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Comment by specialist | Hacker News Reader

I have so many examples, good and bad.

I started working for a civil engineering firm in high school. Best job I ever had. Sent around the country to set up and train CAD systems. The adults had adopted me. Then I started college (working part time), got sick, somehow lapsed my paperwork. This company backdated my insurance premiums (fraud), paid my bills, to make sure I got a life saving bone marrow transplant. No strings.

OC references Zoom scavenger hunt and being a team player. Heh. Worked at a startup. Really intense. Coworkers that you both love and hate at the same time. We had a big shot boss that would punish us for a job well done with group events. Box seats at football games, open bar at jazz concerns. I demurred from a Las Vegas excursion. Oh boy. You'd've thought I killed the boss' prize puppy. Didn't repeat that mistake.

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> punish us for a job well done with group events

I had a hearty laugh at that one. "Hey all, I know you've all been working like crazy to get this project over the line so I'm going to "reward" you with more time at work, only now you'll be forced to make awkward small talk with people you may or may not have ANYTHING in common with."

Most of that is simulating what maybe was initially at the base of success at the start of company of tight-knit friends who also were entertaining together. I think, that the problem here is very simple - getting rid of people who feel restless and do not appreciate the effort that is done for them and do not feel belonging to the team(!) and do not have their own suggestions, but have their own enjoyment by being disgruntled, because that is how they feel in general.

The problem here has nothing to do with participating in these awkward events, that probably does some job of bonding, but it has a problem with incompatible people that are brought together and have to withstand each other. I have experience of working on both sides - where there were group events and where there were none. And the hell that I remember is about where there were none, because at those jobs nobody also cared for improvements for people, who were there "just to do their job". In fact that thinking lead to some of the people in criminal situations with knive fights(at work!!!) and did other crayzeee stuff to just deal with boredom of "just doing a job that they are paid for". You simply have no experience and appreciation of not getting that wish to come true. I had learned that in a hard way and just - no... I'd rather have a work event(and it doesn't matter what I think about them), than "work incident".

Probably.

In our case, we were a team of frenemies, who bonded over our shared hatred of the execs. "Manny" was my officemate for 4 years. To this day, I won't hang out with Manny, because he drives me crazy, but if he ever needs anything, my immediate reply would be "on my way".

The official (expense account) team activities were the bosses trying to bond with the grunts. Show "appreciation". Vicariously be part of the team.

I stuck with the work (electronic medical record interchange) because I was passionate about the problem, we were first to market with the best product, and I invented some cool new tech that I wouldn't be able to take with me.

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