cblj_backup | (no subject)

Once or twice a month my office lets people go early if they want so they can attend a networking event HR puts on. Usually it's at a bar, and people drink and talk and have a good time. I've never been able to go, because I didn't get to go early when other people did, and I was 100% fine with that because I don't generally do well at social events.

Now, that being said, I was looking forward to today's. I was actually going to get to go, and I have a whole clique of new team members who will let me sit with them and look like I'm actually someone who knows how to make friends outside of the internet.

So I RSVP'd, like you're supposed to do in order to give them an accurate headcount. RSVPing is the polite thing to do, and one is not supposed to be punished for it.

And then today I get an email that we are not meeting at a bar. We are meeting in a conference room on the 19th floor to have an Office Building Scavenger Hunt. There was a list of clues, even. The thing is, given that I am the ex Ninja Office Boy, I know everything about this building and what happens where and could have filled the list of clues out like a survey without moving from my ergonomic cubicle chair.

Then I get a second email about what team I'm on. Guess who else is on my team? Douchey ex-Overboss! By now, my outrage about the scavenger hunt has infected the rest of the team, so everyone's looking over my shoulder like "AWKWARD, SAM. AWKWARD."

And then I get the general announcement email saying "By the way, if you didn't RSVP, you can still come to the party around five, after the scavenger hunt has concluded, and have snacks!"

So wait, I've been roped into a scavenger hunt I didn't know I was signing up for and the slackers who didn't click the "RSVP" button get to show up at five and eat snacks?

I am going home instead, and my boss is going in my place because she agrees that this is made of awkward and she should have spoken up and put a stop to it when they emailed the supervisors to suggest it.

There better not be pizza. If I miss out on pizza because I inadvertently RSVP'd for team building activities, I might have to break out the old Ninja skills and torment HR as only someone who intimately knows this building's climate control system can.

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DO NOT ANGER THE NINJA. 'M JUST SAYIN'.

...wow. That is just WRONG. Wrongity wrong wrong wrong.

I might have to break out the old Ninja skills and torment HR as only someone who intimately knows this building's climate control system can

All I could think of was Neal.

It's mostly Ianto, because he was more vengeance-y, but I can't deny there's an element of Neal to it...

And now all I can think is "I want the fic". He would totally do that.

This! *wants*

*Twitchy fingers* Must... not... write it... *Adds it to the list*

There should be a 'right to know all details' requirement for networking events so the innocent don't get highjacked into associating with a$$hats.

Perhaps you could find a way to use your internet ninja (Ninjernet or Interja) skills and get the heads up on the event before the co-workers. Maybe bribe someone? :D

Fill in the clues, email it back, then turn up at 5 for snacks.

So much this.

Better yet, respond to all!

Oops-did I give away the hunt??

Agree- so much.

I strongly considered it, except that I'd still have abandoned my team.

Wow.
I think that it is perfectly acceptable to unRSVP if details change. - and that's some significant change!
...mind you, I would have bailed out of the team thing, gone up to L19 conference room to taste test these alleged snacks and put the word around that I was diplomatically selling answers to anyone who asked with proceeds going to my favourite alzheimer's charity.

Adore how you think.

I think the organisers were in the conference room, is the problem. Plus I really don't need HR outright hating me :D Otherwise a brilliant plan, though...

I don't suppose this is the sort of scavenger hunt where you could spend lunch running around moving things and just generally and messing with the clues/answers?

I didn't think so, but as I was leaving I saw balloons set out to mark where clues would lead you.

I might have moved a few.

Console yourself with the fact that, even if there is pizza, it's probably Chicaco-style pizza, which totally doesn't count.

That's a good point! You can't get decent pizza downtown...

Man, I wouldn't want to do a scavenger hunt even if I DIDN'T know where everything was. This sounds like the team building crap that my high school was really into. The only actual relationship-building event that ever happened was when we got hideously lost on a camping trip and spent three hours in the woods at night with no flashlights or water (or maps!) on what was supposed to be a 20 minute hike to a campfire with food. THAT certainly made us closer. Then we got free pizza at the end!

Anyway, a scavenger hunt sounds like the opposite of drinks & talking, so I don't know what they were thinking.

God, how do I hate most 'ice-breaker' games. They tend to be competitions, which I avoid because I do have a competitive drive and it's not a nice one, so I don't want to show it off in public (including strangers who happen to work for my employer too).

At least you can weasel out of this. My office bonding involves Dare to Care, which I feel isn't fair because 1) I really don't wanna bond with these people and 2) because of my desire to help others I now must bond (on some superficial level) in order to accomplish the end goal.

Just stay in the cubicle and tell people you're Daring to Work.

Today a Scavenger Hunt attacked Sam.

I can now go to bed.

A sneak attack, no less!

I allowed myself to skip all workplace parties after a conversation with one of the senior admins in an office several years ago. It was gearing up for the office Christmas party, and I didn't really want to go (I was a temp in an office in a field in which I Have NO INTEREST), and I struck up a conversation with one of the other secretaries who'd been there since Time Immemorial. "Are you going to the Christmas party?" I asked.

She just gave me a withering look, and said, "No. Because I have a life."

After that I decided that i could skip all office events unless they were otherwise fun. (The karaoke contest and the paintball, I did. The sit-around-a-restaurant-with-people-you-don't-really-know, not so much.)