6/30/13 - Company teambuilding

This post is way too late but it's better late than never.

Two weeks ago, we had our company's first ever team building and I can say I am so happy to be a part of it.

It was held last June 14-16, 2013 in Tagaytay. For personal reasons, I won't reveal the name of the place but it was a beautiful place with enough rooms to accommodate many people, a spacious garden and activity area and a fancy dining room. It has a good set of amenities and despite the lack of air conditioning, the fresh and cool weather is able to suffice, except for the mornings when it was really hot in our rooms.

Because of a holiday during that week, we had to do some work in the morning before leaving the office in the afternoon. We arrived late in the afternoon but we had to wait for our other colleagues and bosses so we had some free time to look around and relax. We even caught the afternoon snack they prepared for us.

It was getting dark already so we took advantage of the free time by using the pool which was as deep as 7 ft.  

By the time everyone has arrived, it was time for dinner. I have to commend the place for serving good food all throughout our stay.We were served various meals such as baked macaroni, fish fillet (the best one!), and other dishes made of fresh ingredients, or so they say.

Our sleeping quarters were in a separate house. We were divided into different rooms. Our bosses had their own rooms while the rest of us were divided between boys and girls. But it didn't really matter in the end as we barely spent time to sleep.

We had good doses of fun and games. We even had videoke sessions and I joined in for the first time and exposed my horrible voice for all of them to hear.

On our first night, I had a great bonding time with my fellow colleagues as well from our sister company. We had humorous chats and played card games. We were so high and this was the night I fell in love with Bacardi.

I had to pay for it the following day with my entire body turning red but it was all worth it. The itchiness couldn't stop me from participating to all the activities we had on the second day. We had a lot of group games an even though we lost in the end, the experience was something I'll cherish forever. Our boss even pulled a prank on us at the end but I will never tell how he pulled it off.

For our group presentations, my group was unprepared for the day so we had a few hours  to come up with an idea quickly. We eventually arrived to the decision to perform a sexy dance number inspired from Magic Mike with all of us guys in the group doing the seductive number and the girls providing support. I am still sad that our efforts didn't pay off but it was all in good sportsmanship nonetheless. We had one final night to bond with the whole group and aside from singing in the videoke, I also spent it by playing monopoly with some friends which lasted for long hours.

But honestly speaking, despite the good experience I had, there's a small part in me that was left feeling lonely as I missed an opportunity to get to know that one particular person that I wanted to be closer to as a friend.

In fact, after the team building, my officemates told me I came out a different person ( in a good way)  as I became more open and cheerful but it seemed to be in reverse with my treatment to my other officemate as I felt farther. The atmosphere seem to be awkward when it's just the two of us in a close proximity and even if the person doesn't show any signs of irregularity, I can sense that my officemate suspects something from me. Admittedly, I see him chatting with one of our gay officemates regularly since then and I don't mean to eavesdrop but they are getting closer and I sometimes see their conversations are about me, like how I have been constantly "picking" on him everytime. I don't really pick on him, it's just that he expressed his "desire" to one of our colleagues and I tease both of them a lot which he seems to enjoy. I saw their conversation just this past week where he told our officemate that he sense that I wanted to tell him something ever since the team building.

I didn't want to make him know that I have been spying but deep inside, I felt so stupid for making my intentions very obvious through my actions or words. I have been trying to restrain myself away from him in attempt to avoid further complications in our friendship and I don't know if that's any good. If I can only be honest, I am not just putting our friendship on the line but my whole personality and reputation to the whole company and I'm not sure if I'm ready to lose that yet.

Overall, the team building made it easy for me to feel close to my officemates and the thoughts of quitting the job seemed to drop by less by this time around.