It was three o’clock. The Biology department academic staff sitting in their rows, looking balefully at Camilla, the cheery young trainer from HR. They were flagging, despite, or maybe because of, their above-average lunch. A whole series of new quality procedures had been presented, and possibly immediately forgotten. They’d been told what they needed to do to achieve professional recognition from the Higher Education Academy. Chris had berated their overall research performance and made it clear that the Biology REF submission was entirely dependent on the efforts of his own group.
These weren’t the best conditions for their team-building activity. Unless you could count the fact that they were united in their demotivation.
Phil leaned over and whispered to Alison. “If she tries to make us fall backwards with our eyes closed, I’m leaving.”
Alison sniggered. “It’s probably just another lecture about something or other we’re supposed be doing, but aren’t” she whispered back. “Theme of the day.”
Camilla cleared her throat a couple of times and balanced on tiptoes in excitement. “Hello everybody! Lovely to see you all still here! Well done!”
“Jesus. Like we had a choice.” Phil muttered. Alison pursed her lips in an effort not to snort.
Camilla showed no sign of having heard any noises off. “I know you’ve all been sitting quietly all day, so let’s start with a bit of movement. Can you all stand up, please?”
There was some rustling and grumbling as they all got up reluctantly from their comfortable chairs. Suspicious looks were exchanged.
“Great! Now, I’d like you all to walk across the room and find someone you haven’t spoken to today.” The rest of the sentence was drowned out as they all followed the initial instruction. Eventually, everyone had reached somewhere. They all turned expectantly to Camilla.
She raised her voice a little. “Great! Now. Tell your partner something that you really like about them. I mean about their work.”
A silence fell across the room. Pairs of biology staff looked at each other. There were some muffled giggles, then they reluctantly complied. The level of noise grew as they lapsed into conversation again.
Camilla clapped her hands. Eventually silence fell. “Marvellous! I hope you heard something you appreciated! I’m sure you did! Now. Let’s not go back to those rows of chairs. Can you give me a hand to move them out of the way?”
A reasonable amount of chaos ensued as the adage of ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ was comprehensively demonstrated. After about ten minutes, the chairs were stacked more or less tidily at the sides of the room. People looked with trepidation at the empty space in the middle. Alison was struggling to keep a straight face. “At least we’re getting paid for this,” she murmured to Phil.
Camilla frowned. “Oh dear. Not as much space as I’d thought. We’ll have to go in two circles.”
Circles? The word generated a collective shudder.
She moved into position. “OK everyone. Can you form a circle from here,” she pointed to her left. “Round to here,” she pointed to her right. “And then another one behind. Concentric.” She swept her arms from behind her round to the front, then back again, showing what a circle looked like. “Maybe a third if we need it,” she added, uncertainly.
After a fair amount of shuffling, grumbling, and groaning from those who hadn’t sat on the floor for some time, they were settled. “I wonder if she’s going to tell us a story, once we’re all sitting comfortably,” Phil whispered. Alison snorted. Camilla turned her head to find the source of the noise. She looked hurt. Geoff looked daggers at Alison. “Sorry,” she mouthed. She looked hard at the pattern on the carpet. Strangely swirly.
Camilla lifted her hands above her head. When the room was silent, she started to talk in a different tone from her previous one. Calmer. Slower. “Burston Central is successful. But to make it so, everyone has to work so hard. This is an opportunity to take a step back. We all lead such busy lives. Can you all close your eyes, please?”
The level of sniggering rose significantly. People looked at each other, half embarrassed, half hysterical. Geoff glared around the circles until everyone he could see had complied with the request.
Camilla slowed her speech still further. “Now. We’re going to visit the temple of the dolphins.”
Suppressed giggles rippled around the room.
“To get to the temple of the dolphins, we have to fly over the oceans….”
Alison had no choice but to tune out. There was no way she could listen to this without tipping over into complete hysteria. She focused back in on what she needed to do to sort out collecting in the dissertation marks. That would probably take most of Monday. It was always hard to get everyone’s marks. Sometimes she thought it might be easier to mark all ninety herself.
Camilla continued. Every now and then, Alison tuned back in. “…the dolphins work together to find food. They are committed to the Temple. In the dolphin nursery, the young are cared for by…..”
