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Team Building And Bonding Are All Fine. If They Have No Strings Attached

July 26, 2009

Team Building And Bonding Is All Fine. If It Has No Strings Attached I have a friend who came from Eastern Europe to Britain about six or seven years ago and is now working in a big financial company in the City. He is in his late thirties and is a very intelligent, smart and cheerful kind of guy. I like to have a drink with him from time to time. But recently he has been looking kind of gloomy and depressed. I asked him what the matter was, and he eventually confided in me that he finds mixing socially with his work colleagues quite stressful.

Why is that, I asked him. I thought you City high flyers were all great guys and girls and got on well with each other. He replied that it wasn’tt that bad during office hours, when everybody was busy doing something, but it got difficult when he had to socialise with people at after-work gatherings, in the evenings or at weekends. He admitted that many of them are boring people who gossip about others or chatter about programmes on the box that they like to watch. ‘I have nothing in common with most of them,’ he said, with a note of desperation in his voice. ‘And I don’t like going to nightclubs and spend hours shouting over the loud music.’

I was puzzled. I asked him why on earth he felt he had to socialise with people from his company outside office hours, especially in the evenings and at weekends. He said that it was basically unwritten company policy for employees to engage in team building and bonding, supposedly to help people get to know each other better.

And what would happen, I asked, if you refuse to join in the fun? Well, my friend said, it’s not like they are forcing me or anything, but I have the feeling that it could complicate my life because others would think that I’m avoiding them, or looking down on them, or being evasive. And they do seem genuine when they say they want me to join them for a drink or go clubbing.

Looking at my friend – a handsome man, by the way – I suddenly realised that all that bonding outside office hours, all that team building must actually be encouraged by company directors because that would be the only way you could find out what’s happening in your firm, who is up to no good and who holds which opinion of their boss. There might be some individuals in that cheerful office crowd, I reckoned, who report their findings to whoever they report to or are keen to report to.

Now, you might think that I’m exaggerating things and even being paranoid. But let me tell you something: I have lived in the Soviet Union for many years and worked at the state press agency TASS, where we had among us people who regularly reported on others to the personnel department.

They would befriend their colleagues and go out drinking with them and then compile their reports and submit them to the deputy head of the personnel department, who would usually be a former KGB or GRU – that is military intelligence – officer. All these reports would go into people’s personal files, and these files would follow them as they moved to other companies, and they would grow thicker and thicker, depending on whether or not the local snitches provided some new revealing info about the individuals in question.

I had a really thick file in TASS’s personnel department. I know this because I saw it. I can’t tell you how it happened because I don’t want to get certain people into trouble. But it was a fascinating read. I was described in one report as ‘inclined towards drinking’ – beautiful KGB-style phraseology, isn’t it? – ‘showing disrespect to authority’ and ‘having an eye for women’.

I find that last bit especially offensive, as I have always had two eyes for women. No – even three eyes. How dare they, I thought as I looking through my file, question my masculinity? I, who have always considered myself to be a hunk, a stud, a ladies’ man.

I’m joking, of course. The point I’m making here is that the top bosses in TASS, and in most other companies, always wanted to know what was going on behind the scenes, so to speak: who was saying what about them and who was and was not suitable to be in their employ. And there were always people who were prepared to provide information about their colleagues, because they knew they’d be rewarded for their services.

For example, the man who reported on me was eventually sent to work abroad to his preferred destination. He was not very good as a journalist but it didn’t matter because he proved to be a helpful sort of chap and, I suspect, he probably kept an eye on his colleagues while he was stationed abroad. He was not a KGB agent, by the way. He was just an opportunist who spied on others to promote his career. I actually think that he knows that I know now.

But I hold no grudge against him. I assume he was simply fulfilling his duty as the proud citizen of the USSR, where, as one song went, even the air smelled of freedom. There was a whole army of informers back in Soviet times. And I have a sneaky feeling that they are all back in business now, considering who is running the country at the moment.

Now let’s get back to my friend from Eastern Europe. Could the same thing, I asked myself, be happening in a big City company as happened in TASS? Because there are always people about who will report on their colleagues of their own free will. Out of adoration, as they say. They wouldn’t need to be asked to do it. They would feel that is was their duty to alert their superiors that one of their colleagues was, say, cheating on his wife, or was gay, or had a drink problem. Because it could actually help these informers to get their competitors out of the way or get noticed by someone upstairs.

And also don’t forget that people who report on others are usually disgusting characters who find it rewarding, in a strange twisted sort of way, to be able to decide other people’s fate. These are usually people with a deep inferiority complex, like to feel strong and powerful.

As I my friend confided in me, all sorts of things went through my head. I remembered the smiling face of Alexander, the man who informed on me in TASS, and I remembered the face of the deputy head of TASS’s personnel department who told me, ‘You’ve got no chance of working abroad. They won’t let you out. Don’t ask me how I know, but I know.’ This was before I learnt what was in my file.

Hm, I thought, I shouldn’t tell my East European friend all this. Because, after all, I might be wrong. But I still decided to warn him. And so I smiled and said, ‘Come on, stop complaining. It must be fun hanging out with bankers like yourself.  Just don’t get too chummy with them and don’t ask for any favours. These things always get you in a tight spot.’

He smiled and nodded and we parted company.

Bonding and team building, I thought as I watched him walk away, are all fine – when there are no strings attached, that is.

– End –

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One Response to “Team Building And Bonding Are All Fine. If They Have No Strings Attached”

  1. Minneapolis Team Building on May 18th, 2009 4:27 pm

    I certainly agree with the article that out of the office team building activities are perfectly fine as long as there ares no strings attached. Companies shouldn’t require employees to comply with this kind of set-up. An individual should still have a choice if he wishes to join the said activity. The company can’t really ask a full commitment to this. The person can’t always commit that he can join the lunch dates, the clubbing or whatever activities you have. What the company can do as an option is actually facilitate the traditional way of team building from which they can require employees.

    Cristine

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