Thursday, August 14, 2008

Meltdown

We had a big offsite today for work called Design Day, where hundreds of designers got together to "get inspired" at the Portland Art Museum. We had a similar event a few years ago that was a lot of fun so I was pretty excited about it. But today... well, today kinda sucked. The entire event was set to take place in the ballroom and basically consisted of watching videos and listening to speakers. There was a lot of amazing work but it was so stagnant and focused on footwear. I felt really disconnected.

I went out for a cup of coffee and a bathroom break, and started a conversation with a few coworkers. Some Nazi came running over and yelled at us about needing to be "engaged" in the activities. Seriously lady? Then, after lunch, we lined up to get our photos taken by this amazing photographer. Our art director was trying to get everyone together for a group shot but we ended up getting cut off right before we reached the front of the line and got yelled at again. Apparently two 1-hour long sessions were all that was alloted for 500 people to get their portraits done. Brilliant.

The idea of a Design Day is a great one but I don't do well with "forced fun" situations and with people being unnecessarily rude. **edited for content** I left early. I'm disappointed that I missed a few things and I feel a bit but the whole situation was just more than I could handle. I also think I ate something my body doesn't like so I'm feeling rather icky.

I'm at home now and it's hotter than Hades. I guess it's supposed to get to 100 degrees tomorrow - I think I need to find an air conditioned cave to hide in.

2 comments:

Veroknitka said...

My stomach was doing knots as well...so being miserable at home for the afternoon was a lot better than being miserable in a ballroom with people I didn't know, listening to presentations that had no relevence to my "world" within Nike. So seriously...thanks!

sara. no h. said...

We had one of those a few weeks back. It was pretty good. We had some presentations from guest designers which were pretty poor by and large. In fact one trend forecaster went on forever. He reckoned 'the velvety mystery of the mushroom' would be one of Fall 09's biggest trends! We are purple food from a food designer and had a kite building competition which was fun. The best part was meeting colleagues I had never spoken to before, but the very next day they go back to ignoring you in the lunch queue. Why is that!?

Stew S-C