cringey things that offices do to seem "fun"

does your office have these?

1. monthly award for somebody who has done great workz, never going to be you or anyone you know.

no but gf's place has a marketing exec fly over once a month from manchester to award a gold star to ppl.

heh xp. Ps i used to win these awards, it *could* be you

My #1 rule of thumb when interviewing management types is that anyone using the phrase "we make it fun" is a sadist and a bully with a handful of pampered favourites.

I work from home. occasionally I take the rubbish out or feed the cat. for fun.

sporadic emails that address you by name asking how you are, then tell you about sales figures and congratulate you

distributing sweets on a timetabled basis. FRIDAY AFTERNOON SWEETIE TIME hey man, they basically feed factory chickens much like this, thanks for the sweet tho

freelancer, have seen lots of office 'fun'.

Top of list probably a place that had Sports Day.

(Once, at that place, maggots started falling from overhead onto the desk next to me.)

But I won't hear a word against places that give you free beer at 4.30 on Friday.

upstairs office probably having their fishing event..?

talking of fishing... getting everybody together to watch a video showing how work can be "fun", made by a fish market in Chicago where they throw fish around a lot.

http://www.media-partners.com/motivation/fish_philosophy_video.htm

I worked in an office that had Friday morning Krispy Kremes for a while. They were all bought in by the same girl. Only people with no originality and zero concept of fun* buy Krispy Kremes for the office.

*I mean actual fun, not "fun".

distributing sweets on a timetabled basis. FRIDAY AFTERNOON SWEETIE TIME hey man, they basically feed factory chickens much like this, thanks for the sweet tho

our place does this with beers, 4pm every friday. i love when i decline cos i know i'm getting utterly leathered as soon as work ends and don't want to start early, and yet in the office it makes you look like a hardworking, clean-living puritan.

xps

ha no, they were coming from a pool of stagnant water on top of the air conditioner.

This same office had a ping-pong table installed right behind my desk. Which we were all too busy and stressed to use. So the management team would come along and distractingly play round-the-table during our busiest periods, oblivious to the fact we were all secretly willing them to fuck off.

Ugh the last major telco I worked at loved this crap. Had the word "irreverant" in their staff mission statement thing. "work is fun!" they said. Lets have a pow wow team building exercise morning where we all sit around hitting drums and discussing shit. Which they called "Survivor". Not even thinking of the fact my team of 12 had all just been told we were being made redundant in 2 months time. Yeah that went down well.

^^ yes I can just go to my fridge at 4pm but friday free beer is awesome. I wanna work at your place.

at the bbc orientation when i was a trainee, they let you play with sticklebricks while people spoke, because it was meant to keep your left brain stimulated or something.

i actually found this kind of cool and was building huge towers and shit, but still listening to the speeches.

xpost not when it's always warm peroni

i'll give the public sector this, they rarely if ever try to make it 'fun', which is def a net positive

We get free massages once a month, and we had a Wii and would do bowling comps at lunch, which was cool... I havent even had a CPI increase let alone a payrise in 4 years so fuck the Wii and the pingpong table thanks.

We also had an electronic piano-keyboard mat that ran up to the whiteboard that people had to write their big achievements on, so when you'd done something good at work everyone would know by the little tune that was played. I've never been so incentivised to fail in all my life.

I've also seen battery-farm telesales floors where every sale is greeted by the ringing of a bell or, worse, the honking of an airhorn.

Thankfully, I work in a "fun"-free office. Which is much more fun.

If they ever start with any of this shit, I will work from home or quit.

I worked for a company once which got bought out by some people from California. Who sent an energetic Californian manager over to get us up to standard. Who tried to start every weekday morning with some "fun" breathing exercises from yoga. He managed about a week of being stared at by cynical South London types before giving up.

We also had an electronic piano-keyboard mat that ran up to the whiteboard that people had to write their big achievements on, so when you'd done something good at work everyone would know by the little tune that was played.

omg that is spectacularly wtf.

The stationary cupboard was like a graveyard of discarded toys. There was a scalextric box piled on top of a trampoline.

we swear a lot about wankers in senior management, it's pretty fun

Things that I will accept as actual fun:

- Being bought booze
- Being bought lunch
- Conversations about things people are actually interested in
- Maybe an occasional pub quiz as long as its against members of the public rather than an intra-company thing
- Sweepstakes are pretty harmless provided that no one in your office has a gambling addiction and you do them for things other than the Grand National and the World Cup

Ugh footy pools, speaking of. I worked at a place that was hardcore about following footy and being in the office pool/sweeps and I'd refuse to join because wtf I dont follow footy and the CEO effectively implied if we didnt join in, we weren't team players, with this sinister overtone of "and I'll fire you for that". THATS NOT FUN.

