‘Okay everyone,’ one of the women in the office cried out, unannounced. ‘We’re going to do some team building exercises this afternoon.’
My eyes widened with horror. This would surely be no better than my experiences with employment-related teamwork games, which invariably end up as controlled shouting matches.
‘I don’t really need to take part, do I?’ I hopefully peeped from my corner of the office. ‘My contract ends on Friday, and-’
‘You’re part of the team at the moment, so you’re in,’ our new team leader insisted. I open my mouth to protest but am forcibly pinned to the wall by her stormy glare. Sulking, I slink into a meeting room with the rest of our office.
Already, employees are milling in cliques which infuriates me. Have they no experience in these activities? Leaders will go out of their way to crush and torment your friendships, and ensure you’re stuck next to a gelatinous overweight, overeager know-it-all bastard who pads out silent moments in the room by breathing loudly.
Surprisingly, we began with a small pep talk. This I could accommodate. No reaction required on my part, just a simple nodding of my head where required, smiling and laughing when everyone else did.
Then she verbally cracked me on the head with a cricket bat: ‘Think of something you’ve said to a fellow workmate which you regret,’ she ordered.
Still relatively new to the office, I whimpered in protest. The lack of angry conversations I’d encountered during my time in this job would require me to inflate a mere tense discussion I’d had with someone in the office into a story about a fake shouting match, and would likely piss off whoever was involved when we discussed my story as a group.
With eyes which clearly broadcasted the emotional rape I’d encountered at previous jobs, I pleaded with our team leader. ‘Can we use an example from a previous job? Please? Please?’
‘Well, you can,’ she granted. ‘Seeing as you’re only here on contract.’ And without a pause, she went on to say ‘So, let’s see what discussions we all regret and discuss how the situation could have been better handled for a more positive outcome. You first, Jeb.’
My minimal thinking time was rendered even more impotent by her barrage of touchy-feely terms. Struggling through garbled memories of my past jobs, I recalled my first job in Sydney which provided free massages to staff on certain days of the week.
‘I once told a massager he had magic hands, that was embarrassing,’ I blurted, without thought to set up the background of my story or pretence. Some of the others in the room raised their eyebrows, no doubt suspicious I’d previously worked in a brothel of some sort.
‘I see,’ the leader finally spoke, and turned to the next employee. Everyone then ensured to recount dull, grey teeny-tiny conflicts which were the verbal equivalent of S Club 7 to my Sepultura of an encounter.
‘So now, let’s all recall one of our greatest fears during childhood,’ the leader suggested as all men in the room immediately began attempting to remember at which age they began masturbating.
Once again, she turned immediately to her left to face me. ‘You, Jeb,’ she prodded.
‘Uhh..’ I hesitated. ‘Um. Um.’ Visions of primary school flashed through my head – the first thing which came to mind was family fun days which certainly didn’t live up to their name. My first family fun day experience involved me almost drowning in the local council pool. Scanning through my memories of family fun days, I quickly recalled the apex of fun day horror.
Eyes expectant, she asked me again. ‘What’s your greatest childhood fear?’
‘The Life Be In It EarthBall™,’ I firmly responded, nodding my head.
‘EarthBall™?’ she quietly asked, wondering if this was the next chapter of my massage molestation tale.
‘Life Be In It used to organise some of the family fun days at my primary school, which gravitated around activities using their EarthBall™,’ I explained patiently.
‘What the FUCK is an EarthBall™?’ the resident office stud smirked in the corner of the room, slouched back in his chair.
‘Simply a giant inflatable rubber ball, about twice the height of a regular adult,’ I explained. ‘They used to play all sorts of games with it. But it haunted me through fear of being crushed by it or run down, Indiana Jones-style,’ I added with widening eyes, mentally reliving the terror of an EarthBall™-induced eclipse erupting directly above my head.
Nobody said anything – they simply stared at me quizzically with cocked heads. I had nothing more to say either, so I simply stated again, ‘Life Be In It EarthBall™’.
Eventually, someone asked ‘Are they even called Life Be In It anymore?’ The question was never answered as we moved around to infinitely more boring anecdotes. I began to feel I was the only person injecting any ounce of effort into the activity.
‘Well, for the last activity we’re going to do something more physical,’ the leader declared as we all prepared ourselves for tiresome ‘trust’ games. ‘I want you to choose the thing that is most important to you in the world.’ Mentally, everyone began weighing up their lover vs their lover’s brains vs their lover’s genitals vs their own genitals vs the tits/dick of their favourite celebrity, and in the case of members of the IT support department, vs their favourite science fiction TV series.
‘But the catch is,’ the team leader went on, ‘Is that you have to select something which is physically with you at this moment in time. Go ahead and choose something.’
The office stud in the corner had clearly chosen his own penis as his favoured item, judging from the smirk on his face and his increasingly widening slouch. Everyone else in the room seemed to notice this also. Some of the employees began rummaging through wallets and purses for their credit cards. One person produced a condom, another lady touched her earring. Thinking carefully, I decided the jeans I was wearing was the most important thing. Adam had bought them around the time we met each other and both myself and Adam had worn them constantly ever since. Deciding this was symbolic and rather deep for my conversely stupid and intelligent brain, I leaned back in my chair somewhat satisfied with myself.
‘Now group off in pairs,’ the team leader instructed as the lady on my left turned to me and smiled, ‘And place this item in their hands and explain why it’s so important to you.’
My eyes widened and I quickly began trying to think of the second most important thing to me. Panicking, I realised these were my underpants, which were my favourites. Shit!
‘So what’s your item?’ the lady kindly asked. ‘This is a photo of my family,’ she signalled to the picture in her hand.
‘Pants,’ I barked. ‘Pants.’
‘Is there…. uh, hmm. Should we choose something else?’ the lady suggested. I helplessly spun around, unable to help noticing everyone else’s comparatively innocent items.
‘Um. Um,’ I panicked.
‘Now take your partner’s item to someone else in the room and explain to them why it’s important,’ the leader further instructed. Without a pause my partner forcibly dragged me by the belt towards the opposite side of the room at the same time I began walking away from her. Jerking violently towards a new accounting staff member, she began explaining that my pants were most important but she wasn’t exactly sure why, but they were nice jeans when you looked at them carefully.
Looking around over my shoulder, I wildly signalled for a partner. In the far corner of the room, a young female shrieked as the office stud obviously explained that his favourite item was his penis, motioning towards his groin. Suggestively waggling himself in front of her, he innocently requested she go and show it to the rest of the office. ‘Arsehole!’ she shrieked, and caused a small commotion.
Their curiosity aroused, the rest of the office caused a small riot attempting to find out what item was so popular in the corner of the room, and the stud was flooded with requests to be his new partner. After a couple of minutes of commotion, I ended up with someone’s handbag in my left hand, a woman furtively explaining why the crystal in her palm was so imperative to the CEO’s sex life, and three people firmly grasping the seat of my jeans.
‘Okay, that’s enough,’ the leader threw her hands up. ‘Same time next week.’ I exhaled with relief, realising I’d be long gone by then, in some other job completely. The activity was turned off like a television and everyone began marching out, some quicker than others.
‘Why do you have EarthBalls™?’ the receptionist peeped at me as we filed out, and all I could do was shrug.
‘I get them when I’m stressed,’ I dismissed.
‘Me too,’ she nodded, and we all resumed our work, no more a team than we were fifteen minutes ago.