Talking about “building”, hearing “building “That is to hide, the company group building has become one of the activities spit out by countless workplace people.
Group building, that is, team building, the original intention is to enhance team cohesion. Although not all group building is disgusting, but nowadays, referring to group building, “workers” tend to resist the negative emotions. “Why most people don’t like group building”, ” Reunion building is equal to overtime in disguise” and other topics have been widely discussed on Weibo.
In the form of group building, many people think that military training pull-out type group building is more tiring than working, and playing games with leaders and less familiar colleagues is more like a large awkward social, which brings mental torture. Compulsory participation, taking up weekend time, but also the need for employees to pay for the group building, it can be said to be a minefield of workplace people, and there are even companies in the group building after the “peak period of departure The company even has a “departure peak” after the reunion.
In this issue of the Bistro, Deep Burn talked with six people who had odd group building experiences about their experiences. Among them, some of them sang to steal the boss’s thunder during the group building, and it didn’t take long to stay in the company; some of them turned the group building into helping the boss clean the villa; some of them dreamed of an island tour, but it turned into a weekend trip to a temple to copy scriptures; some leaders organized the group building to boost morale, but they didn’t expect to be discouraged from ……
In the conversation with them, many people resent the group building, the group building that does not take into account the feelings of the staff, the self-centered leadership; the group building that encroaches on rest time, violates personal space and privacy, and has no boundaries. What they are looking forward to is a simple, pure and unburdened group building, which allows team members to discover another side of their colleagues outside work, deepen mutual understanding and better collaboration. However, such opportunities are rare.
1
The intern didn’t sing along with her boss.
The next day he was dismissed
Liu Li|28 years old, an Internet company sales
Our company seldom specializes in “group building”, because the group activity once every three days is also equivalent to group building, and the content of the group building is extremely single: drinking, KTV The content of the group building is extremely single: drinking, KTV, health care.
Every group building is around the boss, in short, to let the boss have fun. The boss likes to be lively, and is good at observing people through chaotic scenes. So every time I go to drink and KTV, it is a test for me, because as an employee, you have to play your role well, neither too non-existent, nor too out of the limelight.
The boss likes to sing songs with a sense of age, such as popular songs of the 80s and 90s, many of which I have never heard before. I remember a group building, the boss sang very happy, let everyone sing along with him. But those songs we have not heard much, can not sing, only superficially echoed a piece of singing. At that time, there was an intern, pushing and shoving, just did not sing, said he could not sing, just sitting there.
The next day after the reunion, the intern’s workstation was empty. At that time, there was a rumor among colleagues that the boss had said: “Interns who can’t sing are not good employees”.
There was another group building is also singing, the boss picked a very difficult song, the soprano part can not sing. At that time, an airborne department leader picked up the microphone and sang, directly covering the boss. The boss said: singing well, very good. Later, this leader did not stay long and left.
The boss is not highly educated, but he likes to be elegant, and especially likes to save the wine game. So our company group construction, drinking is an essential part. Rather than “group building”, it is better to say ” Group wine”, basically every time after the reunion, we are drinking to the east and west. In fact, most employees do not want to be poured into the wine, but there is no choice but to drink with each time.
Once we all drank too much, in the road, a colleague wanted to climb a tree, said there are peaches on the tree, to climb up to pick down to the boss to eat. Then he vomited while grabbing a tree and climbing up hard. The scene was extremely embarrassing.
We are a company that attaches great importance to sales, and group building is part of the corporate culture, so in terms of the frequency of group building, it should be higher than many companies, and is considered a regular thing. But I actually resent this kind of group building, because I think it should put the team first and the employees’ feelings first. And every time we participate in this kind of group building, we actually have a burden.
Maybe the boss simply likes this form of group building, but after more employees, there are always people who want to show something to the boss during the group building, resulting in the attributes of the group building itself is not so simple. Perhaps, the staff private group building, will be more comfortable.
2
The reunion was a 20km “torture” walk.
I secretly took a taxi halfway to the end
Lily |26 years old short video operator
Group building seems to be a necessary training for every social animal. I have participated in many group building projects since I graduated, most of them are dinner and singing. I’ve been to a lot of social programs since I graduated, most of which are dinner and singing. For a while, my colleagues often played werewolf killing together after dinner, and my level was average, but I thought it was quite interesting to play along.
