HP Team Building 07

Having dragged myself out of bed after the alarm worked overtime, I found myself at the lobby of One World hotel at 8am in the morning on a Saturday. There were already a bunch of HP zombies walking around the hallway and most of them were crowded at the particular few tables set up. FOOD!!! I thought and proceed to grab a plate and joined the zombies at for the AM feast. Fried noodles, mee hon and parts of chickens grilled. Uh!! the noodles was not fantastic and the chicken tasted like roadkill. Maybe the it's because the senses are still asleep because most of the zombie seems quite happy chomping away at their expired worms and cold roadkill.

Identifying my team mates were a chore as I only one person in my assigned team and when the registration and zombie herding process were done, I finally got to meet the lot of them introduced myself and got their names which I forgot in 30 seconds. Then the first task was assigned... to build a tower that as high as possible and a bridge as strong as possible... all out of newspaper. Great! my 'close encounter' with Cameron Diaz was abruptly interrupted so I could wake up and build paper towers and bridge. And if that's not bad enough I had to go ahead and exercise my engineering ingenuity by suggesting a plan for the tower built in a way that it would only work if we'd were in space. Fortunately I wasn't in charge of the bridge build and that did pretty well holding up 140 marbles because the thing collapsed. Oh, my tower measured 5ft 1 because it literally tumble on top of itself rite after the the event organizers were done with it. What a relieve.

The usher jumped back on stage and in a very very very energetic way, imposed that the torture was over. Now it's time for hell. The second challenge. There were 40 teams each with 7-10 members. I was Team 8 with 9 members. We had to search the whole 1U, new and old wing, every nook and cranny, for a pirate bearing the color of our respective team bandannas. We were also given RM30 for each of us to purchase our team uniforms and with the remainder of the $$, buy our lunches. The team with most amount of money remaining scores most points. No wonder there was no lunch stated on the agenda list. Bastards!!. So the air horn blew and we were off. The girls to shop for uniforms, the guys to look for the bloody pirate. Off I went like a jack rabbit, passerbys' staring as though I was being chased by T-rex. I search the stair wells, the car parks, the toilet before my hp rang and one of my members spoke excitedly "He's in Starbucks New Wing". How convenient. We rendezvoused at Starbucks, obviously, gat our 'uniforms' disributed, wore them, and then hell become few floors deeper. The pirate handed us an envelope with a sly grin.

More tasks!!! Pictures given, identify the shops. Tag lines given, identify the brands. Two tasks given, carry them out. Crap...another round of jack rabbit running around. Next time I knew I was as celebrity fitness cranking my abs over a 100 situps and running a 2km distance on the treadmill. All this while wearing my so-called 'uniform' which smelt and looked like like a rice guni and was 2 size larger. I felt like wearing an evening gown rather then a shirt. By the time I stepped out of the celebrity fitness, I looked like I had just finished a marathon hookering session with a 100 prostitutes. I was white, out of breath and was leaking fluid like period. Next task... to bowl blindfolded. Off we went to the bowling center. 3 members with 2 attempts each, one point for each pin fallen, we proudly completed the task with a total of 15 points. And so we joined the rest of the party for a mad search of answers for the remaining clues. It came as no surprise as 1 U seemed so much like unfamiliar territory when the answers remain persistently out of my sights. I think the I've walked the amount of distance in 1U in that one hour I would have in 3 lifetimes. My legs were about to disintegrate anytime.

After submitting the answers, we were adjourned temporarily for the day. There was still dinner and the remaining task was to elect one of the team members and dress him/her up as a pirate. In less than half a second, I disappeared. U'd have to strip me off my skin before I'd even conjure up the notion of being a dress up pirate. In bed with a hot women, anytime. In public, mebbe in the next forever time. Reached home 5pm. Finally some good sleep. Alarm rang at 7pm. Felt like I closed my eyes for just 2 seconds. Sigh. Up and away I go again. I was pretty impressed by the dedication of the other teams. Their 'pirate' were pretty elaborate and man did they put an effort into it. In stark contrast, I was humored intensely when I reached my dinner table designated for my team and saw a 'pirate' that seems like he just came back from a vacation on Hawaii. The indiana jones hat, the floral shirt, outdoor vest, safari shorts and best of all, gold colored face holding a cigar. My GOD!!!.... I was speechless.


The night went out with women dancing on stage and half naked men performing somersaults. The fact that Fat Fabs from Hitz was there was quite a surprise. Appetizer consisted of an undersized bread with butter we had to spread ourselves. There was a soup that looked like it had mushrooms and vege produced from a blender. The main course was shrimp anc caviar with it's portion so small, it'd be digested before you could even swallow it. Add a piece of chicken breast on a nicely decorated plate and wahlah....dinner is served! Then there was the lucky draw. 3 draws with a total of approximately 50 people in the list and not one of the rows in the list bear my name. How depressing to see them wake away happily with their Ipods, cameras, PLAYSTATION 3!!!, home theater systems and ultimately 32" LCD tvs. Sigh. Then came the prize presentation teams and again no calls for Team 8. Time to go home. With only a Rm100 voucher and a Sonicgear headphone in hand; both part of the door gift; I said my goodbyes with my acquaintances for the day and rode off into the traffic lights.