Team outing..

It was a happy Friday after putting in lots of effort throughout the week to meet deadlines and finish work. It even more happy Friday because it was a team outing day, a day when we all go out and just have fun together and bond well with each other. It not only gave opportunities to know your own team mates, but also an opportunity to interact with other teams working and coordinating on various aspects of the products.

I had put the alarm of 5:30, I also went to bed early, the alarm also went out in time, but it’s too difficult to get up so early in the morning when your body still feels a little tired. I snoozed the alarm till 6 and soon fell asleep. The alarm went off again and I dragged myself out of the bed though 80% of me wanted to still lie and sleep while 20%of me knew that it’s time to get up, bathe n get ready.

So I got up, letting the 20% win against democratic voting laws. I brushed my teeth, put on music to open my eyes and heat the milk and prepare the corn flakes breakfast. I thought of taking a quick bath, but as always took a little more than expected and came out running while my sweet colleague waited patiently for me to show up. I got dressed in a hurry and ran to the bus stop where she was waiting for me in an auto. We went to the office and then, boarded the bus to our destination.

The journey to the destination, a golf resort was nice and fun. It involved a little of singing and enacting film’s names. We finally reached the destination and a quick breakfast was followed by a tug of war. But it was too sunny for an outdoor games event. I was sweating like a goat. I tried to find a properly air-conditioned corner in the resort but I guess it was put down because of the maintenance work there. I tried to take up some sport but couldn’t find company. I am not really too good at sports, especially the indoor ones. I wanted to play badminton but since I had no partner, I had no choice. I could have just hanged at the court and asked ever few minutes if I can play, but that’s not really me. I feel too awkward doing it. I am not really an introvert, but I feel people aren’t really cool with a bugger, so I chose not to intervene. The players on the badminton court were known to me, but most of the time, they try to corner me out for not being a good player. They’ll all want to play with a pro and not a naive like me. Sometimes I feel bad, because I never do it anyone, and I understand the basic logic that everything takes a little time to come to you. You can pick up a sport, maybe slower than others, but if you try, you can. Bored and sweaty, I started looking for a place to sit.  After actually lying at the reception area for close to half an hour, I got company of a few bored guys like me. They hanged out with me for like 10 minutes and thought of going to the play area. I decided to follow suit.

I finally went to the playing area where my team mates were playing this indoor version of football with a ball and 11 plastic players controlled by a set of 4 bars for each team. It’s a game for 4 and one of my sweet team mate called me to play the game with them. We played it, then went on to play air hockey and then went on to play squash till some wanted to just get rid of me and play. I find it a mean behaviour, so what if I don’t know much about how to play the game, but I want to try my hands and maybe pick it up. Squash is a game I really like but never really got an opportunity to play and I just didn’t like their attitude of telling me that since I don’t know how to play, I should get moving. You could have played it all this while or after I am done. But this time I refused to buzz off and continued playing. By the end of something like 40 minutes, I was able to pick a few basics of the game and came out wanting to take up the game, I didn’t want to let go of the experience just because some people thought I didn’t had the right to play because I don’t know how to play.

Anyways, we left for lunch. I met these two girls at lunch who were sweet and we instantly became kind of friends because we hit the right chords. She is a pretty, but she didn’t have those airs about self. We gelled well and then pretty much hung out together. We went for a bike ride around the entire resort. It was fun cycling on those up-hill and down-hill roads. I was seriously having fun in her company. We cycled almost like 5 kms, we almost got lost and we had a  real nervous moment when we realised the lovely mountaineering bikes don’t have a bell, so we were shouting at each merger with a main road to warn someone that we were coming. :D

It was a real fun and exhausting activity. It was more like a friendly thing than I had with my team. In my team, I like 5 people a lot. Rest are fine and a few I don’t really like, but no hatred here. I just guess they don’t really approve of me and kind of treat me as an outsider. I want to feel like a part now, no more of being treated like a foreign material deserving allergic reactions. L

We went back in bus and i didn't get a seat with my team mates. The new friend I made asked me to join their group where they were also playing the enacting the name of a film game, but in a smaller group. It was pretty dull in the beginning, but then we picked it up like anything. In the beginning we gave easy movies from Bollywood to opponent team who weren’t really Hindi speaking, but the enthusiasm they had, the passion they had for the game was awesome. They would relate the Hindi word to some local language word or English word and enact. It was such a good feeling see cultures mix. But as we moved more into the Hollywood movies, it became a fast paced and fun. It ended up being more fun than the big group playing it back there and we bonded much better than the big group. A genuine good byes when people got down was a pleasant sight. I also got lots of love from all of them as I leaved the bus for home. I wish I got this warmth from my team as well. But I guess the purpose for going to the resort was solved by picking a little of squash and making a little more good friends who genuinely like you and don’t care about your drawbacks as you really can’t be a master at everything. You suck at a few.. some more than others. :P