The most bizarre group building activity I have ever participated in is hiking. The company I was working for at that time had a practice of organizing a hike of 20 to 30 kilometers on every anniversary of the company, which was actually a stroll in the mountains. The year I was there happened to be the tenth anniversary of the company, and every employee had to participate in the 20-kilometer hike.
That day I walked a few kilometers and didn’t want to go anymore, all I could think about was “Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing? ” “Why? “. I didn’t know what the point of doing this was, but I didn’t dare to complain, so I just wore the same uniform as everyone else and kept my head in the sand.
However, halfway through the walk, I was really too tired to see no one in front of or behind me to call a car, I did not expect that someone on the mountainous highway took the order, I lied to find the toilet, left the large group a few hundred meters and quietly got into the car. The moment I got in the car, I felt that my body and mind were saved.
When the car drove past the hiking group, I was worried about the company people seeing my group building clothes, so I hurried in the back seat on my back. In order not to let the leaders find out that I had taken a shortcut, I got out of the car at a place seven or eight hundred meters from the end and hid in the thick woods next to it.
After the hike, the company also held a cultural performance in the hotel, choral competition in various departments, and finally the boss speech, the sense of ceremony must be pulled full. Each of us was exhausted that day, and we arrived at the company’s entrance at about seven o’clock in the morning and went home at nine o’clock in the evening.
I can understand why leaders are willing to build groups, which can instill company (or boss) values, make colleagues closer and more familiar with each other, work better together, and improve departmental productivity. The daily reunion I mentioned above (dinner and singing) can actually serve this purpose, allowing people to discover the lovely things in their colleagues outside of work.
However, I think that the group building thing, or can be saved to save. Young people are already drained by their work, and will value their private time outside of work. Moreover, to go to the group building on Saturday when Japan should be off is actually overtime in disguise. If the group building also added slogan shouting, strong incitement to get close to such deliberate behavior, will be more offensive, this kind of group building activities is also my most unwilling to participate in.
3
Asked to go out on the street to “make a fortune”.
And forcibly incite people to hug and cry
Zhang Legs Hair|29-year-old international logistics industry employees
In 2014, when I started my internship after graduation, I experienced the first group building in my life, and I still have a “shadow” of the group building.
On the first day, the main content was listening to lectures, chanting slogans and playing games, which was relatively normal. On the second day, the theme of the group building became “Fate”, which is a competition in groups to find ways to make passers-by give you money from their pockets and then donate it, which became a bit This became a bit odd.
On that day, we handed in our ID cards, work permits and other valid documents, and each group got a donation box and started to “make money” from passersby. It took us a day, but the two aunts from the cleaning department finally asked for ten dollars at a car wash, not because we touched the owner of the car wash, but because the other side thought we were scammers and just said, “Don’t bother me, I’ll give you ten dollars to go. “.
Everything is not over yet. On the third day, more than two hundred employees of the company had to talk about their stories and experiences on stage one by one. By 10 p.m., everyone finally finished, the host came on stage and started to incite, talking and turning off the lights, playing inciting music and sending out questions from the soul, “Do you miss your loved ones, do you love your colleagues? Hold them tight, cry it out, let your emotions out”, then many people began to cry. I was sitting on the floor, looking at the ceiling, feeling speechless.
I thought I had finally made it to the end, but I didn’t think it was just the beginning. After this reunion, the leaders thought the “spiritual development” was so effective that they decided to hold a small reunion every day in the company.
So every morning at 8am, we had to line up and shout slogans, saying things like “I believe, I can burn, I can suffer”, and employees were asked to take turns Employees were also asked to take turns to perform shows or play games. One day it was my turn, I sang a song to everyone and went down. Later, my department manager received a notice asking me to strengthen my studies, and I resigned.
The leaders of that company, with a limited level of education, believed that this “spiritual development” could make employees more friendly and make the company better, but in fact this form is used by many pyramid schemes and scam organizations. The purpose is to break your self-esteem, so that you can face the work with a lower posture, with “let you have to work out, there is nothing in this world can defeat you “, such words to confuse you.
Later I shared this experience on a Q&A platform, and received nearly 10,000 likes from netizens, it seems that many people are troubled by the “group building”. Leaders organize group building, they want to get closer to everyone, but I think, work is actually just a place where people work to earn money, if the group building only eat and chat is okay, those inexplicable activities are really unnecessary.
