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team building and other company motivational rubbish, As a follow on from the company Christmas do thread

We put on a couple of executive stretch days when I was with the reserves. Bit of camping, night Nav, skinning rabbits, that awesome command task thing at Borden, followed by a monumental piss up in the Sqn bar. We had to provide feedback on individuals in our syndicate. By the way the chief exec harrumphed at my feedback he wasn’t aligned to my thoughts on the tw@ts the tried to take charge each time. We also ran a range that could have been the end my career and taught me never to let a civvy, especially a female one, fire a gimpy.
 
I got "told" I was going on a team building exercise in Cwrt y Gollen a few years ago.
The boss at the time was told that
A) I wasn't fecking interested in doing it on a weekend starting on a friday evening.

B) I had already been asked to be DS for said event by my TA boss.

Which actually paid me more than my day job did at the time. The boss took great exception at being called a stupid knut all weekend.
 
Oil industry team-building events are fun. As you can't get everyone ashore at the same time it tends to degenerate into a number of the same event repeated over a couple of weeks, which subsequently becomes a competition to determine who can run-up the biggest bar tab.

I think I've still got a dozen bottles of Macallan in the cellar...
 
At an IT company, the Directors bigged up a team building day that would be good for morale and bring work teams to together to work better

And whilst essentially whilst voluntary it was pretty obvious that non attendance would be frowned on

My mate had pretty much the same thing while sailing on the British Test in 1982. All the ship's crew were called together and asked if they wanted to volunteer to go the Falklands. (Merchant Navy crew have to volunteer to go into a war zone, they can't be forced to).

As they were being asked to volunteer it was pointed out by BP (their employer) that there were quite a few redundancies on the horizon after the fighting was over...
 
My mate had pretty much the same thing while sailing on the British Test in 1982. All the ship's crew were called together and asked if they wanted to volunteer to go the Falklands. (Merchant Navy crew have to volunteer to go into a war zone, they can't be forced to).

As they were being asked to volunteer it was pointed out by BP (their employer) that there were quite a few redundancies on the horizon after the fighting was over...

Speaking of sailing this reminded me of the time when a dept IT director decided he and three managers would go off team building for a few days by sailing round the Isle of Wight in some sort of boat/crew hire arrangement. God knows how that was supposed to help the company but there you go.

After the event the managers reported he was seasick the whole time. Also one of them was actually working his notice during the jolly which was of course known to the director concerned. That and the several grand cost (which he tried to hide by getting each attendee to expense for the various invoices for the event) was known by the Finance director (who did not like him anyway) which explains in part why he received his P45 shortly after this monumental waste of time and money.

Another bonding exercise for which I thank the good lord to this day that I was not invited to.
 
Team Building, a mid-90's thing.

The Met Police chose Fulham Police to pilot the scheme.
Borough Commander and all senior managers went up to the Yorkshire Dales, staying in a very nice hotel for four nights while attending an outward bound school that also ran team building exercises.
At the end, they all decided it was a thoroughly marvellous concept that would do wonders for the front line teams.
The teams, however, each got only a day at The Warren, a police sports and social club, playing football, as the senior management had spent the entire budget allocation on their four nights in Yorkshire.
 
My current job is in a company made up of 17 people, thankfully the closest we've had to team building has been free Christmas and Summer parties and Friday treats (free food every friday).
 
Many moons ago, the powers that be (RAO) decreed that his AGC Det was looking a bit ragged around the edges after their recent Docs Inspection, so decided to take them all on a Team Building couple of days - far away from camp - so that they could relax and let their tensions go free. You know, get to know each other again instead of screaming and shouting at each other for f*ck ups that blatantly weren't their fault.

So, our little daredevil decides to take them all surfing. "Cool" thought the gang. It's September, surely he'll find somewhere indoor, heated, nice little cafe, nice accommodation, few beers in the hotel bar - nice one Sir.

"Come on, everyone. Get on the minibus, we're off".
"Where are we going, Sir?"
"Scarborough. We'll be stopping in the Transit Accommodation in Ripon".

Deep joy. Surfing. In Scarborough. In September.

Anyhoo. Gets to Ripon. Settles in to Nissan Hut type thing on the top of a hill then down to Ripon for a few sociables. Going well so far.

Next day - wake to a normal North Yorkshire morning. Fog, sleet, rain, cloudy - you get the picture. Off to Scarborough. Road closures everywhere, so we ended up going the scenic route through Topcliffe (!) and eventually arrive at the beautiful seaside resort where the sea is as flat as a pancake. The only tourists are wearing their bestest winter woollies and our intrepid team are getting changed into wetsuits, sans changing rooms, on the promenade. No words needed to be spoken as I looked at my bezzer Sarah and we shook our heads in the international well known style that means "This is not going to end well".

