Megakite

Financial crisis, recession, bad times. Reality in 2009. But it wasn’t always like that. Only a couple of years ago companies had money to spend on their employees. And they did. Gather the troops from across Europe in on the beach for an all-day event. Put them in a luxury hotel. Let them wake up to boring meetings in the morning. Let them play the teambuilding game in the afternoon. Let them party at night.

Afternoon in Noordwijk, and time for the teambuilding event; a treasure hunt by bike. Divide them up into teams, give them a GPS handheld device, hand out the bikes, and off they go. The sun is shining, it’s warm, it’s a lovely day for biking. Problem is, it’s unclear where. For maximum fun for the organizers, and for maximum difficulty and frustration for the teams, the GPS devices are adjusted to not show street names, only a dot for your current position and your destination.

The appointed team leader holding the GPS has an epiphany. “I have an idea”, he says, and takes off with his bike at the speed of light. Unfortunately for the rest of the team, he didn’t reveal this idea to anyone else. So much for team effort. The rest of the team is dumbfounded. The coastal town of Noordwijk is small though, and eventually the team merges with its leader again. The GPS device is figured out. The stations are found. The items for the next step of the teambuilding are collected.

Phase two of the teambuilding, now on the beach. All collected items are inspected, put on a table, and are never used again. Part two of the exercise consists of the teams building part of a kite, and then put them together to form a MEGAKITE. Beer is present. By a struck of luck rather than a team effort, parts are completed, and the Megakite is put together.

Time for the flight of the Megakite. More beer is present. People are rather content with the day’s work so far. Whether the kite will fly or not appears less interesting than the upcoming party. Apparently the event organizers have set sail to Megakites before. It’s up and away. “Megakite, I love you!”. Someone took an affectionate liking to this construction. Teambuilding accomplished. Megakite airborne.

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