Oh that reminds me, aforementioned big telco informing everyone some years ago re the work xmas party "I need not remind everyone that attendance is mandatory".

Ugh, see, I find those "we all pile into the local caff and the boss buys us all lunch" actually excruciating, because the added bonus cringe of trying to make casual conversation with people you know only through a work environment is just TERROR but we don't seem to have done that in a while, I think the company might have got too big to fit at one table any more and one of the managers gets butthurt if all the 20-somethings want their own table and don't include him.

They have been trying to round up interest for company BOWLING and this is my actual idea of hell so I've p much refused point blank to go.

I don't even bother making up excuses not to go to Christmas parties any more, either. I am basically a horrible person.

kind of lol but mostly employment tribunlol

Idont mind work xmas parties mostly cos free booze and an excuse to dress up but I'm so paranoid about getting pished around my workmates which is daft because most of them are hardcore liver-destroying party animals out of work. I just dont want them to know I am too!

But yeh functions like... ok bowling is orright, but one of our suppliers wants to take us all out for PAINTBALL. WTF. Paintball is aggressive, sweaty, requires fitness and HURTS.

yeah we did paintball and there were serious repercussions, teambuilding my ass

we did laserquest once, and it was fun. you lot are just too spoilt.

My gf used to work for an impotently angry Napoleon complex startup megalomaniac who had two attempts at writing the 'values' for the business, in the process writing a blog post that stated that people who didn't fit the culture and values of the business were "quickly managed out". The second attempt included such things as "going above and beyond your job description, in fact not even considering yourself to have a job description at all" and "being fun and a bit whacky".

The first attempt at writing out these values reduced them to an acronym that was then put in gigantic letters onto a large poster in the boardroom, where prospective employees were interviewed. The acronym was 'TITS'.

del boy's letter to the troops

Our work's pretty good at non-intrusive fun - free pizzas once a month or so, open bar pub nights (non-compulsory), free booze & food events to which partners (and sometimes kids) are invited. Games nights where you can use the projectors for gaming. It's a very male-dominated environment, so the girls have started organising separate girl orgafun which always looks like the worst things ever (and involve many highly emails about shoes and cosmopolitans) and I have thus far avoided.

They do competitions from time to time but the prizes are pretty good, like they did a paper aeroplane design one and the person whose plane went further won gliding lessons.

I ignore the 'pat on the back employee of the month' shit.

The one place I worked that had a 'fun' policy was actually pretty damn great.

A video duplication plant, some of the bigger events meant you got to meet / re-meet a lot of different kinds of people. Softball, quiz evenings, once-a-year big events, christmas dos, where everyone (nearly) is involved.

I guess they are awesome when the vibe is right, and a pain when it isn't. (IT companies' generally are bad, unless something sparks)

There's just so much of my life that I never, ever share with anyone at work that the idea of getting drunk with anyone at work is just... OMG NO to me.

I am such a different person in the office to who I am outside, or even on ILX, that the idea of getting drunk, and my real personality coming out is absolutely terrifying, stuff of nightmares to me.

I did it exactly once - went to a Christmas party the first year I moved back to the UK, not realising what they entailed. And I got horribly drunk, snogged a colleague's boyfriend (who was also a colleague) got in a fight I don't even remember and woke up with a black eye the next day with no memory of how I'd got it. And that kind of behaviour would be absolutely par for the course for a rock'n'roll night out with my band (at that time) but risking doing it in an office context - never again.

Like, it was an ad agency, so there were a lot of hard drinking bitter ex creative types and they didn't make a big deal of it, but the idea of something like that happening now... just no. I do not drink with colleagues. And that goes double now I have an inappropriate professional attachment.

My old office was OK, the IT department was comfortable enough that we could be ourselves around each other. We issued a paintballing challenge to the Marketing Dept (our sworn enemies) but funnily enough they never took us up on it.

Ah, paintballing, the one place I would never go. No matter what.

