Fucking nightmare.
On my last corpo job onboarding there were about 50 new starters and the HR lady pulled out a microphone and asked everyone to share something interesting about themselves as an ice breaker.
You could hear the cringe in the air. I just said that I like coffee.
You know what’s fuckin’ wild? I’ve literally only ever had to do these dumbass “team-building exercises” that treat you like a toddler in kindergarten at jobs where you never actually work as a god damn team. Meanwhile, every job that required working with others in some meaningful way just threw you into the grinder and let you figure it out.
We had one where we had to share a fun fact about our names. I opened with “actually I’ve got a fake name” and freaked out my boss, it was fun. My ancestor made up a fake name while emigrating over a century ago.
Everything looks pretty convincing until you see the balloon magically phasing through the chair.
Headless Mike, Suzie long arms and Johnny the two right Wonder Boy didn’t tip you off?
Wow that was a jump scare when I zoomed in.
The door frame also has two completely different latches and paint colors on either side.
Non-standard paper sizes (specifically our right, with the emojis) tipped me off
Scary, but not quite as bad as: Meeting invite: no title, later this morning, attendees are your manager and HR. (That is, layoffs.)
I have also had this one be 1. Someone has died in the office. 2. You senior manager / director was fired for corruption and HR wants to question everyone for involvement.
When I was fired my boss just told me to come with him for a minute. Knew right then I was being fired. He lead me down to the conference room and HR is sitting there only cementing my thought.
Two truths and a lie is psychological abuse.
“My name is aeronmelon, I work here, and I’m happy to be at this meeting.”
That’s something I would definitely say.
Thus making two of those things a lie.
Back when I was on reddit, someone claimed to have typhoid Mary in their ancestry. I do not recall the exact lineage. He did mention that the fact was great for two truths and a lie.
You mean “three lies”, right? It’s not so bad
I quite enjoyed Mandatory Fun!
tell us a fun fact about yourself
I love these questions because I use it as an excuse to “trauma dump” things to the group and act like it’s the most normal thing ever.
of course none of it was true, but man…did I sell it enough that they never asked the groups I was in those kinds of questions again.
example
I found out when I was 7 that I was able to dislocate my shoulder when my father yanked on my arm hard enough when he caught me sneaking food. it was cool while I was in school because I could get out of gym and not have to explain all the bruising on my back in the locker room. I can’t do it anymore as it’s just too painful to pop it back into place. 😁
everyone else 😶😬😐😟
“Hey did I tell you guys about that time I got arrested?”
“That wasn’t on your background check? 😬!”
“I got it expunged 😉”
“I got it expunged 😉”“it was last weekend😉”ftfy
you know the neat thing about criminal records guys? when you’re under 18 they get sealed and won’t show up in background checks! lucky me, right?!
“I learned how to lay bricks when I was 10 because when mum hung herself dad made us brick up the closet where she did it so we would never be able to go in there where the demon who made her do it would do it to us too. My favorite part was mixing the cement with the trowel, it’s so satisfying.”
I bow to the master.
Severance vibes
A fun fact about myself is that I hate being forced to tell other people fun facts about myself
All my fun facts are classified.
If there’s a Hell, this is what I imagine it would look like.
With jazz playing
On an awful thin and tinny speaker
You monster!
whoops. there’s a slight tear in it now. it buzzes a bit on what you think is the beat.
Where did you get this CIA blacksite room photo?
“I know a lot of uncomfortable trivia due to hyperfixation caused by ADHD and your reaction to it is more of a you problem” then a blank stare.
This is spiking my anxiety.