h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I hate icebreaker!! They are so embarassing, and some are really stupid too.

I once saw one where everyone had to write a "why" question (like "why is the sky blue?" or "why does taste so nice?") on one piece of paper, and a "because" statement (like "because it does" or "because it would be silly in green") on another. They were then muddled up and handed back out so everyone wound up with different why and because things and had to read them out. No one laughed at any of these silly questions and answers.

Maybe it's a cultural thing. It sounds like that party game (described in the entry) where you have to whisper the gift and the action to different people. The Germans love it, I'm told. I don't think I'd try it with Alan Sugar, though.

Perhaps.

They never give you an opt out clause either, so you *have* to join in. And it's awful when you're with a bunch of completre strangers who you know you won't see ever again.

It's more embarrassing when you do meet one of them again, maybe ten years later, someone who then proceeds to tell the current meeting just what a fool you made of yourself last time he met you...

Oh dear. You've had that happen??

Always find that those ice breakers do nothing to help you relax and get to know each other. I'd rather just get talking to someone over a in the breaks. Seem to work much better, especially when you're there for a one off meeting, trather than getting to know your work collegues or something. Seems pointeless doing team building ice breakers when you're at a one day meeting and will never see each other again.

Oh yes, I've had that happen! It ranks alongside working with someone who happens to know one of your relatives, and then tells everyone else in the office all the embarrassing stories from your childhood.

Oooo, yeah. Why do people do that? It's like that thing that makes your parents take pics of you in the bath as a baby.

Now that's a form of blackmail. Do otherwise I'll show them at your wedding!

Only way to get round that one (apart from not marrying) is to confiscate the photos. Harder to do now with digital, though.

I think the embarrassment factor is part of the purpose, really. When there are a roomful of people who are strangers and some of them feel a bit awkward, after they've bounced around tittering for a bit or had to pretend to be an elephant or whatever else, there isn't much left to be shy or embarrassed about afterwards. It's all a bit of a stroll in the park after that.

Have to say I'm not convinced of that. I've had it when I've been feeling awkward in a room full of strangers and some of the stupid ice breakers have just made it worse, especially when you have to do *really* stupid stuff, rather than just introduce yourself.

I wouldn't be comfortable with any of these ice breakers, I'd only end up calling myself Katrina cucumber or something.
One of my worst memories is sitting in a circle at college on the first day of my course with all my classmates and the tutor making us all introduce ourselves, I was about third last in the way things were going, each time someone finished my heart pounded a little faster as it got closer and closer to my turn. I could hardly breathe by the time my turn came and I spoke in this little mouselike voice, it was awful!
Oh, and I couldn't concentrate on who anyone was or what they were saying because I kept thinking, I've got to do this any minute now.
Crazy considering about 6 months before it I spoke in front of over a hundred primary school head teachers at a meeting (as a parent)with no qualms.

Hi curiositykiller, and welcome to h2g2

Thanks for confessing that - I'm glad it's not only me!

Icy

Thanks Icy...

Don't worry. Know the feeling. Remember once doing an icebreaker at uni where the first person introduced themselves and say what course they were doing, then the next person had to inttroduce themselves and repeat what the first person had said. So by the time it got round to the end, the last person had to remember everyone elses stuff. Kinda headfrying.

Oh I would've pulled out a notebook and tried to cheat.

My sister once had a job interview in which the company people asked her to pretend she was a chicken.

She did it.

Besides the fact that this would mortify me no end, it didn't stop me asking her to show me her as a chicken.

This was, apparently, to show she had confidence.. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Surely there are better ways of showing confidence?? Something like that is just plain stupid and doesn't have any other use really.

I think she felt obliged to do as they asked. I don't know that I'd feel the same obligation if it happened to me though.

It was a job interview for a call centre, I believe, and, I think, there's legislation in place to stop employers playing these sort of silly games now. Phew.

Now that I have to see!

You'd hope so.