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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To feel like resigning to avoid a horrible team building event

405 replies

evilharpy · 13/12/2017 19:11

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?

OP posts:
TheCraicDealer · 13/12/2017 23:34

Three nights is so excessive. I am Ms Keen Bean when it comes to work social events but i would draw the line at anything more than one night.

Obviously the mature adult thing to do is as others have said, just tell them you're not going. Personally I couldn't be annoyed with dealing with people trying to convince me to go, so with Christmas coming up I'd get a trip away booked and say it was DH's Christmas present to me, babysitters arranged blah blah blah.

allthegoodusernameshavegone · 13/12/2017 23:42

Sounds fun to me

SparklyLeprechaun · 13/12/2017 23:47

Just say no, you won't be the only one. This sort of activity wouldn't be allowed in my work place but we are big on inclusiveness and it rules out people with physical and mental health issues.

pog100 · 13/12/2017 23:54

Isn't there a single person here who has enjoyed weekends in bunkhouses, walking in hills, sharing meals, getting cold and laughing about it later? I am somewhat dumbfounded about the universal refusal to countenance sharing a room? I have shared rooms with complete strangers on scientific conferences, even memorably a double bed! It's just fun, human, not traumatic .. honest!

annandale · 13/12/2017 23:59

I've enjoyed all these things with friends - not the sharing rooms though, my friends always unanimously award me the single room because of the snoring. I also enjoy these things with my husband. Thank God for always working in female dominated teams because we all know that work is only bloody work, not life itself, and we've all learned more than enough about ourselves already.

ShoesHaveSouls · 14/12/2017 00:01

pog100 - the sharing thing puts me in mind of Inside No. 9:

It's my favourite episode. I think it's still on Netflix.

ReanimatedSGB · 14/12/2017 00:03

I would probably quite enjoy something like this as long as there was plenty of hot water for after the running around in the rain, and the evenings involved good food and beer. BUT it is ridiculous and unreasonable for an employer to demand that people use their free time on these trips if they don't fancy it. They are worthless in terms of improving your ability to do your job and, as PP have said, potentially discriminatory against those who are less physically fit and/or have commitments outside work.

|Mind you, it could be even worse. I remember some training course where they made us do 'trust exercises'. I flatly refused and sat in the corner (you're supposed to shut your eyes and fall backwards into the arms of other people. Will I fuck do something like that. Either someone is going to get hurt catching me, or they are going to let go and I'm going to be hurt when I hit the floor.)

SheGotBetteDavisEyes · 14/12/2017 00:06

Isn't there a single person here who has enjoyed weekends in bunkhouses, walking in hills, sharing meals, getting cold and laughing about it later?

Yep. With friends and family. I just wouldn't fancy doing it with people I barely know and work with.

TheCraicDealer · 14/12/2017 00:06

I'd suffer enjoy a day and a night of this shit, but I could imagine being tired, cold and just being fucked off on the first night and thinking "one down, two to go...". Nah. Whatever bonhomie was floating about wouldn't get me through three days in a strange bed in a shared room with someone I spend most of my waking hours with anyway.

The conditions, activities and organised fun (and probably food actually) sound like what DH has to do when he's away with work. But he's in the fucking army!

Nyx1 · 14/12/2017 00:11

I love walking in hills! But workplaces aren't entitled to ask people to do that if they don't want to.

Wonder how much the trip costs. If they gave that as extra pay, I think the team would bond even better. Or if they did a daytime lunch or a mutually agreed activity.

nocoolnamesleft · 14/12/2017 00:13

Death first. Literally if necessary.

Have you considered breaking a leg? Probably less painful.

QueenArseClangers · 14/12/2017 00:14

LittleGreyAuditor summed it up beautifully up thread:

“Having to build a bridge across an imaginary river using planks and rope and a collection of idiots.”

Grin
Charolais · 14/12/2017 00:19

I wonder what they plan to do with team members who maybe pregnant, older, disabled or gender fluid. lol you might end up sharing a room with a man!

