Company Mandatory Fun : Please Stop
Work events taking place out of hours are still work events, no matter how much ‘fun’ you’re told to have. Enough, now.
I only recently learned the term ‘Mandatory Fun’, surprisingly.
This is really quite embarrassing after what seems like a lifetime of avoiding unpleasant and undesirable situations where some workplace or other has attempted to encroach on, and organise, sections of my personal life in favour of me being a more productive work unit¹.
Olde Worlde MF
In olden times, pre-pandemic and when training was more than being told to log into a website and watch a video on my own time, this was widely trumpeted as ‘team building’ and often involved the following events which, clearly, would be the antithesis of what any right thinking, likely introverted, and wholly progressive software engineer would choose, given the choice.
- A full day event on an assault course somewhere in the Welsh hills where instructors would bully developers over an assault course and shatter their self-esteem and self-worth by shouting at them and getting them covered in mud.
- Whole day company seminars at a local hotel, usually getting a coma inducing company update, before being asked to stand publicly on a lawn, closing our eyes, and leaning backward hoping that a…
