I thought I’d escaped all the team-building, soul-searching, hand-holding, introspective fluff that I’ve suffered through over the years. After all, I’m in the country now - surely we don’t do that kind of stuff out here? In the past I’ve dutifully listened to talks on ‘eating frogs’, filled in personality wheels and personal priority charts, even walked around a room driving an imaginary laughing car. Doesn’t that mean I’ve done my time?
Apparently not.
Today our PRCC group spent the day at a police-run outdoor adventure park. I had high hopes – I really thought it was going to be good. Like, an adventure, or something. After the first few hours of the usual spiels about teamwork (and communication, commitment, cooperation, respect, attitude), I realised that I had been wrong. There were some good points – the lady read us a fantastic kids' book called “The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley”, which I recommend you all go and buy. And the cake we had at lunchtime was delicious. But the rest ... no. I discovered years ago on a similar training day that I’m a “rhinoceros”, task-focused and extroverted, and that’s been my excuse for not enjoying such exercises as staring at my navel and analysing my personality. But we didn’t sort ourselves out according to the animal kingdom today. We were all expected to be into this. We were all expected to use words such as “journey” and “growth”. We were all expected to report back on the pearls of wisdom that we had gleaned from today’s journey, articulate the ways in which we had grown inside due to the challenges we had faced, and all in all cram as many clichés as we could into that never-ending conversation.
And we only got to climb two trees.
Apparently not.
Today our PRCC group spent the day at a police-run outdoor adventure park. I had high hopes – I really thought it was going to be good. Like, an adventure, or something. After the first few hours of the usual spiels about teamwork (and communication, commitment, cooperation, respect, attitude), I realised that I had been wrong. There were some good points – the lady read us a fantastic kids' book called “The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley”, which I recommend you all go and buy. And the cake we had at lunchtime was delicious. But the rest ... no. I discovered years ago on a similar training day that I’m a “rhinoceros”, task-focused and extroverted, and that’s been my excuse for not enjoying such exercises as staring at my navel and analysing my personality. But we didn’t sort ourselves out according to the animal kingdom today. We were all expected to be into this. We were all expected to use words such as “journey” and “growth”. We were all expected to report back on the pearls of wisdom that we had gleaned from today’s journey, articulate the ways in which we had grown inside due to the challenges we had faced, and all in all cram as many clichés as we could into that never-ending conversation.
And we only got to climb two trees.
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