tell me pretty lies...

I was away for a couple of days last week on a team building thing.

TEAM BUILDING.  Now, there are two words to strike fear into the heart of any office worker. Luckily, we don't do this sort of thing very often and it really wasn't as bad as I feared.

Amongst all the usual fun (treasure hunts! presentations! a quiz!), we had one session on the first morning where we were split into teams and asked to spend some time thinking about our "values". To help us, we were given a sheet of paper containing a hundred words to help inspire us: joy, integrity, curiosity, intelligence, perseverance.... things like that (although I do wonder if anyone ever actually picks words like holiness or serenity from that list...).

I was slightly surprised when most people in my team started drawing out different lists for values for home and for work.  I really don't make that distinction: my values are just my values.  Then again, that might just be me.  After all, I could never understand it back in the day when people said they hated the idea of a casual dress-code in the office (Ah, how The Gap loved those times). These people liked to make a clear distinction between their time at work and their time at home, and apparently this becomes a lot more difficult if you don't change clothes between the two.  Um.  If you say so.  Although, is that really a good enough reason to wear a tie?

I digress.

After some discussion, the teams came back together to discuss the values we'd chosen and to see if we had (m)any in common.

"Honesty...." began the spokesperson for one team

I jumped in.  "...is such a lonely word?"

Everyone turned to look at me blankly and a confused hush fell across the room.

Well, here's what I learned at my team building event: if the people you work with aren't Billy Joel fans, then you're probably working with the wrong people.