Ya, my job is a pain in the butt, but occasionally, there are awesome perks and fun events! Having been around complainers, I know that it’s just as important to share the good, along with the bad, so today I’m going to share something fun about my company:

We know how to party.

Once a year, we get an email from our HR Director or CEO informing us about an upcoming off-site. I believe back in the days, these were referred to as training, but now they just straight up call them team building. Although, is it really team building when there’s a competition involved? Anyhoo, a couple of weeks ago, the email came.

We were told to meet at a restaurant down by the bay and informed that we would be wearing tshirts that would be distributed and that we could wear casual shoes, jeans or shorts. The casual attire was a dead giveaway…we’re all business, all the time. When we arrived at the restaurant, we were given colorful headbands that indicated the team we’d be on, then we were escorted down to a dock where 7 duffy boats awaited us. They were stocked with bags of goodies and more food and adult beverages than we could handle. I was made a team captain and told to keep my iPhone handy for clues. This was going to be a scavenger hunt.

I happened to be on a team with the CEO and the first thing he asked was if we wanted to win or if we wanted to be obnoxious. Obviously, we chose the latter. When the clues came, we took as much artistic license as possible, tried to kidnap a member of another team, and sent a mayday call to the HR director, informing her she needed to deliver our boat more booze. We also had to build a sand castle. Instead of submitting our actually creation, we emailed this in!

At the end of the day, we all gathered for appetizers (and more drinks). The volume was incredibly loud for such a small group (35 of us). One of my colleagues announced he was going to be a dad and everyone screamed…and in that moment, I realized the team building exercise wasn’t just an excuse to get out of the office and drink, but that it really fulfilled its mission.

HR director begins the day with a bloody mary. Just like your company, right?!

One clue was to find personal watercrafts and circle a 5 mph booey. This is my interpretation! PS - don't I rock the headband???

We had to get a stranger into our boat and dress him/her up. As you can see, this was hard for us as we are all quite shy.

What’s the most fun you’ve had during a team building exercise???