Team Outing

November 23, 2005 at 7:46 pm (Personal)

 Its been almost 4 months now in Bangalore, but this is the second weekend I am spending here in this town. (Yes, the first one was also for a team outing!)

Well, honestly speaking; I didn’t expect it to be this good at all.

After cancellation and last minute rescheduling the outing with my team at work pace was finally ON. It is something I was looking forward for a long time.

> Start <

We were asked to come to office at 3pm on Saturday. We boarded a mini a/c bus and left to a “secret place”. The tour guides refused to reveal where we are heading to. She explained what sort of place it was and some briefing on what activities we will be having there but the name of the place was a well kept secret all through out the journey.

Thirty minutes later we were still inside Bangalore city, somewhere near Silk board junction and our bus broke down. So we stayed there for about one hour waiting for the replacement bus to come and pick us up. At 7pm, we reached some forest resort near Bannerghatta National park. We were server some refreshments, check in to our respective tents. Yeah, by tents I mean those camping kits that you will see in adventure movies.

> Reached Destination <

No television. No Radio. No Electricity. Just a blanket to bear the cold winds blowing in the middle of a jungle. We were never informed about what we will be doing and when. The entire trip was a surprise affair. We thought we will be allowed to just spend time inside the small tents. But then about 9.00pm then said we have to get ready for an “activity”. When asked what it was, we were told its an adventure activity. phew! whatever!

We had our first *activity*. I don’t know why they call everything an “activity”. It was more like a game for all of us. Enjoyed that!

> Dinner < Not bad considering the fact we were in a jungle

Post dinner we were split in to two teams and handed over a shabby map. Yes, treasure hunt in the middle of a jungle at 11pm. Total darkness. Only few battery powered torches to find our way in the dark and scary jungle space. Each team were accompanied by a highly non cooperative guide who was asked specifically by the tour operator NOT to help any teams in finding routes unless in case of emergency. We got lost several times but had to work our way back.

The MID NIGHT TREK (aka treasure hunt) went on till about 3am. Our team lost! Guess we spent lot of time trying to soothe the guide in asking for answers instead of finding them ourselves. We came back to our tents and got some well deserved sleep not knowing what’s going to hit us the next day.

> Sunday <  Morning – Breakfast

Post breakfast, We were introduced to our next  `activity`. A vertical climb of some 2 to 3 story high wooden structure. Of course safety strings were attached, but we have to reach the top and stay without holding any support for 5 seconds. My colleague Babu was clearly the best among the team. He was a hero among others who struggled to make it.

The high climb got over with no one getting seriously hurt. Only some minor bruises.

> Adventure ends here.<

The day was followed by some highly boring group discussions and role plays. Yeah, informative but it really hits you when each time the coordinators says “you must take this knowledge back to your work place”. Come on….

We had one more game to end the day. Reached back office again at 7.30pm.

The coordinator finally conveyed her TRUE feeling that this team was THE most talkative bunch she has ever been with. Most of the time, there were too many people trying to talk that no one was left ready to listen. J

On the whole, the adventure part was cool and the “gyan” part was a little overwhelming at times. But can’t deny the fact that we came back with some informative thoughts which can indeed be implemented at work place. (Especially, the knowledge from a mock 1:1