Large, slow moving targets
My employer plays good cop/bad cop all on their own.
They are still determined to outsource my department, and don’t seem to grasp that when that became common knowledge any company loyalty the affected staff may have had has evaporated.
But they still do nice things. Sometimes.
In the past 12 months they gave us a terribly dull presentation on something. No idea what, didn’t care then, can’t recall it now. The fun part of this experience was the selected venue : a local cinema. They then let us see The Incredibles. Cool.
At Christmas they ran a “come tell us something that show’s how great we are” and win a prize. The CTO dressed as Santa and did a grotto.
I said something about being a team player. He seemed happy, I walked out with a digital camera. A decent one, at that.
But today was the icing on the cake.
The company, in yet another unexpected (and quite inexplicable) random act of niceness took some of us paintballing.
Not sure why, not sure how they selected the people invited, but I went.
It’s not often you get paid to shoot members of your own team by your employer, on company time.
I went paintballing when I was younger. Fitter. Thinner. Faster.
And today I remember something that had long been forgotten: Getting shot by something that is moving at 160 feet a second hurts.
A lot.
I’ve also never been paid to sit in a field clutching my wounded parts and crying out “Will you stop shooting me”, certainly never to be then promptly and remarkably accurately shot in the arse.
It was a paintball wedgie.
On the brightside I had a few moments to reflect on my personal behavoural code today.
One of my colleagues in the final free for all (a game with only two ways of ending, you either run out of ammo or run screaming like a small girl from the pain. “It’ll hurt” said the marshall. He wasn’t lying) suggested that he won’t shoot me.
At no point did he say “in return please don’t shoot me.” Perhaps it is the sort of thing that is assumed when it is unsaid.
But I don’t assume. Besides I had a painful ringpiece from a paintball trying to mate with me at high speed.
So I nodded.
I think he thought that meant “and I won’t shoot you either.”
I don’t know if he was surprised or disappointed. Or both.
I’m such a cad.
1 comment September 22nd, 2005
