Team Building

You know, there are days when corporate america actually attempts to invest in their employees. These occasions are few and far between, but today my department at work had a "Team-Building" day. Which translates to playing games during worktime instead of actually working.

In the morning, we were given a "desert survival simulation exercise". Imagine that you were returning from your vacation to Acapulco, and your 6-seater plane crashed in the middle of the Mojave desert. Your pilots have tragically burned up in the smoldering plane reckage. You and your fellow unassuming planemates are now alone in the 130-degree sweltering heat.

Anyway, I was then given a written test of survival skills (slightly reminiscent of the Iowa-standards test). I was given a series of possible actions to take such as:

A. Immediately leave the reckage and head for civilization
B. Send some of the group out to find help
C. Stay put and sit on hands
D. Stay put for 2 days and then head out for civilization

And then you are supposed to evaluate various items as to their possible uses and rank them in order of importance. Such items included: water, shotgun, compass, cheese, motor oil, tequila, etc. Once you've completed your individual test, then you must come together in a group, gather consensus, and then complete the same test as a team.

It seems my individual score wasn't that great. I thought that the best course of action was to immediately run randomly out into the desert after finishing off half a bottle of tequila.

As it turns out, that isn't the right course of action. And no, it doesn't even matter what kind of tequila it is.

But, as a team, it seems that by our corporate decision making and consensus-building, our collective chances of survival increased by 56%. (In case you are wondering, the correct answer is to stay put and you'll most-likely be saved in 2-3 days)

The moral of the story? If you get stranded in the Mojave desert, you don't have to actually work that morning and apparently, tequila cannot solve every problem. Who knew?


Oh, and then after lunch we all went bowling at Main Event.