QueenArseClangers · 14/12/2017 00:21

And surely work can’t tell you what to do with your free time?
Fair enough if it was a day only thing but 24/3??? Fucking ridiculous.
As well as caring commitments one could have a weekend job/volunteer and just want to be at home.
If the employer said the 3 days/nights were instead of going into work for a week then I could kind of understand.
If you’re not on mega bucks then (with the excursion being work) it would probably mean you’re earning less than NMW.

And don’t get me started about the roomsharing...

Milkandtwosugarsplease · 14/12/2017 00:27

I would refuse. Aside from the fact that it’s my idea of hell too, I’ve never left my kids longer than 1 night. Blame the kids if you can, or “family commitments”. 3 days is a massive ask IMO.

misssmilla1 · 14/12/2017 00:34

I had to do 4 days on a residential course in the Lake District as a new graduate trainee, with my other fellow inmates (all totally pointless as we didn't actually work together)

We did all the shit you'd imagine - stupid team building exercise with rafts made out of barrels, being lost on a fucking hill being made to map read even tho I can't actually do that and was told I was just 'being difficult', face the fear and do it anyway type shit like tightrope heights and falling backwards on to people

I'm not going to sugarcoat it but it was bloody AWFUL. No concessions for anyone's limitations either physically or mentally and I'm still mentally scarred by it 17 years on - if they'd had tried to do that now, I'd tell them to stick it where the sun doesn't shine

RoseWhiteTips · 14/12/2017 00:38

You have convinced me. The OP should definitely pull a sickie.

Libertyshepirouette · 14/12/2017 00:57

I would say nothing, wait until you go back to work after Christmas and say you have been given West End theatre tickets as a Christmas gift.Unfortunately your theatre weekend away falls at the same time as the works trip.

OliviaStabler · 14/12/2017 01:07

I wouldn't go. I don't share rooms with strangers and I don't do the 'outdoors'.

Janetjanetjanet · 14/12/2017 01:22

Thankfully I've never worked anywhere that had had 'team building' activities.

The only thing I ever did was a treasure hunt around the local area.

Not exactly bivouacing with Mavis from the mail room for three nights!

ohfortuna · 14/12/2017 01:23

It sounds GHASTLY
I would just pull a sickie at the last minute if I had to , no way would I go

Janetjanetjanet · 14/12/2017 01:31

Also, it isn't 'team building'. Teams are already built. They're also called cliques, and a weekend in the Lakes will not change cliques or encourage new ones, even if they are forced to canoe /share a room/go orienteering or whatever.

The same groups will just stick with their mates.

ohfortuna · 14/12/2017 01:32

I suppose there might be some trauma bonding?

ElizaDontlittle · 14/12/2017 01:37

What's with doing outdoor activities in winter? GeekLove I would imagine because it's cheaper?

I work in the public sector and room sharing with same sex colleagues is assumed for courses and conferences because there's no money - I'm surprised so few others have mentioned this (there's a couple of references to conferences upthread) and now even more surprised that so many just get on and do it given the overwhelming feeling about shared rooms on this thread.

I couldn't do something like this now - major mobility disability and Crohn's with a stoma bag. So it would do the opposite of team building through lack of inclusivity. If you don't think just saying no is going to go down well maybe try that tack??

Adarajames · 14/12/2017 01:41

They are always in the winter because that's when outdoor activity centres have lots of vacancies so it's way cheaper than in the summer.

I LOVE those sorts of activities, although am limited to how much I can do because of disabilities; but I'd not share a room as my medical conditions and the medication mean I snore really badly (and really hate that I do and am really embarrassed by it) but also have screaming fits from nightmares or kick and fight in my sleep, which is also highly embarrassing and would be so worried about it I just would y be able to sleep which would cause relapse issues in my health. I'd happily go along though if had a private room. Mind you, I have plenty of suitable clothing / footwear, but if I didn't, I'd refuse on grounds of not having the money to shell out on items I would to use again