A team outing at Golden Palms

We were supposed to start at 11 am.
We finally started at 12:30 pm.

We were supposed to travel three hours max, both ways, to and fro, the Golden Palms resort. We got stuck up in bad traffic jams both times, and ended up four and a half hours in the cab.

We were supposed to play a lot of team building games and get to know each other much better. Time permitted us to play just one game, after an elaborate round of introduction.

Ideally, the entire team was supposed to be there. Team members in Phoenix, Madurai and those who could not join, were present only in spirt.

Hmmm... Murphy's law ruling at large, you'd say?? On the face of it, maybe yes... But just as Murphy's law didn't say the other half of the story - what other than or after, what could go wrong, did go wrong - the above half of the story, tells only the most forgettable (and at the end of the day - insignificant) part of our team outing.

Our team - the Test Tools and Test Executive team - under Sumit, had suddenly swollen up from eight members to twenty one, within a span of three months, with the commencement of the ambitious and unprecedented Core ATE project, and the existing projects getting more people on board, to handle the burgeoning work flow. And suddenly, the small conference rooms, in which we used to have our team meetings, seated comfortably, now started looking like a BTS bus in the rush hours!! So, along with the decision to move over to bigger rooms, came the plan, to 'build' the team and become more familiar with each other (read - know about their dark secrets, so that we can pull their leg some other time!! :-D )

VJ mailed to Admin team to begin executing the plan. He got replies. Mailed again. Got more replies. Sumit too mailed. He too got replies.

Finally, we, the team, got the announcement - 31st July, 11 am to 6 pm... we were going to build :-) in the Golden Palms Resort on the outskirts of Bangalore city.



31 July 11 am... came.. and went... Everyone was so busy at their desks, that it looked liked they were struck by a bolt of amnesia. Except for VJ (and may be those, who would not be joining us :-P ). VJ played sentry, and hovered all around, looking for the all-elusive cab that was supposed to ferry us. Sumit walked around to see everyone so immersed in their desktops, that he looked partially frustrated, and i guess, partially doubtful, if he had got the date of the outbound wrong!

12:30 pm. Cab apparated (refer Harry Potter!) in front of office building. 13 out of 21 from the team, after some cajoling, boarded the cab. Anamika, from the HR team joined in. The spirits of the unavailable 8 members, floated in through the windows :-) We drove off.

How about Dumb Charades, called VJ and Rama. Yeahhhhhhh... hooted the others. Start Dumb C. Everyone got a chance to mime (and the rest, to laugh at them, and guess the answers!) Sumit delved into the huge list of movies he'd watched, and came out with some real toughies... Ashish got frustrated miming the movie 360 degrees. Manu found it difficult to be dumb!! (How dumb!! he he) Lot of movies got mimed and guessed in between. And before we knew, we'd travelled a hour and half, and reached the resort.

Camera... click... click!!
Thank you!!

Tummies growled loudly. None of them spoke much. Everyone headed for the dining hall in the resort, without worrying too much about other things around, driven by hunger.

Food was good. Time was short. All ate well. I mostly talked.
Saranya ate pulav, Shenba devoured rotis, Manu had chaats... i ended up only telling stories.
Time up! called Sumit. Ashish, followed by VJ came to gag me and carry me out.

Tummies full. Smiles all around. All looking smug! The thought definitely crossed all our minds, for a moment... that we wouldn't mind getting a good fluffy bed, for an afternoon siesta.

We'd expected to be playing some games, being close to nature... may be in a lawn or garden. Instead, we were shown to a conference room, whose big deep chairs refused to lean back! Probably they expect people to doze off during conferences, if such comfortable chairs are provided, and have steered clear of taking that responsibility!!

We began with some 'Animal talk'... I mean... Anamika suggested that we identify an animal / bird / reptile / any living creature other than human, which we felt resembled us the most. Not many were ready for this, with the lights in the upper chamber of the head gone out, after the wonderful meal!! I got ragged into going first, after desperate attempts all around to make the others, the first bakra!

"Chamaleon", I said... It took a moment to sink... Why? echoed voices all around... Coz i change my colors often (what the hell was I blabbering, a voice in my brain asked me) - and before I realized, loud applause and hooting from friends, passed this resolution unanimously... I maintained a dumb silence.

Prashant went next with 'Elephant'. Everyone gasped. You need to eat thrice what you eat now for that, suggested Sumit. 'It is for the calm demeanour... i meant' Prashant continued... hmmm... we all agreed... It sure does take quite an effort to unsettle him!! :-)

Then there were the sleepy polar bear, the focussed hawk, the free-to-roam whale, the calm-until-provoked bear, the industrious ant, the sturdy horse, the kingly lion.... a tweety bird... a Superman-monkey (no guesses who that is!! )... Wow!! felt like in a zoo, with talking animals and birds!!!

A tea-break later, I was again ragged - This time, to sing a song. I obliged with 'Nothing's gonna change my love for you' and i actually got an applause for it!! And then... i did not mind having been ragged!!

Next.. it was time for a formal intro, with a rider - to tell something what no one else in the room, knew about oneself... Skeletons came tumbling out of the closet... and so did, some hidden talents, some deep desires, and some great achievements too... There was someone who had proposed to a teacher (wohhhh!), some one who could write on grains of rice, some great players of hockey and cricket, some one born in Angola (woohhhhh!) some leaders of clubs... And all of a sudden... it felt like sitting inside a talent power-house... with a pack of extemely gifted and unique individuals... A super team we are, we all realized...

The only game we played, was the one in which we had to build a pyramid with paper cups, split into three teams. The cups had to be picked up with a lasso having multiple threads tied to a rubber band, and which needed to be pulled and released to emulate the holding action.

Strategies made. Practice done. Contest started. Prashant's team was well organized, and built an awesome pyramid. VJ's team was almost there. Our team thought out-of-the-box and came out with an innovative ploy - pulled out a loophole out of the rules, built a huge base using glass cups from the conference tables, and made a big pyramid. VJ's pyramid got blown off, Prashant's pyramid held on, and got hailed... Ours... ?? tch tch... not everyone values "different" ideas!! :-P how sad!!

We all discussed what we learnt out of the game... Resource planning, co-ordination, leadership, strategy, knowledge of constraints, etc etc... WOW!! I never knew common sense had so many synonyms!! And then there were some other observations, which were derived by relating to life at office... but, ahem... ahem... can't reveal them here... coz they belong to the the category 'Those-which-must-not-be-named' and 'You-know-what' !!

After all this, Anamika and Amal left early, while the rest of us killed some time playing some snooker and carrom, and started back at around 6 pm. Somewhere on the way out of the resort, we all got "heady" and got this...

But the true team building and fun, was on the way back... After another round of songs I sang, we switched to Antakshari... An hour later we got tired of that... And then came the brilliant idea of singing songs, simultaneously, in two languages... While the Tamil buddies sung some of the most popular songs in Tamil, the rest of us, went in harmony, with the Hindi version of the same - Roja, Saathiya (Alaipayutha), Jeans, Hindustani (Indian),.... Unity in diversity, team building any one?? See HERE... See HERE!!

The rain came down hard and fast, outside... the cab crawled back through the evening traffic on the flooded roads... and the mood and songs inside... reached a crescendo, and stayed like that, until we got back into the campus.

8:30 pm. The curtains came down, on one of the best Tuesdays in my two years here at Honeywell. We sure were had grown into a closer knit team over that span of 8 hours... Now, if that was the end objective... it had, for certain, got an E - exceeding expectations...