pay day breakfast and forced socialization

Companies have many different theories on how to bring people together. Some have a laissez faire approach where they literally stick a bunch of people together and wait it out to see who clings to who and who loathes who. Some have a more pro-active solution, with planned activities to help foster camaraderie. I have been personnally immersed in the latter at my most recent job.

Every 2nd Friday morning, we would have what is called a "pay day breakfast". Everybody (about 14 of us) would congregate in a conference room, have breakfast, and do a round of "check-in". There would be an ongoing cycle over who was in charge of bringing in the food. And then the "check-in". Ahh, the check in. I loathed the check in. And while I'm sure that some people relished it as an opportunity to present a highly contented persona, many people felt like I did. That it was an insincere, forced, uncomfortable, and wholly uneducational process. It was all filler, no substance. To really get to know somebody, you have to earn their trust. Nobody is going to say anything terribly exciting while the whole group (and the boss) are present.

Don't get me wrong! I thought all the people were very interesting and friendly. Just wasn't a huge fan of this format.

Let me know what you think of this process and whether you think it is beneficial to a company.

golf

So yes its true. I am a big fan of golf. Not so much playing it. (played last weekend and almost tore the place apart) Its more the watching that I'm into. This is tough because pretty much 90% of the world and probably 98% of people my age claim that its "boring". Not to me it isn't. Maybe part of this is because I have played it a lot so I appreciate just how good some of these guys really are and what a mental grind it truly is.

Judging from this picture, this doesn't seem true for the world number one: