Sharp knives in Barbie's workplace

I hate Outlook's Calendar, but it's a reality of gainful employment Just clicked "accept" on a team-building exercise to be held prior to an afternoon of project evaluations. I have enough lead time to storehouse a healthy level of terror. We will be building our team at a ritzy grocery store with a chef and a simulated reality show challenge. Doing a simulation of a reality show seems a tad twisted, but letting coworkers have sharp knives is way more scary. If we don't stab each other in the shiny industrial kitchen, we will skewer in the conference room. Shish kebab!

As best as I can wrap my head around it, staff will wash hands then go to battle as Chickens vs. Vegetarians vs. Desserts. There will be chopping and iron forks, but hairnets are not promised.

Thank heaven this quarter's team building event does not require rappelling or remembering religious cults, baseball teams, and Sixties sitcoms. It doesn't involve a bus ride to an isolated locale for a simulated illegal nighttime border crossing like the one on This American Life.

I'm on the planning committee for the last quarter's team building event. We are charged with arranging a professional development day, not anything requiring role-playing or suspending disbelief. Possible topics:

• Environmental impact of semi-colon extinction.
• Hoarders hiding in your department? Stop enabling and get tough with storage issues.
• Pulling weeds/Sharing roots: Weeding the green roof and sharing your genealogical story.
• Bagels or donuts? Making corporate volunteer groups feel appreciated.

© 2013-2015 Nancy L. Ruder