You Will Be Friends and You Will Like It

The Husband is home after what was supposed to be a day of forced revelry - also known as "team building". Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on your point of view - the planned activity was unavailable and the person organizing it failed to create a back up plan. So the day consisted of driving around, eating lunch and deciding to go home. The Husband had been dreading the entire event, so missing it and getting to come home a little early worked out nifty for him. However, the entire thing caused me to ponder this "Team Building" phenomenon, so popular in our corporate culture. Lucky for me, I've mostly escaped the "fun" planned style of team-building, though I have been a victim of the forced-march style of building a cohesive unit. Therefore, I need to ask you, my loyal readers and new guests, has anyone really ever: 1. Enjoyed and 2. Grown closer to coworkers thanks to a team building activity? I'm not talking about the voluntary after-work happy hour kind of fun where you invite the coworkers you actually like and everyone has a few drinks. I mean the "trust exercises", the silly games, the role-playing and such. From reports of my friends and loved ones, it seems that people seem to mostly dread these, survive them and immediately try to put the entire experience behind them. Don't get me wrong - if you are in a life or death situation, forced to rely on a near-stranger for survival and comfort while your lives flash before your eyes - sure, that can forge a strong bond in a short amount of time. However, I don't think that falling backward into the arms of your department members from a 3 foot stand counts. From personal experience, the best way for a team to come together is to have a common goal and a common enemy. The best way to raise employee moral is nmore respect, more money, more time off, free food and less managing. The best way to have fun with your coworkers is to hang out with the ones you don't hate and talk about the ones you do. I'm no business guru, but hey, I've been an employee, and I'm just saying.