It's not because it's less-than-trendy now. Things involving shooting at people and pain, IncMeOut.

when i used to work for a government initiative that rhymes with Gore Gart we had a couple of the most hilarious christmas parties of all time, full-on tequila-slamming falling-over-on-the-dance-floor-dancing-all-night let-us-never-talk-of-this-again awesome all-dayers

i think the secret is to work with loads of women in social/childcare kinda occupations and avoid business wonks like the plague

Oh god, I just remembered: Being the lead singer / guitar guy in the office band (two company do's).

Thankfully I have avoided being conscripted into an "Office Band" up until this point.

Which took some doing at the last place I worked, where the FD grilled me extensively on what kind of guitar I played at the interview (much longer than he spent talking about databases, a really bad sign) - I swear, he only approved my hire because he wanted someone that played a Jazzmaster in his imaginary band.

Ad agencies win outright at this kind of cringeworthy orgafun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpSTIKbrBOw

^^^ If that is not the single dorkiest thing you have ever seen then I don't ever want to speak to you again.

Oh, secret santa. I was strongarmed into that once, despite being a fly-by-night freelancer. That didn't feel fun.

1. monthly award for somebody who has done great workz, never going to be you or anyone you know.

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Thursday, 20 September 2012 09:01 (50 minutes ago) Permalink

We have these every Friday and they're soul destroying. It's always the same people who win them because they have more opportunities to do impressive stuff whereas the people in bottom-feeding / workhorse positions never as they're simply required to get on with the job.

xposts re Office bands, surprised it hadn't happened here also, except that when we compared our 'gear' it turned out all of us were guitar/vocals, nobody else was drums/bass/keyboards/owtelse.

Oh, secret santa. I was strongarmed into that once, despite being a fly-by-night freelancer. That didn't feel fun.

Done this precisely once: My purchase was appreciated, I got "novelty socks", the ones with a MASSIVE comedy tune generator that'd kill yr ankles.

Oh, btw, whatever happened to ILX's Secret Santa over the years? (start another thread for tales if there are any maybe)

Former CEO was a singer-songwriter in a previous life whose sole commercial achievement was writing Gina G's now forgotten follow-up to 'Ooh Aah Just A Little Bit'. He had an acoustic guitar in his office that he used to strum during the working day, until that episode of The Office when Brent gets his guitar out. The guitar was quietly taken home and never seen again.

We have had the "boss strumming the guitar during meetings" conversation before, I think while Nathan Barley was still running.

This same office had a ping-pong table installed right behind my desk. Which we were all too busy and stressed to use. So the management team would come along and distractingly play round-the-table during our busiest periods, oblivious to the fact we were all secretly willing them to fuck off.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 20 September 2012 10:12 (42 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh christ...This whole thread is like a testament to how these so-called "perks" only benefit a privileged minority of middle managers and toadies. Much like life I guess...

This same office had a ping-pong table installed right behind my desk. Which we were all too busy and stressed to use. So the management team would come along and distractingly play round-the-table during our busiest periods, oblivious to the fact we were all secretly willing them to fuck off.

our office has fuzzball/air hockey, the same 5/6 c**ts play it for an hour or two each day, the noise is fucking horrendous.

at the bbc orientation when i was a trainee, they let you play with sticklebricks while people spoke, because it was meant to keep your left brain stimulated or something.

i actually found this kind of cool and was building huge towers and shit, but still listening to the speeches.

― Know how Roo feel (LocalGarda), Thursday, 20 September 2012 10:13 (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They did this on my Train The Trainer course. I do think it's a neat idea and I agree it helps (I doodle CONSTANTLY in meetings, if I didn't I would fall asleep but it looks like I'm not listening, which I am (most of the time)). Still isn't this an admission that "hey this meeting is going to be dull as Grandad's undies so here are some baby toys to play with".

We have a 'table foooozball' as you modernpeople call it, over there. Never seen it used. Not sure if it even has a ball.

maybeif you TRIED harder you'd WIN some of these prizes and BE a middle manager, just sayin

IF I HAD THAT IDEA YOU SEEM SO KEEN ON GETTING FROM ONE OF US, I'D QUIT AND MAKE THE MILLIONS MYSELF just sayin.

