When I was in college, I worked as a residential assistant,* and I had my first experience with mandatory fun. This is what my coworkers and I dubbed “team building.” Team building is a nearly impossible thing to plan and actually make enjoyable. Why is that? Your coworkers are not, usually, your friends. You come from diverse backgrounds and have diverse hobbies. It’s not practical to assume that you’re all going to enjoy the same activities.
The second inherent issue with mandatory fun is that even if you enjoy an activity, once it’s mandatory it’s no longer fun. It’s an obligation. In past lives of mine, mandatory fun has been mostly harmless, the blow softened with the promise of a few hours reprieve from actual responsibility. A couple of times I’ve even been pleasantly surprised by activities I have dreaded (bocci ball and paintball), but I have spent years of my life making up excuses to escape the number one team building pastime of all time.
Baseball games.
I hate baseball,** and no amount of, “It’s great! You can just drink beer*** and talk,” will change my mind. If I wanted to booze it up and chat, well, let’s just say my coworkers wouldn’t be my first choice for companions. Not to mention – I don’t eat any meat other than shellfish, when you make dinner at a ballpark I tend to start off in a sour mood. (The options are not good.) Give me a good old fashioned ropes course and keep it during business hours and you’ve got a deal.
Anyway, I’m off to three days of meetings and two nights of mandatory fun, including a baseball game I can’t get out of. (The last baseball game I couldn’t get out of culminated in my totally sober ass sitting itself down in a plate of garlic fries rendering my favorite casual khaki pants, not to mention my panties, see-through with grease and ruined.) If I don’t make it back, know I loved you all.
*What can I say? I like rules.
** That can be its own entry sometime when I want to relive the horrors of my childhood and being the only female on my little league team in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
***I also hate beer. I may as well admit that I don’t like apple pie right now, too.
ETA: My flight got upgraded and I lucked out with a single room! That makes up for baseball.
