Mail me. Go home.
Challenge courses have been regaining popularity lately. They're those places the company pays to send you with your co-workers to climb ropes over walls, cross rivers on rope bridges, and generally do all those things that you know aren't very safe. Sometimes you even get to have paint-ball wars. You confront your fears and improve your self-reliance or cooperation by finding out you have a lot more fears than you originally thought. Such as the fear of seeing your manager burst into tears when he realises how long that drop really is down to the rocks below.
All in all, it's a bonding experience.
And yet somehow, this is supposed to improve job performance. Somehow. I'm not quite sure how, but I thought there must be some reason people keep going. So there must be something in this. I decided to do my part to help out my own work place.
I'm designing a challenge course into my place of work. I thought that would save us the money of paying to go somewhere else, and conserve space while economizing. Every little bit to help the environment, you know. I work in a music store with repair facilities in the back, and so I perhaps have more options for my course than are available to the average worker. But I like to think I made above-average use of my opportunities.
I started in simple ways-- moving free-standing counters closer to walls to make it more difficult to move around them in a hurry. I scattered a few low obstacles around the floor-- the kind of thing you can't see if you're carrying something. People navigated this just fine. Then I moved onto the more advanced features of the course.
The narrow areas behind the repair shops are blocked easily by a large box from a cello, for example. But this just means a dead end. I had more success by putting a snare drum kit on the floor, strategically placed so that anyone trying to jump over it would hit their heads on the shelf on the wall above. Directly beyond this, a trombone on a lower shelf forced people to twist to one side even before they're completely past the drum.
The copier is blocked by a selection of carefully-balanced cellos that tip over when you try to reach the "copy" button. The violins are arranged so that the empty cases are on the floor in front of the shelf holding all the cases with instruments in them. The trumpets, with cases the same approximate size and shape as that of an alto saxophone, are on the shelf next to the alto saxophones, where they can be mixed up with ease.
And just to keep customers from feeling left out, we rearrange the method books--the ones parents are sent in for without being told an actual title, but they think it's purple and orange--at least once a month. We take the further precaution of rearranging most of the movable shelves in the store every three months or so, as well.
Participation is of course the key, so we don't allow people to hide. Anyone seeking refuge in the bathroom is faced with the challenge of finding the light switch, cleverly concealed by the simple expedient of placing it outside the room it serves.
So far, this seems to have worked well. Judging by the amount of yelling we hear coming from the repair areas, it has improved communication among employees by a factor of twelve. More trumpet students are playing alto sax than ever before. Office staff who had previously had no knowledge of a cello have now been seen to dismantle the instrument in a matter of minutes. The dancing skills of employees have improved, too, as they learn to shimmy past each other near the counters.
Over all, the only drawback to this system seems to be an increase in medical costs, but a skinned knee from tripping on a guitar stand will never compare in my estimation with a broken leg from falling off a rope bridge. The thrill may not be the same, but my course has the all-important factor of surprise.