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Drum Circles and Conference Calls Do Not Mix

21 July 2014 • by bob • Work, Technology, Humor

Earlier today our organization participated in a unique "Team Building" exercise: our organization hosted a Drum Circle, wherein a motivational speaker walked various members of our organization through a set of various polyrhythms with the intended goal of creating music as a "team." The idea seems plausible enough on paper, and I am fairly certain that if I was participating in-person I might have received something of value from the experience.

However, I work remotely, as do several dozen of my coworkers. Instead of hearing music and a motivational speaker, those of us who could not attend in-person heard nothing but noise. Lots and lots of noise. The entire experience was reduced to hours of mind-numbing cacophony for anyone attending the meeting via the conference call, and my only takeaway was that I had lost several hours of my life.

Shortly after the meeting had ended I put together the following animation to show my coworkers what the meeting was like for remote attendees:

Attending a Drum Circle Remotely.

With that in mind, please take my advice: take a look at https://binged.it/2s4KbLd for companies who offer team building exercises such as this, and avoid them as much as possible if you value your remote employees.


Tags: Work, Technology, Humor, Music

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All content within this blog represents my personal views and opinions only. This content is not intended to represent the views, positions, or strategies of my employer or any other organization with which I may be associated. All content and code samples are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.