MANDATORY TEAM BUILDING

Yesterday at work I had to attend one of those mandated "training" days where you really don't learn much of anything but HAVE to attend.  I work in a small'ish unit of a large'ish agency.  There's a lot of shift work so we don't have a whole lot of interaction amongst each other (think ships passing in the night), which is perfect because most of us don't really care for each other.  That's okay.  It's sort of the nature of the beast and we'd all agree with that statement.  Funny, because we'd be hard-pressed to agree on anything else.  

Anyway, we were told to wear black and white, not to whine, and to be prompt.  Told to.  Really?  What the hell do we need to wear black and white for?  Oh...photo fun time.  OMG.  Seriously?  Most of us loathe having our photos taken.  Boy, this will be fun.     

Well, it was okay.  Not exactly fun.  Not what I would have chosen to do.  It wasn't the worst thing we could have done, I guess.  And it's not like we had a choice in the matter.  Or did we?

We were placed (forced) into different scenarios around our town.   A few times we were told to do something funny (the AT&T Dancing Squirrel commercial comes to mind).  We didn't want to do anything funny.  It was drizzling.  We hadn't had our coffee.  We don't really like each other.

At one point, the photographer (a supervisor from another unit) was telling us how to stand and pose.  One girl flat out refused.  "No, I'm not doing it.  I'm NOT doing it."  You could hear a collective gasp from all of us.  This particular photographer/supervisor is not known to be particularly kind or tolerant and this particular girl has a slight reputation for creating unnecessary conflict.  Needless to say, we didn't get that "posing" shot.  But in a way, it sort of made me secretly happy.  None of us wanted to have these photos taken and one person was strong enough to stand up for herself and say no.  It's not a job requirement.  Turns out the photos are for a Christmas card that we will send to other agencies that will look at them briefly, post them for the Christmas season, and then shred them. 

The purpose of this little exercise (the jumping off point for a "fun-filled" day of Team Building) was not for the benefit of the girls who work in this unit, but more to the point of making our unit's supervisor simply shine in the eyes of her superiors.  It's all a load of crap. We still don't really like each other.