Sunny Skies. Shady People.

So, the ropes course.

It was a lot of brain teasers, cooperative learning, communication stuff. Basically, the goal of the entire thing is to get coworkers to learn to work together. What I learned was that my assessments of certain people at my job were spot on: there are a couple who refuse to relinquish control, there are people who wish they could be heard or paid attention to, there are those who like to over plan, and those who like to reorganize just for the sake of reorganizing, not cause it actually helps.

The most interesting part was definitely this:

The Flag Challenge.

Goal: each team member must take part and carry the flag some distance, with the flag eventually reaching the top and the last teammate climbing up to retrieve it.

That thing is over 45 feet tall!

Before we even got to the actual climbing, we had to put on safety harnesses. Remember my concern about my boss' inappropriate dress? Well surprisingly, he showed up in the most baggy shirt and shorts I think I've ever seen him wear. I was very proud of him.

And then we got the harnesses and I saw way too much of each of our 4 male coworkers, including the boss. They were told to readjust themselves so the harness wouldn't be too uncomfortable (they were uncomfortable for the women....so I can only imagine having something extra), and that readjusting did nothing but put all of their family jewels on display. It was quite disturbing (although, one proved to have quite an impressive jewel - not that I was looking :D).

Anyway, so I got nominated to climb pretty far up. Which I ended up not having a choice about since all the men, except for one chickened out.

Now, I'm not afraid of heights. Never have been. But when I got up on the first log and realized that holding my balance would certainly be a problem, I almost shit myself. But I didn't want anyone else to know because I was supposedly the "strongest" female. The climbing didn't bother me one bit; it was only the shuffling across the two logs, once of which (the top) is at an incline.

Needless to say, I survived to live another day, with only some soreness in the groin, hip, and waist area from the harness. Overall, it was an interesting, fun experience, and we got to go home for the rest of the day (after 1:00).