Team Building Part 2

Writing the previous post made me think of the ultimate in ridiculous team-building events, Rattlesnake Canyon. What's that, you might ask? That is corporate team building at its craziest. The place was Louisville KY. Our travel department (who hates me) had sent me from North Carolina, through LaGuardia to get to Kentucky, but that's a whole different post.

Anyway, we arrive in Louisville for a "team meeting". There is all kinds of mystery around an entire afternoon on the agenda. We are even foolish enough to think we might be getting some sort of fun reward, because we'd had a really good year.

The mystery afternoon arrives, and we are ushered in to a huge conference room. But it's not just any conference room. It has been transformed to the wild wild west. Now when I tell you it was jarring, scary and disorienting; friend, believe me, it was! There were big barrels and other cheesy western decor, but my favorite was that there were actual tumbleweeds! Seriously, giant balls of jumbled up hay.

Our "cowboy guides" for the event were in full western wear. Shirts with fringe, holsters, chaps, cowboy hats, boots, etc. This might have been the most frightening part, because these poor people refused to break character. The minute we walked in the door they started shouting at us, things like, "Howdy partner, I hope you're inclined to help us build this here new railroad!", "Welcome to Rattlesnake Canyon" and other nonsensical things. Oh, and they had head microphones, a la Britney Spears, so they were amplified.

We were split off into teams and given books of stamps and bandannas. You had to wear your bandanna, seriously, your team was disqualified if you did not wear your bandanna. I wore mine on my head, gangsta style, which got a serious look from my manager. I'm going to be honest, to this day, I have no idea what the object of that game was. I know we were trying to build a railroad (?), I know we were supposed to trade stamps and collect a bunch of them, other than that it was pandemonium.

It was also timed, which of course adds to the frenzy. Just when you think you have enough "corn" stamps, along comes this John Wayne character screaming "10 MORE MINUTES" into his microphone and we all start sweating. Maybe it was supposed to teach us about negotiation or something? I don't know. What I do know is that at one point I looked across the room and saw one of the most mild mannered people in our department standing on a chair, bandanna tied around her wrist, shouting, "DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY PIGS????". I knew in that moment that we had broken down as a group. That if the world ended and currency became these mythical stamps, we would all die.

My group didn't help things either. As usual I tried to defer to others while also being organized, which makes no sense. I think we got one bale of hay stamp and maybe a few chickens. At one point I think we just lied to people, "I'll give you two chickens for a horse.", took the horse and then just ran. Some people just gave up completely, which we should have.

So, if you think that doing a scavenger hunt or obstacle course is a little over the top, may I enter Exhibit A: Rattlesnake Canyon!