Now working for 7 years, my better group building experience is related to eating and drinking. The company rented a villa in the mountains or somewhere by the sea, so we ate and drank, and wandered around, and once I watched a movie all night on a big 80-inch TV, which was especially relaxing.
4
Cooking and working at the same time.
I had to clean my boss’s house after dinner
Chenxi|25 years old, an MCN agency operation
We work on the negative floor of our boss’s villa, and our colleagues have had two reunions, both of which were at the boss’s house.
The first time was when the boss proposed a day of hot pot, barbecue and games. The first time was when the boss proposed a day of hot pot, barbecue and games. She specifically asked us to work for a while at the company half an hour earlier that morning. 10 o’clock, the boss let a few colleagues go out to make purchases, and the rest did the cleaning of ingredients and other preparations. But that time was our busiest time of the day, and no one was available. The boss said we were not cooperating with the group and forced us to work in the kitchen on the first floor.
We were forced to work with clients while wearing lamb skewers, and some of us were actually peeling garlic in our hands while talking to clients on the phone about the shooting plan. After dinner, the boss suddenly blamed us for making a mess in her house, but we only went to the kitchen and the office downstairs. Finally, the boss let us clean the kitchen, living room, along with her second floor study, bedroom were cleaned.
This is not finished, in the afternoon, the courier delivered a white pinwheel, she wants to put in the garden for decoration, the boss asked us to help her put together. Several of us put together for more than four hours, tired to half dead, and finally she slowly came over and said: “you did not do anything this afternoon how tired enough? “
That night colleagues are in a bad mood, feel to her home to play a day of miscellaneous, work can not be delayed, dinner to eat is also very unhappy, the whole awkward conversation. After that reunion, three people left our company one after another, one colleague clearly told me that the reunion made him very uncomfortable, I came to work, not to help the boss miscellaneous, and another because the boss family and business matters can not be divided.
After that, we also organized a group building, which was scheduled to go out to eat and then sing or play werewolf killing, but finally became a hot pot in her small garden, one person in a small pot, but it was already June, it was very hot outside, and the dishes were prepared very little. In the beginning, many bugs fell into the pot and we basically didn’t eat them.
Later a few of us drank and chatted until one or two o’clock, and also persuaded a colleague to leave. Because the colleague complained: “The boss’s mother always let me go to the car every time I want to use the car, I am becoming the boss’s family driver”. We all helped him analyze the situation and agreed that there was no point for him to be in this company, and soon after that, the colleague left.
I think group building is quite important, whether it is to relax after a busy day at work, or to improve understanding with colleagues to better cooperation, group building is a very good way. But we like the group building, may be no boss involved in the group building, because colleagues are basically the same age, the boss and we have a generation gap, a lot of terrain she does not understand but we have to go with the echo, but also very awkward.
As for the content of the group, I do not like to play games such as truth or dare, I feel that this game is purely to understand the privacy of others, I think even between friends will have boundaries, and colleagues I do not want to talk about these.
5
The expected island tour that
The expected trip to the island turned into a 4-hour trip to a temple to copy scriptures
Sesame|31 years old before the event planning
You may not believe it, our boss said he wanted to “treat” everyone, but in fact, he took the company to the temple to return (Buddhist practice in the process of a practice (a Buddhist practice).
Last winter, my team finally won a talk for half a year of a large single, followed by almost all the door manpower, working day and night for more than two months to complete the project. During this time, the boss is very considerate, in the work group and the meeting mentioned several times, said, hard work, after the completion of the work to take everyone out to play.
Most of the group is just working young people, heard to build a very happy group, but also will not discuss to go out of town to play, or to the island to go out to sea is also quite exciting.
I didn’t expect that the boss would announce at the meeting that we would all go to the temple on the weekend. At that time, I could feel that for a moment, the air in the meeting room was still.
I know that most people do not want to go, but no one raised objections. Because our company is small, the boss is the one who decides all the big and small things of the company, so it is useless even if you have an opinion. The boss believes in Buddhism, no one wants to be a bird in the head because of a group construction.
