Just back from a well-deserved bout of writer's block, I thought I had better put something on my blog before it gets taken away by the people who provide the blog service. So here goes...
I have just come back from an eight-day stint at our mother campus across the South China Sea, to attend a debating competition. This was a lot of fun and a good rest, because although the event was organised in the usual haphazard way, all went very well for our students, and we all had a very positive experience which I may write about in my next posting. I also got to do some book hunting in KL....
But I hardly had the chance to cool my heels back in Kuching when I had a forced encounter with one of those banes of modern corporate life, the Team Building Course. This course was organised by my department. Compulsory attendance, no backing out unless you have a bad knee or are otherwise engaged. Unfortunately, the minor gout in my left big toe wasn't giving me any trouble, so I had no reason to get out of this one.
Now, call me a boring old fart, a killjoy, or any other similar epithet, but surely Team Building courses should be ranked alongside karaoke as among the top 10 Time Wasting and Undignified Activities of All Time!
Why? Well, basically because I personally don't have trouble working in a team. I work well with almost everyone I come into contact with, and my track record proves it. I don't need some overpaid consultants (sorry, 'Trainers') to show me how to 'mould synergies to attain common goals' or to 'maximise group strengths' or to 'turn the me into we'. I mean for God's sake! I'm a bloody university professor not a car salesman! What is this?!?!
I suppose it could have been much much worse. I mercifully managed to miss the first session of the course yesterday morning as I had my twice-yearly appointment with the Malaysian Immigration Service, to renew my work permit. I also managed to put my toe on the first rung of the long, high ladder towards Permanent Resident status.
So, eventually, I made my way to the venue, which was a training school belonging to the Malaysian Customs department, and I must admit I was feeling fairly positive despite the prospect of spending another night and day away from home.
When the first session started after lunch, however, any good feeling or hope I had leeched away fast, because it was explained to me that the whole session was being conducted in Malay, which I have difficulty following, especially at conversational speed. I am much better at reading the language, but then again I always was a passive old so and so!
So from the very start, the team building workshop completely failed in its purpose from my point of view by linguistically excluding me from the whole shebang! So you can imagine me sitting in the corner, trying and failing not to look REALLY MISERABLE AND PISSED OFF because after all, I do have to go back to work with all these people on Monday and I genuinely like them, and so the last thing I wanted to do was to spoil everyone's fun just because I wasn't having any! But it was sooooo hard!!!
The last straw in any hope I may have had of a good time came in the late afternoon, when we were all broken up into groups and had to come up with a group name, a group colour, a group animal and a group war cry. Something like the warlike Maori Hakka was intended, but we ended up stomping round the car park with everyone pretending to be snakes or something like that.
Except by that time, I had gone inside to cower from the spectacle (and the afternoon heat) in sheer embarrassment. It seemed such a pity that a bunch of highly trained knowledge creators and educators were being reduced to making animal noises and prancing around the car park like primary school kids.
Am I boring?
Am I dead from the neck up?
Am I out of touch with my Inner Child?
Or am I just a ridiculous old fool who shouldn't be here in the first place and should just go home?
Maybe, but what I did know at that point was that I was seriously out of touch with the situation I was finding myself in, and that was not a nice feeling to have, especially when I had started the day with such hope.
There is nothing worse than a good dose of alienation to really make your day. This depressing sense of disconnectedness was now washing over me like tears. I suddenly felt so very alone, and sad, and I suppose guilty too because really and truthfully it wasn't the situation that was stupid or silly, because everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves. The stupid and silly one was me, and of course that made it worse!
Perhaps if I wasn't so out of shape and grey haired, or if my language skills were a bit stronger, I would have been out there, running around making animal noises to my heart's content. I would be the king of the jungle! But I couldn't do things like this, just cannot bring myself to do them at any time, so I have to make up for it by doing the things I am good at, which is writing, doing research and basically being a boring old professor. However, being stuck in a team building camp for two days going nuts completely cuts me off from doing the very things that make me happy, and which give me a sense of fulfillment.
So this wonderful and happy frame of mind kept me miserable throughout today's activities too. There was singing, group hugging, photo taking, group puzzles and games, and I just couldn't connect to any of it. The only solace I could claim was in the cool, air conditioned confines of the room I stayed in last night. At least I could go there and drown my dissatisfaction in tears, a book and sleep.
When the torture finally ended this afternoon, to the tune of one of Stevie Wonder's least pleasing ballads about friendship and all that, I staggered to have something to eat, furtively said goodbye to my colleagues, and I took myself and my bag to the car and made my exit as fast as I could.
Why am I writing this? Because I want to say that, no matter how well intentioned they may be, team building courses only work if EVERYBODY in the group is singing from the same hymn sheet, and if everyone is fully included. In my case, although I get on with everyone in my department and am known as a happy and friendly person, I am deep down a very serious intellectual with a strong orientation towards research and scholarship. I am also from a different culture to everyone else, which was a definite disadvantage during this workshop.
It's like this. I just don't do group games and huggathons and dressing up in women's clothing and doing animal noises in front of my colleagues. I find it deeply undignified and unprofessional. I feel embarrassed, especially if I have to do it as part of some organised programme. However, if I do want to play around and be silly and sing songs, I will do it in the privacy of my own home, with my family, because if they laugh at me, it will not affect my career, and I won't feel bad about myself.
So, this particular team building course succeeded only in building teams that I wasn't a part of. I myself was left out in the cold, as usual...
Ho hum.... No Christmas cards for me this year...
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