Why team building retreats do not end hate among staff

Participants in a team building activity

Photo: Courtesy

Old civil servants long discovered something the corporate types either don’t know or simply pretend not to know. In government, workers are referred to as personnel. But in the corporate world, they like to pretend that the clowns playing computer games and foraging around on Facebook during working hours are a human resource. The more pretentious ones go as far as labeling the laggards, human capital.

When personnel become a ‘resource’ or ‘capital’, the assumption is that the place operates with the common sense and precision of a beehive; that interpersonal relations are as a smooth as baby’s bottom and that teamwork is so hot workers would die for each other.

But you only have to refer to the civil service code of conduct to realize what a fallacy that is. Tucked somewhere in the ancient manual is one rule that says if government officers fight on government premises, they will be fired.

In simple terms, if the District Commissioner’s clerk corners the big man in a bar in Mlolongo and punches him twice in the stomach, the most his boss can do is punch back or sue for assault. But if two government secretaries spit at each other in the office parking lot, they are going home.

Old civil servants understood that workers hate each other. Juniors loathe the boss because they know he is a pompous, good for nothing idiot. The boss loathes them, too, because he knows they are scheming devils who want to internally displace him and take over the executive toilet.

So in government, they allow you to fight your childish little fights - hiding critical memos, sitting on promotional correspondence, transferring ambitious fellows to Moyale and bewitching each other. Just don’t fight physically on government premises.

But in the corporate world, they pretend to be too polished, too educated and too ‘civilized’ to brawl, so their wars are limited to childish emails where they insult each other in posh and obtuse English.

Like couples in loveless relationships, they keep pecking each other on the cheeks and attending birthday parties for their children, yet they are itching to murder each other.

Around December, most corporate organizations always perpetuate this pretense to ridiculous heights through a phony thing called the ‘annual retreat’. An office retreat is a little charade where all workers are taken to a bushy hotel on the outskirts of Nairobi. For three days, people who hate each other’s guts are forced to pretend they love each other.

They sing nursery rhymes, skip ropes, perform childish skits, pretend to solve problems and generally act like they are one big team, over and above drinking a hell lot of beer.

After three days, they go back to the office, simmering with massive hangovers and the old mutual spite and virulent hate and disgust for each — and eager for the New Year to begin so the next round of office battles can resume.

One person - the cleaner - is, however, always too smart to care.

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We hate the Brits but love their mannerism

Some elders are spoken of with awe because they are extremely set in their ways. Often, these are either World War Two veterans or men who served in the pre and post-independence military and civil service. It’s easy to recognize them. They are always smartly dressed even if their shoes and clothing have seen better times. They favor walking sticks and hats.

If they own bicycles, an old pure-leather briefcase, usually brown in colour, is always strung between the seat and the handlebars.

Their walk is straight and upright, their manner of speech precise, like a lawyer’s. They also go to great lengths to demonstrate that they are averse to nonsense. They are so solid that their mere presence can stop a village riot.

Their homes are spotless and organized, their hedges trimmed and their sons always wed and pay dowry. They keep time, their word is law and they clinch deals with a firm handshake. When the common man speaks of them, it’s with reverence, bemused laughter and the words, “Nomubritishi!” — That one’s British, as we say in my village.

Such old men never refer to Kenya, Kenyatta Avenue or Lake Turkana but Kinya, Government Road and Lake Rudolf.

They speak with nostalgia about how orderly things were in their time, how systems worked efficiently and how children were taught proper ‘arithmetic’.

And yet these are the same fellows who loathed the British with a passion.