The day we went, it happened to rain a little, there was wind, the temple was very cold. The process of that day’s activity is, everyone sitting around the futon, first listen to the temple abbot read a long period of scripture, and then began to copy the scripture. We sat and copied the scriptures for four hours before getting up at 2pm to go to dinner, which was, of course, a full vegetarian meal at the temple.
To be honest, I had never worshipped a bodhisattva before, let alone copied scriptures, and I sat on the futon wondering if the bodhisattva would dislike people like me who were not sincere. I don’t know how my colleagues in the company felt, but the whole day was very difficult for me, from physical to psychological suffering.
On the way back, my colleagues laughed bitterly and comforted themselves, and compared to some group activities such as hiking, running and playing games, it was quite good to go to the temple and copy the sutra.
After returning to the company, the boss also seemed to have a little bit vain to explain, to go to the temple to copy the scriptures is to let everyone accumulate virtue and good deeds. But we feel that such a boss is too self-centered and does not consider the feelings of the employees.
If the boss did not raise the expectations of the group so high, perhaps everyone’s “resentment” would not be so great. But after this experience, the boss then use the group building to motivate everyone, almost no one agreed.
6
The leader used the fine as a reunion fund.
I did not expect the “reunion meal” has become a “break-up meal “
Zhang Da|25-year-old business manager of an Internet company
I have stayed in three companies since I graduated from university in 2018, and the group building I participated in was mainly to let my buddies relax. The first company’s group building program is relatively conventional, usually “dinner + movie” and “Dinner + massage”. The third company I am currently working for has more group building projects, and our department has organized activities such as party, script killing and werewolf killing. The most bizarre group building I’ve ever experienced happened when I was at my second company.
In September 2019, I interviewed for a business development position in the “Innovative Business Department” of a company. During the interview, the department leader told me that the new department was highly valued by the boss and that the company had strong resources, so I could do well to get the business going.
However, after joining the company, I learned that the so-called big boss is more important, in fact, the performance requirements are very high, and the strong resources are only the contact information of the customers served. Because the business model is not mature, the department leaders themselves are not experienced, but also often change their orders, it is difficult to advance the business. It was not until the end of 2019 that our business development was really progressed. In order to treat the departmental partners, the leader bought some beer and snacks from the supermarket across the street, and we had our first so-called reunion.
The second departmental reunion was held at the end of May 2020. During the first half of the epidemic, business development was more difficult, but the big boss still put a lot of pressure on the leadership, and even said to the leadership that if the business had not progressed, let him either transfer to another job or leave. So, the leader wanted to boost morale and regain the trust of the big boss by having group dinners and drinks to develop the business, but the colleagues had long been separated.
During the epidemic, the team couldn’t do anything. Instead of thinking about how to optimize the business model, the leadership kept squeezing us, such as having to open the nail video to work at home, and meeting online until 12:00 at least three nights a week, and fines were also one of them. The leaders set a single day KPI for each person that was 1.5 times higher than the previous one, and fines were imposed if they failed to meet it. If anyone did not take the initiative to transfer the fine to the leader, the leader would also remind in the work group. The second reunion dinner was financed by the fine.
During the reunion dinner, a glass of wine went down, and the leader started to talk about how difficult it was for him and how much pressure he was carrying in the company. Next, the leader began to toast his colleagues one by one to “make amends”, saying that he was strict with everyone during the epidemic, but only for the sake of business, hoping that everyone He said that he had been strict with everyone during the epidemic, but only for the sake of business, and hoped that everyone would “forget their grudges with a glass of wine” and unite to develop business properly.
This meal, colleagues are eating very unpleasant, most of us are drinking like a tool, mouth “thank you for leadership care”, but the heart is thinking “Disperse it early”. At that time, several colleagues have already had the intention to quit, I am also one of them, can last until May, completely because I dare not resign naked, also have not found a suitable next home.
However, I did not expect that a week after this group dinner, the leader, who was full of energy, was directly persuaded to retire by the big boss, and the fines for not using up the group building fell into the leader’s pocket, and an old employee of the department took over the position as the new leader. Watching the department business nature of the problem is still difficult to change, the ability of similar colleagues have become leaders, there will be two or three colleagues left one after another within a month. In less than three months, the original department of more than ten people only left a new leader a bare-bones commander is still hanging on.
At the request of the interviewer, Liu Li, Chen Xi, Lily, Zhang Legs, Sesame and Zhang Da are pseudonyms.
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