I am beyond worn out. I'm not working more than like eight or eight and a half hours a day, but they're action-packed and stress-packed. I have the CDs for two projects going out tomorrow and then the 80% CD progress set for another project on Monday, and I a m f r i e d . Seriously. I came home today and just laid on the bed for half an hour, staring at the ceiling, unable to move. Seems lately like I'm wiping out around 2pm every day, regardless of how much coffee I drink, what I have for breakfast, what I have for lunch, or whether I go to meetings or not.
But I better get my posterior into a niche in my transmission (that is, get my ass in gear) for tomorrow afternoon, because Team Howie is having a teambuilding session. That is, we're going bowling tomorrow afternoon starting at 2:30 and chatting a bit about this booklet Howie gave us to read about seeing everyone's job from their point of view, fostering understanding amongst the ranks and whatnot. Most of us felt like the booklet was not earth-shattering and some of the topics in it made employees sound like they were whining to their bosses, like "you're not nice to us!" or "you take two hour lunches!" Yeah, so? Howie might take a two-hour lunch with one of the partners at our office, but I regularly get emails from him at 9pm about work stuff. The man earns his lunch, know what I mean. Anyway, before the shindig, we'll have to get together and talk about how we want to respond to Howie. It's nothing big, really, and our whole team is so easy to work with that communication really isn't a problem. Team Howie is really two teams. There's the team that works on Pomme de Terre for one partner, and then there's the Team Howie that works the other partner, Alex. It's the Alex team that's going bowling tomorrow: Elliot, Derek, Sasha (another gal) and me. So, we'll do a little making fun of the book, talk about some manager-employee issues more out of interest and curiosity than real problem-solving, and then it's bowl-a-rama time. Hope I can muster the energy to do it.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
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6 comments:
I can see the documentary now: Bowling for Howie.
Team building exercises ugh, ugh, ugh! I have been the subject of a team building exercise. My approach to problems and my thought processes can be a bit "different" at times.
Mr Pickles of Pickles, pickles and Pickles decided to have a team building exercise. He brought the whole office to an off site meeting along with a female psychologist He let her run the meeting and give us a Meyers Briggs personality test or another test like it.
Each person's test results were read to the entire group along with comments from the shrink. After about 2 minutes it became clear that Mr. Pickles had coached the shrink as to who the "bad" people and the "good" people were.
The test indicated that I had a personality type that allowed me to grasp and understand the many points of view that can develop on a team. The results also stated that this type of personality is quite rare and will always be a valuable team member. I was quite surprised by the results of the test.
I was amazed at the verbal acrobatics the shrink went through to make those results say that I was not a team player and that I need to get with the agenda. It turns out the entire exercise was designed to shame people into Mr. Pickle's vision of conformity. I was gone from the firm 60 days later.
Ah yes. We called those sessions "Love School"
At least you get to do something fun. In my previous life, it consisted of 5 DAYS in a conference room with everyone on the team going through item by item completed, the strategies forward, training, and team building.
Dear god, it was weeks of my life I can NOT get back. How sad.
That's th thing: Howie called it a "team building" in his email appointment to us, but when he verbally described it, it was more of a hang-out-and-chat-without-the-pressure-of-a-deadline. he actually asked me this am if I was gonna be able to make it with my two deadlines (which is now down to one), and I said hell yeah. He looked happy and relieved. Faded, you got a very raw deal and that psychologist should have her license revoked.
Faded, that SUCKS. Whew.
Perhaps it's for the best you're no longer with that firm. Sounds like you were too smart for that bunch of dumbasses, anyway.
I used to know a Denver architect whom everyone called Pickle. Is he still around? Could he be the one Faded is talking about?
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