Last week the company I work for had it’s annual appreciation week for us employees. It’s a jam-packed week filled with swag (we each got a new mousepad with the company’s logo emblazoned all over it, but it’s the kind with a slippery top, so I’m going to continue using my old one), food, Scene It?, leaving early, and bowling. Like last year, the company-mandated fun week was a nice break from the routine, but there were several things I noticed along the way, as well as many suggestions for the future that I have no intention of voicing at the office.
Day 1: Breakfast and a Boring Presentation by the Division of the Company Whose Work No One Understands
There’s a Corner Bakery near our office, and apparently that means that’s the only place we can go for foodstuffs. There were two heaping bowls of fruit salad and several varieties of muffins/scones/other breakfast carbs that aren’t doughnuts. If you ask me, this isn’t truly a breakfast. Maybe if you’re one of those super health-conscious people that thinks eating blueberry muffin constitutes living on the edge, but when I think of a special breakfast like I assumed this would be, I assume there will be bacon and eggs.
As for the presentation, I still have no idea what that division of the company really does, and it just made me appreciate that understanding their job function has absolutely nothing to do with my job function. Live and let live.
Day 2: The Ice Cream Treat
The interesting thing about the company fun week is that the activities don’t match up perfectly. Because we have an office in St. Louis and an office in Chicago, while we’re bowling on a Thursday, St. Louis has already gone bowling on Tuesday. When it comes to the Ice Cream Treat, St. Louis already had theirs a day before us.
When I hear “Ice Cream Treat,” I assume it’ll be like an awkward high school ice cream social, with a buffet-style sundae setup with chocolate syrup, sprinkles, and maybe caramel. I heard from one of my co-workers in St. Louis that they had waffle bowls (normally an unthinkable cone solution, but acceptable in circumstances when you’re not in control of your ice cream fate) along with chocolate and vanilla ice cream. If you can get chocolate ice cream in a group ice cream setting, it’s a success.
At 3 p.m. I went to the lunchroom upstairs looking forward to some afternoon chocolate ice cream with sprinkles. I had even mentally embraced the waffle bowl! When I got there, I saw the company had just gone to the freezer section of the grocery store and bought ten different styles of frozen treats (none of which were push-pops, just in case you were wondering). I settled on some mediocre vanilla ice cream covered by a chocolate shell. As I ate this wannabe ice cream sandwich on a popsicle stick, a co-worker informed me her parents used to buy these treats every once in a while when her and her siblings “were really good.”
So essentially I learned that her parents decided they didn’t really like their offspring that much.
Day 3: A Half Hour of Scene It?
On third day of the fun week, Human Resources gave to me: a half hour of playing Scene It? with some people I never see.
For the game day, you could sign up for one half-hour interval of Scene It? What fascinated me about the game day was that you had to sign up for, and some people didn’t want to take advantage of it. That’s right—people would rather sit at their desk and work than voluntarily engage with co-workers in a game setting. Now, I avoid work bonding as much as the next gal, but when the option is bond or work? Just call me covalent, because I’m totally about to bond it up.
The conference room where Scene It? was happening isn’t far from my desk, and I heard so much laughing, screaming, and cheering that I thought maybe I had the wrong game in mind. Was this not that shitty game where you have to use your TV and watch obscure movie clips? The level of excitement coming from that conference room was at an Aaron Paul The Price is Right level of enthusiasm.
I showed up for my timeslot, and I could tell that everyone else was a little more excited about playing this game than I was. I’ve never been that person that’s really good at games; I’ve always been that sore loser that’s really good about writing a snarky rant about why I should have actually won. This round of Scene It? was no exception, only this time winning or losing wasn’t what was important. What really mattered is that I had a company-approved excuse for wasting half an hour of the workday.
Day 4: Bowling
Bowling has become the crown jewel of the company fun week. (I won’t mention the fact that the year before I started, everyone got to a Cubs/Cardinals game.) At 12:00 everyone leaves the office to roll a game of bowling.
It’s fascinating how some people get overly excited about bowling, but others get really nervous about other people seeing their true bowling abilities. People were treating their bowling inferiority as if it were a tribal lower back tattoo you try to keep hidden at work but is revealed when your sweater rides up when reaching for a file. Some people were so angry about the prospect of being forced to go bowling, eat free food, and leave work early that they decided to get back at the company by purposely bowling badly. I witnessed some of the strangest acts of office passive aggression that I’ve ever seen. I’m not that good at bowling (I think the last time I bowled was last year at this event), but when I find myself in a bowling situation, I feel compelled to try my best. It has less to do with pleasing the company overlords and more to do with me not being a miserable asshole.
You don’t realize this until you’re faced with it, but bowling is definitely an American game. I saw a few people of other nationalities attempting to bowl, and they just weren’t getting the concept. There were people throwing the ball overhand. There were people who made me worry their arm was going to break off. How did these people not notice what everyone else was doing and follow suit? I don’t know, but it sure was hilarious.
I didn’t know anyone on my bowling team. At my office, it’s what we call “siloed,” which means within our respective divisions we work with a small number of people compared with the company as a whole. As a result, there are often times I see people walking around on my floor that I’ve never seen before. You could put all these people in a co-worker lineup, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you who’s part of the company and who is not. Anyway, these people who I was meeting for the first time as a team seemed very nice, and while I could’ve done without all the high-fiving during bowling, I was glad they didn’t look down on me for rolling an 85.
Day 5: The Nothing Day
Even though Friday was still technically a part of the company appreciation week, I guess management realized we’d all be sick of each other by then, and so nothing was planned. I spent the day catching up on all the work that didn’t get done while I was eating breakfast and sub-par ice cream, playing Scene It?, and going bowling.
I wish I worked at Google, where I like to assume every day is fun (or at least includes a nap).