To feel like resigning to avoid a horrible team building event

[evilharpy]

It's been announced that my team (of about 15, all of whom I like but most of whom I don't know very well at all) is being sent to a team building event at the end of February. It's three days. Residential. Outdoor physical stuff. In February. It will be wet and freezing. We will have to share rooms. I hate the outdoors, especially when it's wet and freezing. I hate physical stuff unless it's a nice gym-based class. I will have to buy suitable outdoor clothes. And most of all I hate hate hate sharing rooms even with very close friends and will be desperately uncomfortable and miserable the entire time. The only way it could possibly be worse is if it involved camping.

I won't actually resign obviously (for one thing my notice period is longer than the end of Feb) but I will probably worry about it every single day until it's over.

Has anyone been on anything similar and can either confirm that it will be miserable or convince me that it might actually be fun?

I don't actually mind the room sharing but hate hate hate the outdoorsy stuff. I think a firm but understated announcement that you won't be going is fine. Tell your boss - or whoever is organising it - with a short note to HR if this is relevant. Don't offer any more information unless you are asked why, in which case just say 'medical reasons'. If they are crass enough to ask what the medical reasons are, just say you don't want to discuss them. Sound embarrassed but don't be drawn into a conversation. Hell - you could have a colostomy bag or a mastectomy or something similar where sharing a room would be a nightmare but THIS IS NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS.

How awful. You could say no re childcare ? Also I would refuse to share, I'd want to be paid to attend and / or have extra holiday.

I would not be buying clothes to attend unless reimbursed upfront and I would want to see sight of the insurance policy. I would also want to know who would be liable should I be injured and who would cover my costs for childcare should I be unable to work due to injury/ sickness and would that be on my record as sick when it's caused by being made to attend a company event.

I would also enquire how I would be reimbursed as of course I don't want to be taxed on any benefits such as childcare not lose out on tax credits should I get them.

I would be interested in seeing the guide lines produced by HR in these times of PC correctness on room sharing and being possibly shouted at for being shit at rafting etc.

surely the pint of team building is deciding how to do things as a team and starting off by dictating the type of event isn't very teamy....

I once refused to do this and the bikini sauna after. Creepy fucker male manager said I wasn't a team player and it would look bad. No shit Sherlock, but HR was different then, because this was the HR team building plan.

I think it's important to step outside your comfort zone and try to be open to the possibility that you might actually enjoy it. Even if it only makes you appreciate the rest of your life so much more when it's over! Don't deny yourself the potential to change. Have fun!

I was in the same position a few years ago. I dreaded going as I wasn’t an outdoors person either. I had to buy clothes to go, which wasn’t cheap, and I was also about 20 years older than everyone else who was going!

I’m not overly introverted but I do find these situations difficult and exhausting. People expect you to be gregarious and ‘fun’ and I hate it! I feel judged for not being like that and have to make an effort to be more like that. Incidentally, that’s only at work and never in my private life. I have friends who truly value and love me for who I am.

I don’t think you can refuse to go as, if your company is like mine, it will impact on your annual appraisal, where, you will be criticised for not being a ‘team player’. I love the company I work for but, with some dickhead managers, there can be so much office politics.

Anyway, after all the above, I went and it wasn’t easy, but I look back on it as one of the best experiences I’ve had! I was out of my comfort zone a lot of the time but it was confidence building and people were supportive. The weather was awful but it didn’t matter. I felt so proud of myself for pushing myself to do things I didn’t think I’d be able to do. I came home with a rosy glow that lasted for weeks and it did have a positive impact on me. It was definitely worth it.

We were away for five nights, but we didn’t have to share a room, so I get that that’s a bummer. It will be ok, so try not to worry (rich coming from me who worried about going for months). Good luck!!

We had an outdoor team building event in December last year. So cold I had to wear ski wear. And I loved it! We got to drive segways and cars with reverse steering.
I'd say the instructors generally know what people are capable of and tailor the activity to suit. I also once cried at breakfast and threatened to resign when a different company sent me white water rafting. It was one of my best days ever!
I'd look upon this as an adventure and opportunity if I were you. Start building your fitness today, so that you can handle everything thrown at you. You can improve a lot in 2 months.
Bring ear plugs in case your room mate snores and bring some for your room mate if you snore

I know someone who worked for a US software giant that sent its staff on a 'team building' outdoor survival course.

You know the type of thing. Where they push you to the limits of endurance and you discover things about yourself you never realised.

It caused terrible divisions, because you see aspects of people you didn't want to know about.

Few people are dignified under unexpected pressure.

As a result of the team building, people started to leave in the months after.

If you have to go along, don't try to be a leader. (Everyone ends up hating them). Just meekly go along with everything and don't be emotionally engaged in anything whatsoever.

Keep a sense of humour. Try and support anyone who looks demoralised. Try to help others.

The best thing you can do on a leadership course is not try to be a leader. All the people that try too hard end up looking like utter buffoons and that is the lasting impression everyone takes home with them.

It's all meaningless. Utterly utterly meaningless.

There's no God.

