Teamwork

We had our company Christmas party yesterday and it was interesting. For the last couple of years the party has consisted of 2.5 hours of a game which has teams running around the city performing certain tasks and then everyone meeting at a restaurant where we eat, drink and select the winning team from the game. Then there's a raffle, more drinking, and it's over.

The goal of the game is to build teamwork but my team came in second from last. My department is too big to be on one team so they made a team of a group from my department and then took my remaining staff and used them to shore up teams that are too small (each team should be 8 to 9 people). As soon as I saw who they picked for my team, I knew we were sunk. Mainly because of one person.

This one person is a gal who works for me who I have a very difficult time interacting with. She is, without a doubt, the bossiest person I have ever met. She tries to take control of every single situation that she is involved in and is so annoying I can't even tell you. To make matters worse, she thinks that she is much, much smarter than she is and is always suggesting really stupid things. So, I knew she was going to make it pretty much impossible for us to work effectively together and, I was right.

The way the game works is that you get a device that gives you your missions and you have to enter the results into the device and then you get the next mission. So, the very first task was to enter a code into the device to get started. Idiotina (as I'll call her) thought the code was X which made absolutely no sense. The rest of the team disagreed but she had the device and kept inputting her idiotic idea even thought it kept telling her that it was wrong. You only get three tries so we failed that mission because she put her stupid guess in 3 times in a row . . . despite it telling her over and over that it was wrong. At that point I took the device away from her.

The next mission ended with us needing to put together a bunch of clues and guess which country they refer to. Our first guess was the United States so I started typing that in and she saw it and started freaking out and saying I should type in USA instead because it would be quicker and time is a factor. At the point where she started freaking out, I had already typed "United Stat" and explained to her that I only had two letters to go but she kept going on and on and on and on about how I should have typed USA.

Turned out that it was the wrong answer and our next guess was Hong Kong which is a city in China and since the answer had to be the country, I started typing in China. She started freaking out saying that I should type in Hong Kong and we spent the next 10 minutes arguing about whether Hong Kong was a country. I finally got fed up and just typed in China while the rest of the team continued to argue with her and . . . China was right.

Another mission required us to find a person who had a secret code we needed and the password to give him too get the code was the first 5 digits of pi. As we were walking over to the location where we were to find him, we were looking up pi to confirm (we had a couple opinions about the 4th and 5th digits) and she turned to me and said, "What is pi? What do we tell him?" and I shook my head (cuz I was walking and looking it up on the internet on my BB at the time) and she said, "Why won't you tell me? We are a team. I don't understand why you won't tell me!" so I explained, "Because we're looking it up. We haven't confirmed it yet." at which point she said "Oh." and turned around.

By this time I wanted to smack her. The next mission was to find an ATM at a specific location and interpret a clue that was there. She wanted to go to another ATM that she knew of that was closer and took off for that machine. A couple of people started going with her while the rest of us stood there debating what to do about her heading off to the wrong place. I started heading for the right ATM and someone went to go get her. They came back and said she wouldn't listen so they let her go on to the machine.

We got to the right machine and were interpretting the clue when she showed up mad because she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to when she got to the other machine because we had the device. We explained, for the fifth time, that the clue specifically stated the machine we were supposed to go to and that the machine she went to didn't have the clue but she just kept going on about how she could have figured it out if she'd had the device.

Etc., etc., etc.

Each mission has a time limit and we got no points for the last 3 or 4 missions because of the time wasted arguing with this idiot. Since I'm the boss 364 days of the year, I decided not to be the boss in the game to let others step up and work together as a team but, the game really shows up how someone has to lead. I finally took control of the last task just to get it done.

One of my leads was talking to me at the party and theorizing why we did so poorly. I told him that it was because the focus of the game is teamwork and that you need to read the mission, decide as a team what it means and how you're going to accomplish it and carry that out. That everyone not listening or just standing there doing nothing or running off and doing their own thing -- doesn't work. It was sort of frustrating but I kinda let my team lose because I figured if they wouldn't step up then . . . they deserved to.

Random Thoughts

The Yerba Buena Center in SF is running a new marketing campaign but . . . it's very strange and I don't get it. This is the big billboard they have up in the heart of SF. At first I thought it was graffiti but, it's not. That's how it's supposed to look.



This is why I live in the bay area . . . days like this where it's clear as a bell, warm and just wonderful.



My first football love, the Raiders, won today, yay!!! But, I like Pittsburgh (their coach, Tomlin, is HOT).

My second love, the Colts, won today and didn't give me an ulcer for a change. They womped the Tennesee Titans. I watched it at my bro's house (cuz they don't show Colts game on regular tv here and he has Direct TV's NFL ticket) and it was annoying cuz a friend of his was there and he WOULDN'T STOP TALKING TO ME. I wanted so bad to turn to him and say, "WILL YOU SHUT UP???" but I didn't. I kept ignoring him and watching the game and just saying things like, "Uh huh" and "Oh, that's interesting" in a voice that clearly showed I wasn't really listening all while looking at the tv but . . . it didn't stop him. Sheesh.

I decorated for Xmas today and things look nice and holidayish and smell nice. My kitchen is disgusting though.

Tomorrow is work and it's going to be a tough week full of meetings with people I don't like so . . . bleah.

Hope your upcoming week is better than mine.