Teambuilding

I’ve got a very strong opinion about team building activities.

During my working life, I have attended quite a few team building events. Some of them were organized for everyone in the company, some were just for the individual departments. If there was ever a second team building event at the company I was currently working for, I’d come up with some lame excuse (I am part of the bridal party for my sister’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend’s mother’s niece’s wedding) to avoid it.

I would usually attend the first ones just to get a feel of how the company views “team building” (and also because I needed to make a good impression)

I can safely summarize that all these activities did nothing to promote team camaraderie, build rapport or (eek!) bring everyone closer with revelations of deep personal details and emotional connection. Thankfully, in all of these events (so far) no one has ever forced me to perform the trust exercise (you know, the one where you fall backwards and someone catches you)

All I got from these session were very awkward moments, loads of wasted time and very shabby accommodation (food was bad too). There was one time I injured my back, carrying multiple (that’s right, more than two) people, trying to balance on a 4 by 4 piece of paper. I wish I was making this up.

I think companies don’t understand the objective of team building. If they wanted to use up the department budget by creating an outing for every employee to (forcefully) attend, then yes, these companies achieved their objective.

Every activity has one team pitted against the other. How is that building a sense of camaraderie? Sure the people in those teams will bond over their attempt at beating other teams in competition, but what about the relationships between teams? That’s only going to become more negative as the competition gets stiffer.

For example, my team beat out a particularly aggressive, obnoxious, over-confident leader of another team. Sure the victory was so, so sweet. However, until today, this person doesn’t give me any eye contact anymore. Apparently team building should include “may burn bridges as well as build them” in their small print.

Leaders are the worst. They will stand up in front of the whole team and talk about what a good session that was when most of the time they clearly have no idea that new perceptions are being created, most of them negative.

There was this one lady who was a senior in the company. She was known as a backstabbing, rumor mongering snake. During the teambuilding, she made a big show about how she was “burying the hatchet” and “starting new”. There was even this exercise that required her to genuinely get everyone to bury what ever hatchet (that she had flung behind their back) The very next week, she conned the HR manager into getting rid of a younger version of her.

I could not make this up even if I wanted to.

I think we are missing proper team building companies that truly understand the spirit and the objective of these activities. There was even once a facilitator that stressed that we would only get benefits from sessions together if we put in the proper effort. To drive home the point, he said that if we thought we didn’t learn anything, it was all our fault. It was *our* responsibility to ensure that we achieved our goal to build an effective team.

Then why are we paying so much money?

I just don't get team building.

Mother’s day is so stressful.

As a first time mom and a first time daughter (can there be a second time daughter?) I can honestly say that I find Mother’s Day extremely stressful. Growing up, my family thought these “special” days were just another way for greeting card companies to make an extra buck. Now with e-cards, do they still make as much? These (non-mandatory-I-cannot-leave-work-for-this) holidays seem to grow stronger each year, multiplying.

Ever heard of Mother-In-Law’s Day? Me neither until this year.

Now that I’m a mom, I fully expect Mother’s Day to blow over per usual but something changed. Mother’s day became a full scale celebration. People who I barely talk to would ping my phone just to wish me a Happy Mother’s Day. Scroll through the history and you’d see the last conversation was wishing each other Happy Birthday.

I have really close friends, you can tell.

The present Mother’s Day consist of brunches, dinners, massages, flowers and gifts. GIFTS! Did I miss the memo? Ugh, so this leaves me in a conundrum. What I desire to get during mother’s day and what I desire to do for my mothers (my mother, mother-in-law, grandmothers, relatives who are moms).

As a mom, should I expect something when this holiday comes around? Do I want to be surprised with breakfast in bed? Wined and dined? Not really. I would appreciate a quick “happy mother’s day” than a grand celebration. I would feel guilty if someone went out of their way to do something nice for me.

Besides, does this holiday mean more to me now that I’m a mom? Not really. Apart from the additional stress, at my core I suppose I don’t believe in Mother’s Day. Why spend just one whole day, forwarding sentimental tear-jerking messages when you don’t do much the rest of the 364 days?

As a daughter, shouldn’t I at least show appreciation to the general cause and (some would say) burden of motherhood? Should I make it a big deal to “get it all out of the way” just once a year? Doesn’t that seem insincere?

What does a Mother’s Day celebration entail anyway?

I think in this case, I’m going to have to be flexible. Which roughly translates into being a hypocrite. Sad but true.

However, if being a hypocrite makes everyone happy, including myself, well then call me Aeschines.

What my child taught me

Being a first time mother can be daunting. Thank goodness for the plethora of information on the internet, books and busybodies who insist that they just have to force their experience and wisdom into your brain.

Recently, I’ve come to accept that while I’m still learning a lot from being a mother, sometimes my lessons can come from my widdle bitty baby (who is now technically a toddler….technically anyway)

Like today.

I was mending my pants (I’m cheap like that) and was in a really zen mode. I found it very satisfying, watching the needle pull through 3 threads, go under one and then 3 threads again (what? This isn’t the way to mend clothes, you say?) At one point, work was starting to pile up and people were starting to ping me on the various instant messaging platforms. I knew I had to stop.

Just a few more minutes. Just a few more stitches.

Then it hit me. I needed to prepare myself to stop this task. Just like how I prepared my toddler to stop watching the Ipad (yes, go ahead and judge), I realized that I needed to do the same to transition from a task I was enjoying (to a task that I wasn’t looking forward to).

When my daughter gets told that this would be the last YouTube video she watches before saying night-night to the Ipad instead of gently taking it away from her, she’s more acceptable and her demeanor doesn’t drastically change. Sure, you can tell that she doesn’t want to by her body language (the sudden puppy dog eyes, the slight sniffle, the pout) but this is so different compared to scenarios where I just whisk the tablet away from her; the screaming, the scratching the wailing like it’s the end of the world.

So I tried telling myself the same thing. Okay, it’s time to put down the needle now. It’s been a good 10 minutes and you can always do this again tomorrow. I know it feels good but that’s enough sewing for now. Say goodbye now.

I stopped at the second stitch instead of the third (I have self-diagnosed myself to having slight OCD when it comes to doing tasks in threes) It felt good and I could move on to work.

It’s funny how sometimes our efforts to teach our children bounce back on us.