A quick warm up on the beach. Playing volleyball. F*cking volleyball. In the rain. In Scarborough. In September. Mr and Mrs Miggins, wrapped up like a pair of eskimos, laughing their t*ts off from the prom at the stupid Army people. It wasn't embarrassing at all.

Into the sea. By now, we were already at the early stages of hypothermia, but if the Boss wants us to have fun, who are we to complain? Lots of lying down on the surfboard and moving your arms about and mouthing "This is shit" to whoever knocked into you because we didn't have a clue what we were doing.

Lunchtime. Off with the wetsuits which was not an easy job anyway, on with as many items of clothing we could find and off for a well deserved brew and a sarnie in the cafe. We must be going back soon, it's gibbering. Ohhhh no. That was not the plan.

"The CO and RSM will be here at 1400hrs and they're keen to have a little fun (!) competition, so wetsuits back on".

I have never felt more demoralised in my whole life. I was even considering throwing myself off the prom onto the rocks so I didn't have to put that effing wetsuit back on and get into the water again, but I stayed strong. The fun bit of the game was to "surf" out to the PTI, who really did shout "Twice around my beautiful body, GO", but by this stage, I'd had enough. The water was only about waist high anyway so I just grabbed the rope thingy at the end of the surfboard and dragged it out there. And back again. "Oh come on, it's meant to be fun - you're meant to be having a good time". "F*ck off". Then we had to sit through the "heats" of the competition and watch as the CO and RSM stood up on their surfboards and made use of the ripples in the sea that were probably made by a jellyfish doing a trump.

At last, it was over, peeled off the wetsuits again, and back to Ripon for a 17 second shower and off to some random pub for a big group hug and pats on the back. I'd lost my sense of humour somewhere around the time we'd left the A1(M) anyway, so I was my normal bundle of laughs. "Did you have a good...?" "No", "Wasn't that grea...?" "No". "Would you do that aga.....?" "No"

I was actually pleased to get back to Waterbeach the next day, and I never ever thought I would say that.

Now, the time we went "Team Building" in Chilwell is another story, but I've probably bored you enough already, so I'll save that one.

https://www.arrse.co.uk/community/t...n-team-bonding-experience.226351/post-6258705
 
Some years ago working at a large manufatuer of diesel engines. When the monthly target was met, with no injuries, or defects. Simply give everyone yes everyone a box of chocolates and put coffee machines on free vend. No bull shyte, but apreciated.


CFB
 
I used to be an event manager for an events company. We had all sorts of activitys to conduct depending on the brief.
We had AIRBUS in 1 year, we made a a rocket launch pad, think 3D jenga. We had instructions and gave it to a member of our team to build. It took them 20 mins to get their heads around it, so the plan was to give the geeks the pieces with no plans and tell them to build it, no pic of end result, just a pile of pieces. Then in between their lectures throughout the day they would be given short build periods to mask planning by the Airbus team. Well bugger me, out of the 10 teams, 2 managed to build the rocket pad within 6 mins. Just goes to show that they were way above us on an interlectual scale. A bit of rapid thinking on our part and we blagged the rest of the day.
For Railtrack we had them play with lego. We supplied the train, laid out a route on the floor with string and each team had to build a railway between their start and stop points. We gave them paper/card and then gave them the criteria, the track had to be 10cm above ground. Made for some strange looks from the teams, but they all managed it.
 
Had the escape room thing a few months ago, never done this shit before, didnt realise it was such a big thing with a massive following. Leftie sandalled flouncer gave us a briefing, OK, we'll play along, then we went in to like this cupboard. You had to do this quiz to move on. Next room, Tony just wanted to stove the door in with his boot, but I tried to explain this was team building so I just picked the lock into the next room, bored with quizzes. In the last room, a member of staff came in to make sure we didnt break anything and we were all out in record time. If the company tries to do it again, all them doors are going in 1-2-3-4, out in 60 seconds and to the pub.
 
I attended two corporate team buildy events and a character building outward bound course.

1. A navigation based, find the clues and receive a prize done around a sprawling market town. A one hour brief on basic navigation, cup of tea with biccy, divided into pairs and handed our first grid ref. I told my oppo to stay hidden, dashed off and completed the whole thing in under 45 minutes whilst the team builders were still having their coffee. It took everyone else 2 - 3 hours.

2. Kilworth House grounds spent a day building things that required more than one pair of hands. The final build was a trebuchet to launch 5 litre water filled containers. Excellent day, didn't help the team work, but a good day out.

The outward bound was on this thing for a month. Acting as crew which is the teamy part
captain-scott.jpg
, being dropped off at wild locations around Jockistan and having to walk to the pick up point, invariably over bloody snow covered mountains as it was in December. Taught me a lot about personal endurance.
 
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