Although really swamped with work, I was actually pretty excited about the team days. For one I'm still getting to know everyone so I thought it would be fun to get to spend some time together. And second, I knew what we were doing for the second day of the event... and it's really good! But we'll get to that.
The first day was all about team building. It was really well facilitated and ended up being really fun. We did some 'speed dating' where we had to spend three minutes talking about the other person - initial thoughts, what we like about them, and what we want to know more of. It was really interesting to hear everyone's feedback on me, especially being the lone American on the team. In the afternoon we spent the day outside in Rushcutters Park on a beautiful, warm, sunny day. We probably looked like crazy people as lots of the activities required at least half of us to be blinded folded (yeah, that was great for my trust and patience issues). Finally we ended the night with a barbeque in the the hotel. The food was tasty and we all just relaxed, had a few drinks, and of course Liz and I decided to play matchmaker/love advisor. Not sure we'll be starting a side business anytime soon, but it was fun for the night.
The big surprise for the team, was that for day two we did a sailing adventure in Sydney Harbour! How awesome is that?! I love sailing and I love a good competition. We arrived at the marina first thing in the morning, split into two teams, then headed out to our sail boats. Now if you are my husband, you want to know lots of details about the boat: what kind of boat it is, how big it was, blah, blah, blah... You know I don't pay attention to things like that. The important thing is, it was big enough, warm enough outside and not raining.
Our sailing adventure consisted of a dinghy race (the winner got a 30 second advantage in the sailing race - we did not win this), a type of trivia/navigation challenge, and a sailing race. We had a really nice skipper, Wendy, who taught us everything we needed to know. While sailing around the harbour to answer the trivia questions, we were also able to start learning how to sail. (The rules were that you could not ask your skipper sailing questions during the race portion of the day, only during the trivia portion). We sailed all through the harbour seeing the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and all of the neat bays and inlets in the harbour. It was amazing. I can't believe this was a work day!
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| Sydney Opera House |
We also started practicing our roles that we would have during the race portion. The challenge was that there was no wind! There's always a breeze in the Sydney Harbour! Not today, my friends. It made it a little slow, but we made it work. I was on the main sail on the starboard side (sounds so official, right?!)
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| Okay, I'm not doing anything yet, but I'm about to! |
And finally, the race started. The other team had won the dinghy challenge so they had a 30 second head start. But that didn't matter... we smoked them! It was pretty amazing. We were yelling sailing terms left and right "Tack!" "Main On!" It was like a movie!
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| The Winning Team!! |
It was great getting some time out of the office and getting to know the team a little better. And for it being my first time in the Harbour besides on a ferry, I couldn't have asked for a better day.
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