Why are companies obsessed with this shit? I don't care about icebreakers or whatever I just want to clock in and do my job and then log off. I don't think I should be harangued just because I don't participate in every damn meeting.
Yeah my job can't even do that shit right. They held a party at this pretentious event center that basically used VR headsets dangling from scaffolding to justify having zero arcade cabinets.
Oh and it was on the opposite side of town and only 5 minutes away from corporate.
The common wisdom is that it reduces turnover without having to reduce hours or increase pay. Hopefully the employer is smart enough to know this shit only has any hope of being effective if it isn't mandatory, lol.
My last two jobs had a bunch of mandatory fun events and I would always just not go and then lie about having gone
Being a gifted confabulator, I could always convince people that, yes, I was in fact there and yes, I did see Liz fall down during a trust fall because Amy has noodle arms
Ours is definitely mandatory, they are grading us on this nonsense now.
It lets supervisors/managers know who is willing to play ball and never have a life outside or work or with other people outside of your fellow employees.
Parasocial bonds really excite
so they want all their workers to be compelled to make fake friends whenever possible to further fake friendship with the brand.I think it doesn’t count as parasocial if you actually know each other irl, but I’m not a sociologist.
The work friend thing can be emotionally draining af sometimes though.
There's some blurry area there. There's people I've worked with that I otherwise wouldn't know except for their names and maybe their job title but the parasocial bonding bullshit pushed on me required more than that, often in patronizing and even infantilizing "activities."
Did somebody say pizza party? Yay, being treated like a grade schooler is just what the workplace needed.
Worse than pizza parties, because at least that's food I didn't directly have to pay for.
I'm talking patronistically organized "everyone sit down and show everyone else your name tag, put a cute/funny drawing on it and tell us one interesting thing about yourself" thing that was already seeming condescending and infantilizing in college orientation days.
That’s hellish. I guess the one nice thing about my old job was they knew better than to try and increase morale any way other than food (that was on the table as an option at least).
I bet everyone just says basic stuff like “this is a picture of a dog. I like dogs” and it moves on and nobody actually gets to know one another anyways.
HR departments live in reverso-world if they think that helps.
I bet everyone just says basic stuff like “this is a picture of a dog. I like dogs” and it moves on and nobody actually gets to know one another anyways.
It was worse. I'd prefer if it was about dogs rather than "I like to think of myself as a bit of a Ravenclaw" and "I live by the Lannister code and always pay my debts."
I like to think of myself as a bit of a Ravenclaw" and "I live by the Lannister code and always pay my debts."
It isn't a good deal for a salaried job (where you're not actually paid for attending but need to attend if you want to keep your job) when one has lots of things to do to prepare for the next day, the next week for that matter, grading papers and all that. It's an actual waste of time but one that has passively-implied mandatory attendance whenever administration is in the mood for corpo shit again.
Depending on the company culture, forced fun might be the time where promotions actually get decided, connections get made, etc.
The very idea that I need to do extra-curriculars as an adult just to keep pace with capitalist price gouging is both hilarious and infuriating.
The university I used to work for had a couple of those mandatory fun type of events, but at the very least they put out an email beforehand that said that it counted as work-time, and you were allowed to fill out your time-sheet as if it was a regular workday. My current job allows me to do the same, but also count in any commuting time that is longer than your average as "time worked", and since i live like 5 minuttes away, I managed to "work" like 9 hours from a 6 hour mandatory meeting, since it was far away from my office.
