Football Schmootball

Now that I am an office worker again, that means I will occasionally be a meeting attender as well. Today's meeting, a marketing/sales meeting, will be held off site, as many of these larger meetings are--this one will be held at the National Football Hall of Fame. Who knew they had conference rooms and catered lunches?

I have lived in Ohio for 19 years and have never once been to the National Football Hall of Fame. I have cursed the traffic brought to town during the annual induction ceremonies, and I have mocked the football-shaped portion of the building, but I have never felt even the slightest interest in seeing the actual...um...is it a museum? Fortunately, touring the exhibits will be optional today. I'll just sit and think about lunch.

I heard an interesting report on NPR this week about how companies try all sorts of gimmicks and off-site events to build team spirit among their employees. Managers think that if their marketing team were to engage in a couple of games of laser tag (a game I only played once and became a frightening predator--I hardly knew myself), then they'll learn to work together. In reality, a couple of games of laser tag actually encourages competition within the team and vengeance on the trigger happy geek with the highest score. Having a meeting at the Football Hall of Fame will not involve actually playing the game of football, thank God, so I don't think the location will negatively effect our team spirit. But in that environment, I'm afraid I'll be fantasizing about body slamming the first person to criticize my book covers designs. And I'll be quietly folding paper into a football shape and thumping across the room at my fellow workers. Now, there's some real team spirit for ya.

Here are some great places to hold off-site company meetings:
The Zoo: it doesn't matter which one, as long as they have orangutans and pink flamingos
The It's A Small World ride at Disney World.
The set of a Ziegfeld Follies film from the 1930s
A riverboat on the Mississippi