miðvikudagur, ágúst 30, 2006

rockholm

Here's something you American readers will find unbelievable, but that at the same time doesn't seem to faze the Icelanders: the company is flying every Icelandic employee (and American tagalongs, too) to Stockholm, Sweden for a weekend of team-building, dinner-eating, and campfire songs. That's around 25 people boarding a bus together at 5 a.m. on a Friday morning, riding to the airport, checking in, and taking up a chunky block of seats on the Icelandair morning KEF-ARN run. Then staying Friday night on an island in the Stockholm archipelago with our Swedish counterparts and Saturday night in a phat downtown hotel in Stockholm. We return on Sunday night, after the inevitable Icelandic suitcase-busting shopping trips and/or trips to the Stockholm in-city amusement park and/or lots of ice-cream-cone consumption. (Swedes eat ice cream on an almost continual basis throughout the day; it seems to be like a source of fuel to them.)

Kinda cool, I think. I never worked for an American company that would do this sort of thing, even when I consulted for one of the richest, even at the successful conclusion of a hellish 2.5-year project, even when the number of people to be flown somewhere was 5, even when the flight was a $200 Boston to New York shuttle ... to provide a purely hypothetical example. Here though, people are acting as though it's normal. Icelanders: I say this a lot in person to you and now I'll make it official on the IR: you don't know how good you have it.

5 Comments:

Blogger cK said...

I spent five years working for a publisher. We had six magazines but no marketing plan. A co-worker and I who had come from academic publishing (where profit is a distant after-thought) convinced them that we needed to have at least one damn day to plan marketing. "It leads to more readers," we said. Silence. "That means more ads. And money." So we got it: One day. Off site. With sandwiches and coffee.

But never again. That was it. That was all the swag we could swing. Sigh.

Hey: Enjoy Stockholm! Man, with a company that thinks along those lines, I'd totally trick myself out in company wear.
-cK

30.8.06  
Blogger Syngibjörg said...

It depends on where you work here in Iceland, to get a free weekend trip with your company.I´m a teacher, I have never been invited to a trip like this. Last year the teachers in my school desited to go to Rome for a team-building and to wisit some music shools. We saved up some money the whole winter( it was withdrawn from our salary)and all uf us did also send an apliction to a techers fund we have here, to pay for the flight.

But I know many companies do this, but only the ones with money.
So enjoy, you are "lukkunar pamfíll".

Ég óska þér góðrar ferðar og góðrar skemmtunar í Stokkhólmi:O)

Big

30.8.06  
Blogger carmen said...

At the media conglomerate I toil at, all the ad sales people in the corporation get flown every winter to a tropical paradise in the Caribbean for 4 days of daquiris, mai tais, snorkeling, swimming, and tanning. Oh, and team building. Ick for the team building exercises. But it's the only time I wish I was in ad sales.

In my department, we used to get a one-day offsite at a swank penthouse suite in a hip nyc hotel. Used to. Now we spend a day in a conference room. ("But it's on a different floor!") Sigh.

30.8.06  
Blogger JB said...

Sue: Wow, even my old company in Somerville gave out Sox tickets.

CK: As for the publishin', I punish 'em. I'm done with them, Son. I'm surprised you run with them...

Syngibjörg: I do appreciate the trip! I've waded grief, whole pools of it. And going to Stockholm is like going to, well, Rockholm for me.

Carmen: I love it. "But we get to take the elevator!" I am worried that this kind of attitude is soon coming to the Land, too. Globalization and all...

30.8.06  
Blogger Unknown said...

The bigshots at the Lib get sent to places like Kauai and Greece. Video crew gets sent too, so I've been trying to work the whole "You need someone besides Eric who knows FCP" thing. You know... in case he eats bad shrimp or something. Yeah... It hasn't worked for Greece, but Kauai and Rome are coming up.

31.8.06  

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