Whole day of work wankery tomorrow, give me strength.

[StrawbHead]

I have an 'away day' at work tomorrow. The whole Department in a room together 9am-5pm for the first time since autumn 2019.

Since our last 'away day', several new members of staff have been appointed and, mostly, shown themselves to be absolute arseholes. Two of them in particular are completely insufferable - think speaking for the sake of speaking at any opportunity, wokery pokery to the point of cringe, mask zealot Twitter warrior types.

One of these areholes is leading a session tomorrow on 'equality and diversity issues'. She has form for bullying.

Since Covid I've gotten used to getting on with my own work without crossing paths with most of my colleagues. I've avoided all in-person, whole-department activities for three years. It's been heaven.

Please give me the strength to survive tomorrow's horror show.

Sounds awful Op no real advice but don't let them get to you

All the sympathy, OP.

Will there be alcohol?

Wondering if you’re a colleague 🙈

I loathe these more so now too. Might you have a burst pipe or pet needing a vet tomorrow morning?

What do you mean 'mask zealot'??

Sounds bad.

Stare out the window?

I have no advice other than good luck - every half hour that goes by takes you nearer to 5pm. Say as little as possible, smile and nod a lot, and hopefully it will pass quickly. Do you have a pal in the team you could play wank bingo with? One of my colleagues and I used to do this, we used to fill our cards in no time.

This is when you need a positive Covid test....good luck.

Don't argue with them, no matter what their, or your, views are. They expect, and probably hoping, for a fight.

Make a bingo card of all the things that make you cringe to tick off, and a list of phrases you want to get into the discussion, whether they are real or ones you've made up for the occasion. Much amusement can be had by getting people to parrot your marketing speak nonsense phrases. I have also had a pick and mix game like a drinking game where I have a sweet everytime someone does something on my list

Have an egg mayo sammich beforehand and fart when you need to escape

Enjoy the strategic team building as you celebrate all being one big humongous family with team spirit to spare 😂 Ours is coming up, feel you pain!

Thank you so much for all of your solidarity and support.

There won't be alcohol. There'll be soggy cheese sandwiches at lunch though. What epic recompense.

@theodozya Are you in the northern lands? Maybe we are colleagues. Maybe we can be wanker bingo friends.

Sadly, I can't fake a Covid. I've done this a few times already 😳

I will stare out of the window, I will nod where appropriate, I won't argue, I won't engage.

I mean they want to keep masks in the workplace forever and ever.

I think your car is about to have a really expensive issue that means you can't get there. You'll call the AA but they will say a part needs ordering so it's a shame but you can't make it.

@StrawbHead I can empathise with you to a point, and luckily I haven't had any of these forced 'away days' type events for years now. Not since a head office annual conference type thing for (I think) a majority, who then moved over to a local hotel for an evening of entertainment, food and free alcohol. And the less said about what ended up happening there the best! I'm sure many of you can imagine, or have been to these things and have experienced. Luckily the business part of the day wasn't too bad, but the aftermath was m e s s y 😬🥴🙄
However, I have since been to a similar day in a fully voluntary role, for a charity networking and information type day. During the morning, the last 'talk' of the morning before lunch was served was only an hour or so long but was one of the worst hours of my life. I'm talking never before (or since) have I been as painfully bored to the point of seriously wondering how on earth I was going to get through it, or whether it was actually possible to die from boredom. It was horrendous. But. They must've known what they were doing because they put this person on in the session before lunch and so correctly judged that people would stay purely for the free lunch (and then the rest of the day's 'talks'). Had they put this particular person on after lunch I've no doubt that people would have started to slope off! Do you happen to have timings for yours and know when the worst people are on? Is it a large enough captive audience that you wouldn't be missed if you either didn't show up or cleared out once it begins? My more recent charity day was unfortunately a relatively small cohort in a small enough room that anyone leaving (or dropping dead) would definitely be noticed and so I felt, aside from actual death, that there was no way of exiting!
Sorry, this is probably not much help to you, other than maybe finding out/looking at who is doing what at what time, and hope that the worst people are after lunch and so you can at least get fed before you hide off somewhere! 😂

I find when I have to engage in Workplace Wankery (thankfully rare as I'm self-employed) I need a little note in code in my notebook that I can glance at if I feel my Wankometer rising. I learned this after years of being on the brink of shouting "What the fuck are you on about, you absolute bellends?" when forced to interact with this type of bullshit.

When someone starts spouting endless nonsense, just imagine them sitting on the toilet in severe gastrointestinal distress after having eaten something that wants to make as quick an exit as possible.

@SweetFannyAdamsDog I don't drive and everyone knows it 😫

@Whatwaswrongwiththatusername Yeah I have the timings. The whole day is shite. Shite people, talking about shite things. The awful bullying EDI colleague is on just before lunch. The whole afternoon is taken up with 'mental health and wellbeing' discussions. Jesus wept.

"gastrointestinal distress"

😂😂😂 What an image!! I'll keep this in my back pocket for sure.

Notepad and pen. And doodle the day away.
You could even do your menu planning/shopping list/to do list for the week ahead.
If nothing else, you will look totally engaged as if taking notes?
The alternative is to do what my Dh does - falls asleep and snores. Tbf he works nights, so these team training days are just asking for him to fall asleep.

Oh please, if gender wankery is mentioned, put up your hand very innocently and ask, ‘Just so I’m clear; what’s the difference between gender and gender stereotypes, which I know we all disapprove of?’

That’s my plan anyway 😉

@Wouldloveanother evil genius!

I use these “ equality and diversity “ sessions to bang on at length about all the other non cool groups who some who never get a mention eg older people, those with disabilities , asylum seekers and refugees. Ethnicity might also be relevant in some workplaces too.

Or of it’s about service delivery I talk about groups such as homeless people.

As well as raising genuine concerns, this has the added benefit of really annoying the blue haired brigade.

Oof, it'd be absolute carnage. Unsurprisingly my two arsehole colleagues are fervent TWAW-spouters.

We have quite a few new staff so I think we might be asked to do name badges. I am fully expecting to be asked to list pronouns on said name badges. Or at least for arseholes to put pronouns on their name badges. What fun.

Oh wow you need an ally. Do you have any colleagues who find it all a bunch of old toss too? Can you take comfort in numbers?