*shakes head* so bitter, so....bitter

Our IT dept had a music & film quiz to raise money for their charity which I won "by some considerable margin" and I won a bottle of 10.5% mateaus rose. I know it's for charity but come on.

maybeif you TRIED harder you'd WIN some of these prizes and BE a middle manager, just saying

i actually work pretty hard, just nobody gives a fuck about my section of the business, what the hell you know it's just 1m of yr customers a day reading the website, who cares?

so bitter

the harder i work the more our customers are gonna hate me, i had to tell my aunt where i work now and she flipped out

Generally speaking this phenomenon gets worse the bigger the company is. If it's 10 people in a room who all get on then it's fairly easy to find common ground and things that are actually enjoyable for people. Medium sized trendy startups are hit-and-miss where this thing is concerned. People running large teams within big companies can be absolutely terrible at it because there's such a range of people and no agreement on what is actually considered fun bar what one person thinks.

re: Going out for drinks after work with colleagues - I find it almost impossible, which is strange because outside of work I'm a fairly sociable person with few hangups about chatting with people. But with work I immediately become a wallflower or that guy who just stands there listening and not engaging while everyone talks over each other. I've never really felt a part of a team night out in my three years here, and yet a lot of the people in the office (judging from FB photos and updates) seem to have made the office an integral part of their social group, going to parties, festivals, clubs together... I'll never understand that.

But I won't hear a word against places that give you free beer at 4.30 on Friday.

if you're going to drink late on a friday afternoon why would you do it AT WORK. JUST GO TO THE PUB. the last people i want to be "buzzed" around are my colleagues hunched over their fluourescent-lit computers.

Only people with no originality and zero concept of fun* buy Krispy Kremes for the office.

jesus man, listen to yourself. someone is buying you amazing donuts, who cares how "original" they are. "oh god, you eat CEREAL in the morning?? but EVERYBODY does that"

They're kinda disgusting dude.

It's also less about buying donuts and more about making 'Krispy Kreme Fridays!!!' a thing.

I quite like it when beer or wine comes out on a Friday afternoon. I don't necessarily want to go the pub at 4pm on a Friday, especially if there's still stuff that needs to be finished by the end of the week, but it can be nice to just wind down with a desk beer.

Does anyone buy Krispy Kreme other than as a special office treat?

s0 thankful i've never worked in an office where there was enforced fun

at my last job we had champagne on the roof terrace on friday afternoons though, that was nice

last week i did a shift at metro and they had quail's eggs and pimm's in the office to celebrate the end of the olympics

WTF?

Next you're gonna say they had caviar flinging competitions and every time someone had a successful day they had to smash a faberge egg on the floor.

Quail's eggs cost like 10p each and no one has seriously considered Pimm's to be classy since leaving university.

Pimms does have that retro appeal tho, like fondue and boef bourgignon.

They're kinda disgusting dude.

shakes head sadly, kicks a piece of turf, sticks hands in pockets, walks away, stops, takes one last look back, shakes head sadly again and keeps walking

No I agree, KKs are gross.

Proper baked donuts >>> fried shit.

regular at a food mag with a test kitchen, so lots of amazing food just appears regularly. This is FINE BY ME.

I like KKs, but I try not to eat stuff when people buy sweets as they're so horrendously fatty and I'm usually busy enough to just keep working.

We don't really have much of these where I work although tbh most any sort of bonding or social work thing makes me cringe. One of my friends works at a place that has to be #1 for embarrassing things like this. Last year at their Christmas party they had a flashmob of people dance to some pop song and the CEO showed up dressed as Santa. Recently at a office-wide meeting they did a flashmob dance to Call me Maybe. This is a really corporate finance firm that's normally really uptight. It's so weird and awful.

Bring all your KK's to me, I will happily devour them.

(And then spend the rest of the day alternating bouncing off the walls and crashing in a total carb coma)

Oh god CEOs etc doing wacky things is the worst, I now recall another xmas party where a high manager dressed up in Eocky Horror lingeree and did a dance. Christ.

Quail's eggs cost like 10p each

tbf this was at the Metro

Er Rocky Horror, that should say, I should stop posting while I'm watching TV.

Oh god CEOs etc doing wacky things is the worst, I now recall another xmas party where a high manager dressed up in Eocky Horror lingeree and did a dance. Christ.

― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Thursday, September 20, 2012 9:05 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

whenever people do things like this i always end up being directly in their line of sight and i have a very expressive face so it's a disaster.

Last office I was in was the business-facing front of the uni, which meant that many people had strange coporate ideas regarding team-building and office fun. Like hiding miniscule Lindt eggs behind your monitor at Easter. Cupcake decorating happened once.

