Organised Fun and Games

December 16, 2011 Longrider Humour, Personal Stuff 11

The HR manager has decreed that the night shift should not miss out on the festivities enjoyed by the day shift. Consequently at our daily (nightly?) huddle (yeah, I know) we will have games to liven things up a bit and get us into the festive spirit.

At this point I was cringing silently. The game we were advised, would be to balance an After Eight mint on one’s forehead and proceed to eat it without using one’s hands. I begged the floor to open up and swallow me. Now, please, would be just dandy. This exact moment would be an ideal time. The bugger refused to cooperate, so I prayed to the God I don’t believe in to let me die. I’ve lived a full life, time to go. And now would be an ideal time, please. I guess, all those years of non-belief resulted in payback, and payback is a bitch. Someone up there was probably pissing himself.

The managers proceeded to demonstrate how the game was to work –  or not in one case. We were then instructed to sort ourselves into two rows so that we could compete. There followed some shuffling and much staring at the floor. We were told again. There was great avoidance of eye contact and some more awkward shuffling of feet. One of the managers went from person to person and was greeted with muted refusal in all but a couple of cases –  who then went on to try the game. The rest continued to stare at the floor which had become mighty interesting all of a sudden.

So, then, in the wee hours of the morning, with barely a whimper, games for the night shift died of embarrassment.

We were accused of being boring, which amused me greatly. The last time anyone said that to me when I refused to join in something, I was about twelve years old.

All in all, it was fun, but for all the wrong reasons…

I guess someone down there was pissing himself, too.

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11 Comments

  1. LR. If you (and I!) are wrong in our years of non-belief, you (we!)can be pretty sure that payback will entail more than pissing about with an After Eight mint.

  2. “We were accused of being boring, which amused me greatly.”

    Should’ve claimed to be diabetic, and threatened to sue for disability harassment. The sonic boom you’d hear would be the sound made by the managers backpedalling… 😈

  3. LR. If you (and I!) are wrong in our years of non-belief, you (we!)can be pretty sure that payback will entail more than pissing about with an After Eight mint.

    I don’t know. Keeping that up for eternity, or even a reasonable chunk of it, sounds pretty hellish and soul destroying, which would be the point. Longrider, if you go back in tonight and it’s still going on there might be bad news. Check your pulse.

  4. After Christmas why not tell these managers that they were right and you should have joined in the festive spirit and to make amends you suggest that as this is now the period of Saturnalia that all roles be reversed and a Lord of Misrule should be appointed for the duration with freedom to mock all workplace authority ? I’m sure they’d see the amusing side of it.

  5. IMHO – ALL attempts to enforce ‘ice-breaker games’ within the workforce should result in the perpetrator(s) being required to sit in a vat of trifle for whatever time it takes to convince the others “How much fun” they are having.

  7. You mean to say that the game of balancing a mint was dictated by head HR and passed down to the managers to impose? I thought christmas was supposed to be the season of fun and games mainly imposed by alcohol not by the boss.

  9. With the deepening of the recession, perhaps there is hope that many HR ‘professionals’ will find themselves in your position and see, first hand, the awfulness of their half witted edicts?

    BTW: I always try to dodge staff ‘parties’ using sickness / previous engagement as my excuse. Such work organised ‘entertainments’ are without exception hideous affairs designed to ‘team build’. Ironically they do build ‘teams’, but not of the type HR are really looking for.

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