Corporate offsites are important. How would you otherwise know that your grumpy colleague can drink like a fish or that shy bespectacled girl is er…not really shy? How would you otherwise convince your boss to believe that he announced a 50% raise to everybody when he was drunk the previous night?
Before I begin to tell you the can-be-mentioned-in-polite-company tales, here are a few things you must never do on an offsite.
What Not To Do On an Offsite:
- Don’t attend official calls? – which we obviously did since we love our customers.
- Don’t click embarrassing pictures – which again we did, and floated in the entire office after returning to Delhi.
- If you didn’t pay heed to point no. 2, then make sure you have embarrassing pictures of everybody, especially your boss.
- Don’t drink too much beer on the bus, if there are very few stops on the way.
- Don’t call your boss a coolie when he lifts a colleague in a paper dance competition.
- Don’t push your team leader in the pool, especially when she’s wearing her jacket.
Jim Corbett? Really?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Indian living in north India has visited 4 places before he/she has turned 25 – Taj Mahal, Shimla, Mussoorie, and Jim Corbett. So when an email about an offsite to Jim Corbett floated in office, we were all unsure. Corbett? Really?
But then we are holiday planners. And you know what they say about holiday planners? That they can rock a holiday even in hell. They know the best places, the best deals, the best activities. This is also one of the reasons holiday planners are much sought-after marriage material. A well-meaning middle-aged auntie once remarked, “Arre apna munda toh holiday planner hai. He can give you the best honeymoon packages.” The ‘munda’ was our dear Pappu Planner (name changed as he has still not been able to get married).
The Million Dollar Offsite
The offsite marked the completion of a million dollars of revenue for WAH in the previous year. Basically, it meant that because we had slogged our asses off, we were now clicking our glasses off.
The Safari
Even if you don’t spot a tiger, a safari into the jungle is well worth it (this doesn’t mean we didn’t spot one! Oh puhleez! We are the holiday specialists). There’s something about un-manicured pathways and untrimmed bushes that puts you at ease. So what if you’ve never ridden in a convertible and felt the cold breeze blow away your hair till you felt they’d be uprooted. You can always stand in a safari and sing “Pehla Nasha”. Hell, tiger spotting in Corbett is one of the bucket list essentials for any Indian.
Okay, some of us didn’t spot the tiger – the ones who never get to office in time, because they can never get up early in the morning. The others saw not only the tigress, but her 4 beautiful cubs too.
But we did spot tigers of a different kind. Now before I tell you about this rare breed, let me inform you about the 2 types of people who go on a safari:
a) The touristy kind, like you and me. They are the boring ones; let’s leave them alone.
b) The wildlife lovers, or the ‘wild loafers’, as our guide liked to call them. Professional photographers with heavy-duty cameras hanging down their necks; tall armymen dressed in khaki, broad-shouldered, crisp moustaches, ruddy complexions. Need we even tell you that this breed is cuter than the tiger. If you spot one of these, consider your safari safal.
The Paper Dance!
Yes, we did the paper dance and we loved it! If you aren’t foaming with cheese at the mouth, we like you. But the sundar susheel boys and girls that we are, we danced only with our respective genders. There were some amongst us, who grabbed this opportunity to display their utterly shameful intentions, much before the paper was folded. We have quarantined them and shifted their desks to the balcony now.
Of course, we girls won the game hands down. With a shoe size of 11, the men couldn’t have much hope anyway.
The highlight of the evening, however, was the Sales Head’s graceful performance to Kajrare. There is much elegance and poise at work behind your holidays. At this point, ladies, it should be mentioned that he just got married.
The Games
A cricket match is a sacred ritual at every corporate team outing. And we kept the tradition up. Though I am a much skilled cricket player, I decided to mellow down my game to the level of a nerd so that the boys don’t get bummed out.
The Monday following any weekend offsite is never blue. And if you are living in India, the options are so many and so cheap that you can have an offsite every week, okay boss, every month. Some of the pet weekend getaway destinations:- Neemrana
- Rishikesh
- Bharatpur
- Nainital
- Junga
- Saat Taal
And if you are short of time or money, but love your employees, here are some more ways to make ‘em happy. Try these day activities:
1. Go for rock climbing at Indian Mountaineering Foundation at Satya Niketan
2. Book gaming sessions at Paintball Co. Gaming Arena in Gurgaon
3. Go desi at Pratapgarh Farms, 60 km from Delhi
Nishi Jain spent some precious years of her life studying English literature, editing novels, and writing newspaper articles. Then one day, as she was sitting under a tree with no branches, a rotten pancake fell on her head from the window above and she had her Newtonian moment. From then on, all she does is eat pancakes, write, and profess fake love to pastry chefs.
Nishi Jain – who has written 19 posts on WAH Blog.
