have the confidence to complain to HR about that. Thankfully one of my colleagues did.

vvviloa.