Team building days- do you hate them?

[Stressedgiraffe]

Inspire by a thread.
Why is there so much hate about team building days?
I've attended loads and organised some.
Usually they are ok, even fun sometimes but I've been lucky and generally like the people I work with. Some when I don't really like the team have been horrible.
I've got a team building event next week and will be doing everything that everyone seems to hate : travelling on the bank holiday to get there. 6 hours travel time. Staying in a hotel for 2 nights. 2 day team building . Travel 6 hours back.
But I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it'll be fun.
So I guess my aibu
Aibu- team building is ok even fun!
Ainbu- team building is the spawn of the devil and all should be banned!

Your AIBU options are the wrong way round which will skew the poll.

Because they are fake.

Most people want to do their job and go home.

I often wonder if people who love these things and want to plan them and organize them have no real friends of their own, so these mandatory fun serves as their social outlet?

So yes they should be permanently banned.

I like my colleagues.
I think there is huge value in aligning everyone and making sure we're all pulling in the same direction and have an understanding of the big picture. (LOL corporate speak)

BUT I cocking hate it when I am forced out of my comfort zone and made to dress up or compete or sing a song or make an amusing video etc etc etc. That's not me. I hate it. I feel awkward and embarrassed and I'm bad at it and it makes me feel bad.

Jolly ice-breaker + useful activity to explain vision and values + light lunch = fine.

Cocking excuses for the drama nerds to show off = cock off.

The team building events that are enjoyable are usually those which involve a team that already works well together. Then it almost becomes paid time off to do something fun.

If it involves a group that actively dislike each other, has one or more divisive people in it, or has forced unwilling people to attend they are without exception terrible and never meet the objective. It becomes a punishment for failing to work together.

I haven't been in my new job long, but this is the first place I've worked where we've had team building days. We had a really fun time building towers out of spaghetti and marshmallows in teams, I thought it was brilliant! Everyone I work with is lovely and the office has a really friendly atmosphere, it has been a refreshing surprise.

I guessing my current job it's a chance to catch up with people I don't see regularly as I wfh. And to talk to directors and the SLT and get my face and name known.
We've done a few things go karting, darts and crystal maze. Also a night in posh hotel and a few drinks with colleagues. We're a close team who even eat breakfast together.
I'm changing jobs so the trip next week will be interesting, long travel but nice hotel .

Teambuilding has to be a humorous Orwellian word.

It does the precise opposite of what it is meant to do. It encourages too much drinking and encourages inappropriate romances and affairs. It also discourages work/life balance and takes people away from their families. It also builds cliques of extroverts rather than teams, which should be inclusive.

In addition, they are a total waste of shareholder funds.

I don’t really understand why companies still do these.

I hate them. I don't want to bond with my colleagues. I am just there to do my job. I hate how they have games that pry into your private life too. I hate ice breakers. I certainly wouldn't give up my bank holiday. I also have refused to go on one that means a night away and have had to explain private medical circumstances to them because of that.

The main point is I have never attended one that I have found useful in any way and then I go back to my normal job with even more to cram in.

I mean, whatever floats your boat but what you're describing sounds horrible, and I like the people I work with.

I learnt years ago to keep a boundary between work and home and 'team building', particularly when it involves hotels and eating breakfast together, crosses that boundary. Not for me thanks.

I'm disabled,

I use a wheelchair.

My workplace got into team building for a while. They never did solve the problem of what to do with me.

I remember on one, the director in charge of our department said to me that she didn't think I could access the team building event (an escape room). I agreed with her.

She offered to include me by sitting in a nearby coffee shop with me all day and chatting,

I'd rather cut my own throat,

I stayed at work and caught up in paperwork and got upset about how my accident changed my life.

Now I've changed teams, I don't have to go to them.

Our Ops Director thinks they are a complete load of bollocks. We have a quarterly team meeting in various places, where things that are important are discussed.

In the evening, he flexes his company credit card and we all have a meal out.

Nobody in the team complains at that.

If it's in work time who is doing the work that needs to be done?
If it's in non work time who is doing the washing / feeding the kids/ walking the dog / listening to kids read / doing the shopping etc
What's the actual benefit? It always involves more work.
Coffee / drinks on a Friday or a longer lunch or something is all you need.
Hated them with a passion.

I hate team building days or activities and if I can get away with not attending I will do that. If I have to attend, in the past I have declined to abseil, dance, play tennis, go kart, climb walls, do yoga and ride bikes. I'll just observe, drink the coffee and eat the cakes. I couldn't give a flying fuck what it does to my career and I have had loads of people telling me they wish they had my assertiveness.

That's really horrible 💐

They are brilliant for extroverts who want to pretend to be single and relive university for a couple of days including sitting with the cool group at the bar and maybe copping off with Fred or Fiona. Also a fantastic opportunity to embarrass your rivals.

For those who have grown up and have healthy boundaries, they are purgatory.

I would rather have a day to catch up on stuff of my choosing (teacher). Enforced fun is no fun.

If I attend it had better be in work time, involve no extra travel and include excellent food.

I really like the people I work with but I hate group events. I also don't go to parties anymore.

My idea of hell.

I’m afraid I do judge those people who love team building activities- you know the show-off who is far too excited about it. I would actively avoid any company that does these days.

Last team building I did involved a treasure hunt over a 10 km course. I got put in a team with a bunch of guys who do triathlons in their spare time and a stoner who said he hadn’t done any sports since PE at school. One of the triathlon guys immediately went into psychopath Army bootcamp mode and spent the afternoon yelling RUN RUN RUN! I didn’t dare drink too much water because I worried about needing the loo, and it was nearly 30 degrees so ended up with heatstroke. Our team won by miles though!

I suppose it was quite fun but would have been better without the heatstroke, and I did get along better with the guys afterwards as I hadn’t really spoken to them much before that.

I’m self employed now and no team building days!

Waste of time, and no way I'd give up my free time for it. Unless I am paid overtime to attend.

I hate them with a fiery passion. They are designed for very social people, are hell on earth for introverts like me, force you to share more of yourself than you need to, and are a waste of time. I have my own business now, but when I worked for other people I made sure I worked to a high standard, did everything that was asked of me and was pleasant enough to work with in the office, and my professional obligations ended there. I had no interest in socialising outside of the office, no interest in nights out with random people from work, I just wanted to do what I was being paid for and then get on with my life outside of work.

I must have been lucky, the team building days have always been fun where ever I’ve worked - Alton Towers, paintball, cocktail making, cooking class, a hike followed by pub lunch, fancy dress ball…they all usually involve getting pissed at the end of the night in some random club.
Of course there was the usual fluff in between, where you have to do an actual team building exercise (that no one really learns anything from)
They’re pretty much just social events for everyone to let their hair down.

@NoraLuka would you put up with someone in your team, back in your workplace, acting like that and shouting at everyone to get their work done.

I was on a school residential trip at a PGL centre last week. I saw a group of adults dressed in costumes (superheros, Scooby Doo etc) getting strapped into abseiling harnesses. I wondered if they were on a team building day and felt so sorry for them.

It depends on the situation; a nice sit down over drinks and meal? Lovely. Abseiling dressed as Scooby Doo...not so much.

What event is suitable for Bob, aged 63, recently become a grandfather with two years to retirement; Myra, 22, just graduated and single, likes to spend her weekends clubbing and Imogen, recently had her second child and just back, generally spends weekends with other Mums having a coffee at a soft play centre?

Oh, I know the one thing they all have in common, their work! A well run workplace builds the teams at work, it doesn’t needs entirely fake activities to do it.