Corporate Gypsies on the Loose

We had a meeting in Chicago a while back (a small meeting, not the "big meeting"/pageant). The meeting went fine and was really fun as I had never been to Chicago and loved it as a city. During the meeting, we did the infamous "team building" event. Corporations love to do these. Now, I've been working in the same job with mostly the same people for roughly 8 years. I am ridiculously close to most of my co-workers. They would probably tell you that I'm pretty smother-y and that they know way more about my life than they really want to. They should all be applauded for how well they tolerate me and my over-sharing.

So the point is, why do we need these activities? I share hotel rooms with these people, fly on planes and ride buses with them (and we all know the level of intimacy that traveling with me creates), seriously, they know me!

Whatever the reason, they are popular. They can vary in scale for sure. Sometimes it is more of an "ice breaker" (ugg, corporate term) thing, where you have to tell something you have in common, interview each other, etc.

Most of the time my company takes the approach of "go big or go home". These things can be epic. I am one of those dorks who usually will roll my eyes at the beginning, but then turn into that psycho person who "has to win". In Chicago, we did a really funny one, but I feel bad for the people of the city on that day. My co-worker who lives in Chicago put together a scavenger hunt of huge proportion. She put together elaborate clues about landmarks in Chicago and each team had to go and take pictures of themselves at these landmarks. We even had envelopes with some cash for taxis.

It was one of the most creative and fun team building events I've ever done. Lucky for us we had a Chicago native on our team. She figured out most of the clues, and then got us to all of these places. Of course we are running around like crazy people, trying to get to as many as possible. By this time I am foaming at the mouth and it is not enough for us to just take the picture at the landmark. Oh no. We must take insane pictures at the landmarks. We have to pose like Charlie's Angels, climb on statues, use props, and my favorite, we had to stand on our heads.

I'll admit, this was my idea, but I was not going to actually do it. I was a "spotter". Let's be honest, with my clumsiness, if I do something like this I'm just asking to break a hip. We got 2 of our younger team-mates to stand on their heads, while we helped them up. One of them had on a skirt, so that's dedication.

Of course it's Chicago in the fall, so it's freezing. At one point I had on a team-mates gloves and caught myself saying to her, "Hey, I just totally forgot these were your gloves and wiped my nose with them". Disgusting. Her reply, "It's fine, I don't care, do you want to stand on my shoulders for the next picture?". I mean how is that for closeness!

The best part is that we did all of this during rush hour. So here are these poor native Chicago people trying to get home from a long day of work, and they are navigating around us.

Our team won several awards the next day, like funniest, most creative, etc. So as much as I want to knock the "team building" events, how many people can say to each other, "Hey remember that time you stood on your head at the Bean?". I can!