MCPD - Team Building

It was 21st August 2008. It was the day when my department, MCPD had their team building day. What is team building day? Well, the word is pretty self explanatory, isn’t it? It is a day where are the members of the department are supposed to do some activities together, thereby enhancing their relationships and ties.

My first company had something similar to this too, though they did not really declare it as an official day, and all activities are done either after work or during weekends. My first activity with my first company was a pot luck dinner. Everyone was supposed to bring one dish and then we’ll eat together. I contributed my famed “Honey Chicken” and I was asked for the recipe by a lot of people after that... heck, when I took part in a cooking competition, one of the judges came and personally said that my “Honey Chicken” was very good… but we lost… because of other dishes my other team members made of course :P.

Well, enough of that, for this company, we used half of our working day for the team building event. It all started at 12 noon. First, we had our attendances checked and then we were given the itinerary of the day. There’s a long list of names (76 in total) and we were to use the name list to divide ourselves into small groups (more on that later). We were also given a big umbrella… with red and white stripes. Also, each of us was to take one bag of food which includes KFC’s snack plate and one bottle of mineral water from Tesco.

After a quick lunch, I had to drive myself to a shopping complex where we were to have a movie together. And guess what the movie was? The Mummy 3! At other time, I would have relish in such a treat… however, I watched The Mummy 3 just about 2-3 weeks ago and it is still fresh in my mind. Although I still had a fun time re-watching the movie again, I spend most of my time being a critic… like how on earth did those flags carried by the army remained as flags after all these years? Surely the curse that Michelle Yeoh casted did not involve in turning the flags terracotta as well! And I still cannot help but cringe whenever Luke Ford spoke Mandarin :P. Oh, one good thing did happen... at least I hope it's a good sign... sitting directly behind me is my boss's boss! And he actually know my name! We even talked a little! Of course, it might also be a bad thing because no one is sitting next to me and he might take this as me being a loner... :(... which I AM NOT!!!

Anyway, two hours later, we were ready for our next event… bowling! Mistress of Fate had declared a personal war against me. First, I had to watch a movie that I have watched before… and then, a week after my post’s grand finale on sports, she decided that I have to touch a ball again. For those who do not know what I am talking about, please read Sports (Part 1) and Sports (Part 2) in my blog.

Yikes... so many balls

Condition before the MCPD invasion...

Screen without any points...

MCPD invasion!!!

Anyway, we were all divided into four main houses and each house has several teams. I was in a house which was led by my boss’s boss… and I was in group 7 which consists of a total of 4 members. So, we all quickly took our respective lanes and started bowling. It was actually quite fun and I started to become competitive again… but I failed miserably. After one year of not bowling, I was in a bad shape. After my fifth ball, I actually started to feel a pain in my back! And even when I am typing this right now, that pain kept on nibbling at my back. Also, the holes in the bowling ball are either too big or too small for my delicate fingers :P. I used the larger ones and the friction between my finger and the hole caused my thumb to become painful as well. And as my ball frequently “wash the drain”; I became more and more agitated.Luckily, I anticipated this, and I flipped out my super camera and started to take millions of photos. Unfortunately, the bowling arena was dark and since I do not want to annoy the other bowlers, I dare not turn on the flash. Also, there was an official photographer for the event and he took all the good places to take the shots. Thus, I was left shooting at everyone else’s backside.

We were so greedy that the bowling balls were actually stuck in the roller because there were too many balls!!!

OMG!!! A strike! A strike! Second row lah! Surely you don't need me to tell you who made this strike...

The ill-fated bottle of water...

Bored, I took a bottle of mineral water (which is free for the event) and took a shot at it… you must wonder why would I write about this.

Well, as luck has it, after I shot the bottle of water, I forgot that I have already put the bottle of water in my bag… and when I came back after my turn in bowling, I saw another bottle of water placed exactly at where I took the photo. I thought I did not put the bottle away and thus I quickly snatched it and drank the water inside!!! And it was not unopened. I realized my mistake only when I opened my bag and saw another bottle in there! I hope that whoever the owner of the bottle is did not see me drinking his drink… sigh… things were starting to fall apart. Of course I hid that bottle in my bag too...

My final scores in the first game... it's not the last :)

The bowling master... if you look carefully, you can see that his left hand is placed at an odd angle... he was actually talking on the phone while bowling!!! I can only shoot his backside because frankly, we were not that close... I know him... and worked with him on a project... but not close enough for me to shoot a photo from the front... needless to say... he got zero for that particular throw :P

One rare photo shoot that uses flash... oh, and she's in the same team as mine too...

Results from my second game... I know... I know... it's pathetic... but I'm keeping a lid on my bowling skills cause I don't want to be in the finals mah... as the Chinese saying goes "A big tree attracts wind"... and the wind can bring down a tree (second part added by me :P)

Results from the lane next to mine... see, I'm not really that bad... at least I'm MUCH BETTER than the phone bowler :P. Can you guess which points belong to him? No prize for correct guess...

The real bowling master in action... see how the leg bends? Rumour has it that the more odd angle the leg is, the better the bowler is... :P

I don't know why I took this shot...

Also, our team was one of the most silent teams. Well, I am new and thus I did not really know them so not much to talk loh, heck, I did not even recognize most of the people in the arena that were supposed to be in my department… I blame it on the cubicles. Anyway, we were not really chatty… only a clap here and some remarks there. Luckily, we played really fast and pretty soon, our two games were finished and I was comforted in knowing that there is no way that I am qualified for the finals. The finals consisted of four players in each house. There are a total of four houses and thus a total of sixteen players. Each house would take one lane and they would play only one game with the highest total scores being the winning house.

After the four houses decided on their four best players, the finals started. I must say that I was really surprised. Being a pathetic bowler myself, I know that I have no right to say this, but these supposed to be “best players” were… well, performing far below than what I expected :P. Of course, some of them are pretty decent… but there are actually several of them who did not even make it to three digits! Erm... for my colleagues (which is impossible because I did not give my blog address to anyone is at the team building) who are reading this blog... please be assured that I am not talking about you :)

The champion's scoreboard... one might have expected better marks... OMG, I hope my boss's boss did not read this...

My boss's boss's boss (BBB)... still not the highest position in the company though... that means that I'm in a very low position loh... anyway, I met him during a meeting and did not even realize it's him... my BBB is a Malay and he looked like an Indian to me :P I thought that he was a sales guy in the meeting... phew... luckily I did not say anything that I should not...

Anyway, the most important thing is, my house won! The winning team got some presents, but the winning house got vouchers too! Thus, I got one RM5 McDonald voucher thanks to the good players in my house!

For me, the team building was not really successful, but I did take this opportunity to memorize the names of the people that I was introduced to during my first day at work… I mean no one would be able to memorize all of their colleague’s names in the first day… it would require a mnemonic to do that. So, I wouldn’t call this day a total waste. Also, I got the name list with me... I work beeter in remembering people's full name... when I was introduced to them, they either call themselves as Ong, Ng, Ooi, Woi... very difficult to remember loh. The bad thing is, after playing bowling; I felt the urge to bowl again! Sigh… as you know (form my previous post), spherical things meant disaster to me… not to mention it costs RM4.50 per game over here… sigh, it was only RM2.50 during my college years. I could have almost wished that another accident would happen to me during bowling so that I would give up on this sport once and for all… almost :P.

The winning group!!! Yay!!!

My 'hard-earned' prize... :)