I have been invited by my boss to attend a 'teambuilding' weekend with ten colleagues at a hotel near Norwich. Because the hotel is small, I am expected to share a room with another woman.
I am quite a private person and feel really uncomfortable about this, let alone having to face my co-workers over breakfast and lunch and dinner and goodness knows what else. Is there any strategy that I might adopt to get out of attending? I honestly believe that I do my job well (there have never been any issues raised) and can't see what the weekend might add, except for embarrassment. Are these teambuilding events really necessary?
I think there's a clue in the way your letter is worded — if anyone needs a teambuilding event, then it's you. I think teambuilding events are very necessary and although you say that no issues have been raised in regard to how you do your job, this might well be just because you are living in a rather closed world. Often even just a very soft level of socialising can make a huge difference to relationships. Even trying unstructured nights out as a group — bowling or cookery classes, perhaps — can be beneficial. It's interesting to watch the relationships that form and the collaborations that spill over to the workplace. The most important thing is that people need to know why they're doing these events and what the objective is.
I do think that it's a big ask of your company to require that you spend the night for this session. It's a bit surprising, frankly, and could prove counterproductive. But the main thing is that if you feel so uncomfortable about this event, then you don't "adopt a strategy to get out of attending", you actually have to be open about how you feel. Have the conversation with your boss head-on.
Deborah Meaden is author of Common Sense Rules, £18.99
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