“Anthropomorphic nonsense,” thought Alison. “What is the fucking point of this?” She opened her eyes suddenly, worried that she may have spoken the thought out loud. Everyone was still sitting, heads bent. Probably doing the same thing as her.
The description of the dolphins seemed endless, but eventually, Camilla came to a stop. She leaped to her feet. “Aren’t they marvellous, the dolphins?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She seemed to be re-energised. She bounded over to the computer. “Now, let’s watch this video of dolphins, and see how they work together in teams. Probably best if you just stay sitting there. It’ll take too long to get the chairs back out. ”
Obediently, they swivelled on the floor until they could all see the screen. Camilla pressed ‘play’.
The title came up. ‘What Dolphins Can Teach Us About Teamwork’. What followed was a fairly dire compilation of clips, narrated by an enthusiastic American who was clearly just making things up as he went along. Camilla watched rapt, oblivious to the raised eyebrows and sarcastic expressions being exchanged around the room.
Fortunately it was only about ten minutes long.
Once it had finished, Camilla turned back to her group, still sitting in their ragged circles in the middle of the room. “Wasn’t that marvellous?”
There was no response. “Now, can you each tell the person sitting next to you what you’ve learned about team-work from this journey to the temple of the dolphins?”
One or two people stood up at this point. Camilla frowned. “Bad back.” one of them offered. She looked more sympathetic, and nodded understandingly. This was a cue for a mass movement, with colleagues united in helping each other up.
Camilla clapped her hands. “So, what have you learned?”
“I’ve learned that dolphins are very sensible not to have an HR department,” Phil said under his breath. Apart from that, nobody spoke.
“Don’t be shy! What do you think?”
Jan put up her hand.
“Yes! Do share!”
“I’ve learned that dolphins aren’t like people, particularly not like academics, and I can’t see any connection at all between them and us. We’re all individualists.” There was another outbreak of sniggering.
Camilla looked as though someone had slapped her. “Oh dear. That wasn’t what I was hoping you would learn.”
Geoff took pity on her. “Thank you, Camilla. I’m sure we’ve learned that by sharing goals and working together, we’ll achieve something greater.”
She brightened a little. “Exactly. So important.”
Geoff looked at his watch. “Well, thank you, Camilla, that was absolutely, er, fascinating.”
Everyone was still standing. Geoff couldn’t really see everyone. It wasn’t ideal. Much better if they’d been sitting in rows looking at him, as they had been earlier. He raised his voice. “Well, thank you for coming, everyone.” The crowd began to move towards the edges of the room, where coats and bags were stacked. He raised his voice. “Just before you go, there was another announcement I forgot to make this morning.”
The rustling died down again. He cleared his throat. “It’s just about arrangements for resits.”
Resits? They all knew the arrangements for those. His team looked impatiently at him.
He cleared his throat again. “Er. There’s been a decision on high to make some changes this year.”
He took a much-folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. “Resits will be in the second week of August, as usual. So that we can do the marking when you’re back in for Clearing, as usual. But there will be some changes to the, er, arrangements, beforehand.” He looked at the paper and read out the rest of what he had to say very rapidly. “We are expected to give more formal support to resit students between the exam board and the resit. Someone from every module must be on duty every day to give students advice and guidance. Alison will be sorting out a rota so please don’t book any annual leave until that’s done. Right. Thanks for coming, have a good break, see you next term.”
He kept his head down as he refolded the paper and put it back in his pocket, and then began to edge towards the door. A silence had fallen. Briefly. Then the outrage of his team began to be expressed much more forcefully. They began to move towards him.
“It’s the only time we can get away.”
“I’ve already booked my holiday.”
“When CAN we take leave then? Exam-marking time? Clearing? Induction? Middle of term?”
Geoff kept inching towards the door. “I’m sure we can sort it out. Edict from on high. Got to go along with it. Need to support the students, don’t we?”
He reached the door. “Got to go to the loo.” He wrenched the door open and hurried down the corridor. In the Gents, he locked himself in a cubicle and resolved to stay there until they must all be gone. He shuddered. What a bloody disaster of a day. Waste of money.
Wading Through Treacle is entirely fictional. You can follow @wadingtreacle on Twitter, or like the Wading Through Treacle page on Facebook to be informed of updates, or click on ‘follow’ at the bottom of this screen to register for updates from Wading Through Treacle. For last year’s advent calendar, see The Unknown Tutor.
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Wading through Treacle 