Every Friday at 10:30 was "cake time", and there was a cake rota; for an office of 40ish people, 2/3 people were rota'd every friday to supply cake. Luckily I like baking, but if you didn't... fuck. It was very competetive. God forbid bringing in a couple of cartons of Sainsburys mini-bite shortbreads or whatever. Hummingbird Bakery recipes or nothing.

In the Grand Old Days, a bunch of friends used to work for a local campus company that got bigger and bigger, and hosted a party at the end of the main Java conference, that also got bigger and bigger.

The year before the bubble burst, they hired Spinal Tap to play the conference. And because the CEO used to play a bit of guitar...

06 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh god CEOs etc doing wacky things is the worst, I now recall another xmas party where a high manager dressed up in Eocky Horror lingeree and did a dance. Christ.

― frances boredom coconut (Trayce), Thursday, September 20, 2012 9:05 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

That is horrifying.

xp ^^^winner

I. DON'T. CARE. ABOUT. THIS. SHIT. NOTHING YOU CAN DO IS GOING TO MAKE ME THINK OF THIS PLACE IN ANY OTHER WAY THAN SOMEWHERE I HAVE TO GO ON A DAILY BASIS SO I CAN HAVE FUN OUTSIDE WORK. NOW LET ME GET ON WITH IT.

OK wow @ Spinal Tap.

One place I worked had a trip to a go kart track. The manager who'd organised it neglected to tell anyone that this was the very same track where he'd gone every week for two years. He came 2nd and sulked the next day.

The Spinal Tap thing is pretty awesome, although a ridiculous example of insane late 90s tech hubris at the same time.

A recruitment agency (who were a client of a company I used to work for) flew all their London office staff to Dublin for a Christmas piss-up. Then two months later made half of them redundant.

Serious lol @ go-kart hustling manager coming second.

My office did a great "foods of the world" thing to celebrate the Olympics. If you worked in a culturally mixed place, it's fun to make the white ppl cry with spicy food give people the chance to share a bit of their background.

There's usually a three-day conference at the end of the year that inevitably finishes with people gathered at 2am in a hotel lobby drinking Talisker from the bottle and swapping stories that must never, ever be referred to again.

xp he got totally ninja'd by another manager who in the run up to the trip had been super laid back, saying things like "go karting? oh it's just a bit of fun"

...but once we were on the track it was like watching James Garner and Yves Montand in the movie Grand Prix.

Great thing about my work is there's loads of stuff on but it's all entirely up to you to join it (e.g. cake club - you take turns to make a cake and everyone else eats it). We are a weird bunch of different types of nerds which is good because Kerrazy Office Fun is something to be instinctively avoided.

Opt-in stuff is great. It's the obligatory orgafun that gives people the sinking feeling.

Yeah. I am imagining being informed that I will be engaged in something like the video that Matt posted earlier and all of my skin is crawling off.

I got a lift in with my friend and asked what the song was for the flashmob dance she was made to do. It was the B E Peas - I Gotta Feeling. Just thinking about how awful being in that and having to watch that must have been makes me want to die.

OMG I just thought of another example. At RS's Christmas Party a couple years ago his co-worker wrote a song about their company to the tune of 12 days of Christmas and we all had to sing it. It went on for about 10 minutes and was just awful.

I'm glad I don't work with any of you guys, what the hell

Secret Satan

Oh god we had a company themed 12 days of xmas song at the party last year. I can't remember (probably blocked the memory) if we had to sing or if the company "choir" did the honours.

that is some seriously f'ed up shit

Someone clearly took a satanic level of glee in making the most easily adaptable Christmas song also the most interminable.

Not too down on workplaces I've been in, past and present. But the only thing that drives me nuts are SKITS or performances - when they throw a party and want people to sing or act.

we get bagels on monday and lunch on wednesdays sometimes there are parties on the roof or like a film screening

Yeah but you probably work with people who aren't horrible. Also, no flashmobs.

omg today we launched a new pay as you go thing and when i got in there were balloons everywhere and posters all around. then, get this, they are having a cracker-eating competition and there's popcorn and silly string!!!

i sometimes think i should pay them to work here!

seriously what's wrong with just openly cultivating the soulless slave camp vibe and letting everyone just do their job stoically?

^^^ first world problems

it's a natural continuance of mandatory pep rallys in high school

first world problems is the "that's what she said" of the soul. you could say it after anything.

When I was a child my village was razed to the ground and my family sent to work in salt mines and brothels.

OFFICE OLYMPICS.

When I was a child my village was razed to the ground and my family sent to work in salt mines and brothels.

that's what she said!