OhThisbloodyComputer - Tell that to the self-sanctified, sanctimonious, Ray Moore.

These things are generally loved or loathed depending on your personality, fitness/ability level and personal commitments.

They essentially only appeal to a particular type of employee - we all know the type!

Hardly inclusive of being a "team" when they're so time consuming and full on that you only enjoy them if you meet thatnorm.

Ibet yours is one of the companies trying to figure out why there's a lack of female leadership... Am I right OP?

There was plenty of wine supplied at mine

My idea of hell too. But you may feel a great sense of achievement once you get too the end (and it will come to an end - you are not stuck there forever)

Be enthusiastic now. Fontfode a hint that you don’t want to go.

Few days before due to leave start complaining about ear ache and shivers.

Then throw a sickie for the event.

Agree with advice that if you do go, try and remain under the radar at all times. Go along with things, but be in the background.

Team Building? More likely to bring hostilities to the surface, IMHO. It's just a chance for show-offs to show off even more and does nothing to contribute to the performance of a company - quite the reverse.

Right - group hug anyone?

Yeurk!!!!

OP let me take your place!! I absolutely LOVE things like this-it’s like going on a school residential again! Fun fun FUN!
Just go with it and take it for what it is! You’ll probably have a great time!

Does anyone actually like team building events? They give me the horrors. The worst one I ever went on was on a yacht in The Solent. Sounds lovely right? But you try sleeping in such close proximity to your work colleagues. Plus one loo between us all with very very thin walls

I still haven't forgotten the time I went away for a weekend with university. I had one friend with me (we shared a room) and didn't know anyone else and most were a few years younger than us. She took that weekend to reveal how batshit crazy she was and she didn't want anything to do with me there. Even though she didn't know anyone else either. I was fucking miserable, although the talks were interesting. We fell out. We didn't speak for a few years (see again: she's batshit crazy). I couldn't wait to get home.

Your team bonding exercise sounds terrible, Op.

We had a team building day and two people never spoke to each other again I love cringey awfulness so it was well worth it for me. I would never ever ever share a room though.

I work in this general field but thought this sort of thing had died out. These events may be non-inclusive on a number of grounds. That doesn’t mean to say you won’t enjoy it or find it useful. I do think asking you to share a room is a bit much.

I work in a large firm and my job includes organising in-house training and team-building. There's no way we'd entertain this kind of event, OP - expensive, potentially discriminatory and with the potential to cause all sorts of perverse effects. If you're not actually contracted to work out of hours including overnights, then just refuse to go. If refusing is impossible, self-certify with an unspecified virus, or just a common cold, when it starts.

Wolves did it!

I like outdoor activities, being out at in all seasons, have my own gear, etc, so in theory I should love stuff like this. But I hate enforced "fun" and being made to do things with colleagues in any other way other than at work and within my contracted hours. As for sharing a room, no way. I hate that, even with close friends or family and no way would I want to share a dorm with colleagues. My default with team building events like this is "fuck off" followed by "what utter wanker thought this was a good idea", so I can't even imagine what hell it would be for those less outdoorsy. Are they hoping that your team will be built on mutual misery?

Another was paint-balling. Separated into two teams, who joined forces and turned against the Director as soon as the whistle blew.
Ha, serves him/her right.

They probably can't discipline or dismiss you for not attending, but they can certainly consider your non-attendance when they decline to give you a pay rise or promotion.
That's the awful thing isn't it. It's a lose lose for those people who hate or can't manage team buiding days away.

And I really don't understand what is so gosh darn it horrific about sharing a room
Sleeping in close proximity to other people is rather intimate. It's made even more uncomfortable when people don't know each other intimately! I do not want to listen to other people snoring and farting in their sleep and I don't want them to have to listen to me either. It's all so awkward.

I think it's important to step outside your comfort zone and try to be open to the possibility that you might actually enjoy it
Up to a point I agree, but although nudging the boundaries of our comfort zones is a good thing it is certainly not a good thing to try and push so far out of them in one go. Plus this is supposed to be about "team building" and I can't see how being forced to do things non work related that people hate is going to help with that. Plus it's unpaid and outside of work hours. The bloody cheek of it!

Don't know why so many people are advocating lying, or concocting elaborate stories to get out of it. People are complaining about companies still doing this, if enough people just said "No, fuck that, you don't own my time outside of work" then they'd stop. I'd just say no, no explanation of why not, no fake illness. If you're already contemplating resigning over it, whats the worst that can happen in refusing to even go?

I've been on one thing, but that only involed a day during work hours where they bussed us out to a country hotel for a mini-conference on the business and a small team building exercise, with a nice buffet. If they said to me, next one is 3 days away in the winter, doing outdoor activities and sharing a room, I would say, no thank you.

The sooner companies realise that the best team building exercise is everyone having a free half day and decamping to a nearby pub/restaurant and the manager sticking the company card behind the bar/till, the better.

I am surprised at those who say they don't have the gear. I had assumed anyone earning enough money would have a waterproof coat, jeans, jumper and trainers that you could wear to this kind of thing.