AIBU or are team building events really f*cking awful...

[rOsie80]

Especially the variety that ask you for an "interesting" fact about yourself so you all sit around and reel them off in an awkward, stilted fashion for an hour.... does anybody really enjoy this stuff ?!!

YANBU. I don't know one single person who has ever attended one of these and found them enjoyable or worthwhile. I once worked at a place that decided to do one of these - full on, all day Saturday, posh venue, great lunch, all sorts of "fun" activities. I dread to think how much it cost and what they could have done with the money instead. We were pissed off giving up a Saturday too and we all kicked off and insisted an a day off in lieu.

YANBU these are utter shit

YANBU.

Icebreakers at the start make me just want to walk out.

Dire.

The best teambuilding is to arrange a lunchtime finish for the team & go down the pub - but that doesn't tick enough HR boxes.....

Hate them. At my current job I had to go to a big day long one on my 3rd day. Was brutal as I had NO ONE to talk to as the only person I'd really met was my line manager and he was on vacation.

Hell, yes. Not much more tedious than introducing yourself to the people you've worked with for 5+ years.

What Illogical said. Nothing builds a team like a good booze up and nothing builds loyalty like a freebie afternoon off.

This and role plays. ROLE PLAYS. I don’t want to tell an “interesting fact” about myself, I don’t want to do a pretend exercise and I don’t want to give feedback on how you can improve the session - just don’t hold them

I’ve been on the other end of these, working with people hired to do the crap. They know it’s crap, they blind management into hiring them with talk of better workforce but the whole thing is patronising bullshit.

Where I used to work I suggested a meal out when we had quite a few new people in one go just for an informal get together.

My manager suggested 'Go Ape' instead.

We did neither in the end.

I was at one recently where we were all asked to say where we were going on holiday. My mother just died and my father has been left alone. Any holiday I have is likely to be spent traveling the length of the country to support him. I really wish I'd been brave enough to spell that out to the excessively perky presenter who didn't understand why I had no holiday plans, but I probably would have cried.

My team bonds best when we sort it out for ourselves. This generally involves chips and beer.

Oooh yes role plays. The bank used to love a role play. It would be filmed so that the rest of the group could critique it after. One of the trainers would relish their role as the angry shouty customer just a bit too much.

The team building events I did were like that but one employer used to send us out for the day to a museum or attraction which was a bit better.

What was awful was all the falseness, for some, reason probably because I didn't gossip people always confided in me. So I knew that X from accounts hated Y from purchasing, that kind of BS. So I used to hate these events with all the utter let's pretend to be friends. We went to a country house once and I managed to just sit on a bench in the sun for ages as they all went off.

Nothing builds a team like a good booze up. Yes, there's nothing like a good booze-up to make a non-drinker feel part of team is there? And it's fine for all the extroverts, but the introverts don't feel particularly valued by their colleagues.

Icebreakers at the start make me just want to walk out.
I don't see the point of the icebreakers when you already know everyone

YANBU I once went to one where we had to throw a stuffed fish at each other 'to warm ourselves up' also role play makes me want to kill myself

I did a 2.5 day one recently. Starting with interesting facts, what are you 'passionate' about and then did your life story on a page later. Including dinner one night, so it was a major time investment.
But... i admit, in the end it's totally changed my work for the better! Gave me courage to change lots of things and I'm 100% happier and doing a much better job at work! So, done well it can work.

Ice breakers just take up too much time. Your name and your job title is sufficient. Although if you are super lucky you will get a name badge and a cardboard toblerone to write this on though.

Ditch the ice breaker, go home an hour earlier.

I’m amazed that anyone meekly agrees to take part in these shit activities. My DS was a teacher, and when the head arranged one of these ghastly bonding sessions, DS and another of the senior teachers simply folded their arms, stated that it wasn’t in their job contract to attend any such thing, and walked out!
They spent the time in the staff room doing their marking. Afterwards, many of the younger staff expressed envy, and wished they’d been brave enough to do the same!

They're awful. I sometimes think deliberately so- the team can bond in complaining about the waste of time and excruciatingly awkward nature of it all.

They're appalling.

YANBU. It has been mentioned we might have one this year. The use of "team" is just corporate speak to me. We all work for the same organisation, so why does that mean we all have to be best mates? We're all perfectly fine when we see each other.

I was fortunate enough to be in charge of our mandatory team building weekends, and the company wasn't stingy.

We had team building weekends that were basically mini-holidays. Goodness they were grand.

But your bog standard sit in the door and play stupid parlour games with people you wouldn't choose to spend your weekends with if you didn't absolutely have to were dire.

There's a whole industry dedicated to selling this pointless crap to unimaginative and/or sadistic managements. It's a scam on the level of homeopathy, religion and the slimming industry.

The way to make staff happy and productive is to pay them properly, treat them with respect, and have proper HR policy so you can get rid of persistent lead-swingers and bullies before they wreck the morale of their colleagues. None of this wanking about with 'pretend to be a tree' roleplay or 'mindfullness' or rearranging the office furniture to 'improve energy flow'.

Once I had to spend the day doing what can only be described as a cross between clown school and It's a Knockout. Learning how to juggle, use a unicycle and then there were the giant inflatables and obstacle course. And no alcohol. On the plus side there were no ice breakers.