Force people to take "fun" personality and psychological tests. I once worked at a place like this and found some of these tests to be culturally biased. For example, we had a few computer tech people who were immigrants and who were shy about this sort of thing.

Then you get angry at their cultural biases and ignorance and you have to have a sit-down meeting with a WHITE "LIBERAL" boss. Because psychological profiles are assumed to be a "liberal" fun thing. I don't blame people for not sharing their personality "type" with, like, people they might not be best friends with.

Also, what is wrong with "soulless" slave camp indeed. At least work gets done! As opposed to people who can't stop bitching about people they work with!!

Have Halloween parties where you're made to wear a costume in order to participate. JUST GIMMIE THE FREE FOOD DAMMIT I DON'T WANT TO HAVE FUN WITH YOU ASSHOLES.

Actually Halloween costumes at work can put everyone at ease. Depends on where you work. I would be scared of a workplace that banned them! They even wear them in banks, so what is the excuse.

I hated when I had to do a sketch in a promotional video where the character was just not anything like my personality. Thank god those DVD's sit on a shelf and didn't leave the house!

At my last job the director brought in fancy cookies from bakery during stressful deadline-hitting times. It wasn't really cringey but she always seemed really concerned that I never took one of the cookies. Some people are baffled by other people who don't like sweets. OTOH, I would have been very excited if she had brought in beef jerky and my productivity would have skyrocketed (as would my farts so I guess there's pros and cons to every managerial decision...).

Well, that's kind of nuts. I mean, that's lovely behavior. Too much political correctness can be annoying, but it's not a bad idea to at least keep diabetics or allergies in mind when bringing sweets to work.

We had a GIANT buffet once and EVERY DISH had red meat in it. And it wasn't warm or thoroughly cooked either. No veggie appetizers, veggie dishes, no not even a chicken! No salad! I don't promote vegetarianism at work, but shit - when there's not even a salad or vegetable plate at a giant party, it looks like YOU are promoting something.

LOL damn that's totally nuts! Do you live in Texas or something?

Naw, NM, if you lived in Texas there'd at least be some pickled okra for you to eat...

I don't even think it's that bad in Texas, unless it's some rural place! No, not Texas, but the caterer in question is originally from .... some flyover place. I mean, my grandparents were farmers, we always had potatoes and salad and veggies on the table.

Fiber is important!! This could not be stressed enough in my family, as my maternal Grandmother died of colon cancer way before I was born.

How did being deliberately unhealthy make one a red-blooded American citizen? (n.b. I don't mean to exclude non-Americans here).

it's charity day today. people are in fancy dress.

help me.

you get fined £2 for not being in fancy dress. i'm assuming nobody even knows what charity the money goes to.

what are you wearing then?

went for an american history x theme.

today is 'wear your armed forces reservist uniform with pride' day here.

wow that must be weird to say the least

haven't actually seen anyone dressed as a soldier yet

disappointed I didn't treat it as 'Wild Geese cosplay day'.

turning up in a Chinese army uniform wd be fun

broad black brimmer

Latest: clean up a city park. We are advised to wear sneakers ( that will get ruined in the mud) and something to rest out knees on while we kneel.

The staff association here are organising a 'masquerade ball'. It sounds like hell on earth.

I love my current department, but my old department did all sorts of stupid teambuilding exercises that made me eyeroll.

On one instance, my location did that dumb "you are a survivor of a plane crash" exercise (http://scoutingweb.com/scoutingweb/SubPages/SurvivalGame.htm), where we were broken out into teams and required to rank the supplies we salvaged in order from most desirable to least, and explain why. It was supposed to build "teamwork", but it only built yawns, and at the end, we all presented, were given the correct answers, and went back to our desk.

Not even a year later, all of the locations had a monthly touchbase meeting, and we were forced to do this AGAIN (apparently my manager hadn't told the other managers that our location had done this already). So we went through the arduous exercise again.

At the end, when I waited for the same boring answers to be read, the manager leading the activity proclaimed "Oh there ARE no answers! The point of this exercise was to learn to work together!". (of course, the folks in my location started murmuring to themselves that there obviously are answers, since we'd done it before).

At that point, I looked for the nearest window to jump out. so glad I got out of there.

nerf guns. ugh, hearing people bouncing around the office shooting at each other and giggling.

team pot luck lunch. sorry i dont want to spend my lunch hour time eating food made by coworkers, most of which was desserts.