That's Freaking Teamwork?

On a typical weekday I put on my Accountant costume and pretend to work in Corporate Accounts Payable. Today, however, was not a typical weekday. It was our dreaded team builder, and for this special occasion the Man instructed us to dress wacky. That proved to be asking too much. When I got to the bowling alley, it looked like just another Casual Friday. Accountants don’t do wacky.

Even the Man herself, our VP/Controller, was a little confused by the concept. She told us that she had a reputation for hating tennis shoes, but in an effort to be wacky wore one tennis shoe and held up her foot to reveal this.

Technically, the correct pronunciation of that word is “san-dull”.

All told, there were 9 people out of 142 who dressed wacky. 7 of the 9 were The Man and her directors. One of the other two was the MC for the event. Ordinarily, an MC might be chosen for their personality. Ours barely had a pulse. He’s the department Actuary. We found out the hard way that the only way to make a gathering of 142 Accountants any less fun is to have an Actuary as the comedic centerpiece.

In between every speaker, he gave us Geography quizes. No joke. He’d try to mix in something funny every once in a while, but bombed. To put his sense of humor in perspective, his costume consisted of a sombrero, a poncho, a painted-on moustache and a golf club. He was the “Golf of Mexico”. That was literally his best joke of the day.

Luckily for him, he’ll be forgotten because our motivational speaker was even worse. A former major league ball player (FML) delivered a speech that gave us the same amount of hope as a typical Matt Foley speech, but without Matt’s trademark energy.

FML was equal parts monotonous and clueless. His whole speech was a train wreck. It had no flow or cohesion. He kept talking about us making sales, apparently not realizing that we’re all Accountants. He made no effort to be funny and didn’t tell us any cool war stories from his days in the bigs.

He opened by telling us we might not know that there are a lot of similarities between baseball and business. He proceeded to tell us none of those similarities. Instead, he chose to tell us the job of each batter in a baseball lineup. The funny part was he really didn’t have any clue what each batter was supposed to do.

Some lowlights…He claimed that the sixth hitter “has to get on base any way he can…that’s his job”. The seventh hitter has to bunt, “he has no choice.” He claimed the number two hitter could get 3 or 4 hundred at bats a year. Try 5 or 6 hundred. He didn’t mention the importance of batting the team’s power hitters in the 3 and 4 holes, but instead said that they need to hit .290, .300, or .340. The number 5 hitters made the most money and got all the glory because they drove in those 3 and 4 hitters who were always on base.

He continued his great baseball analogy by telling us that he had porters at his Bowling Alley who were supposed to clean the lanes when people left. If they didn’t do their job, the next customer would come in, complain about the dirty lanes, and get a refund. Which I took to mean that he was likening us to his porters. As long as we do the grunt work, people like him will get rich. If we screw up, it will cost the Man money. The end result was probably not the desired form of motivation…I’m more motivated than ever to stick it to the Man via this blog.

The meeting was held in FML’s restaurant. His Neanderthal “me throw ball fast” persona carried over to the signage in the bar. One sign read, “No coolers or ice chests are allowed.” Could that possibly be a big enough issue to warrant a sign being made? What kind of moron thinks that it’s appropriate to BYOB to a restaurant? Another small sign was hung at eye level behind the bar it read, “Cod fish sandwich $4.95”. I’m sure a lot of people head up to the bar for a Bud Light, but are convinced to get the Cod fish sandwich instead due to the brilliantly placed advertisement.

The afternoon speaker is crucial at these events. He’s usually a high-energy funnyman who wakes us up after we overload our bellies with free food. We were lucky enough to get a VP from marketing. But, he began by saying, “I’m very comfortable speaking to groups like this because I began my career as an Accountant”. That was it for me. I had to go take a walk.

Somehow I made it through the mini-golf and bowling activities without killing any of my socially awkward colleagues. Next year I’ll be taking a vacation day instead of attending this event. Wait, if I’m still pretending to be an Accountant at this time next year something’s gone horribly wrong. Who knows what could happen by then? With a lot of hard work on this blog maybe next year at this time I’ll be cleaning the bowling lanes rather than suffering through manufactured corporate fun.