maandag 4 april 2011

Elvis moves on the work floor

Work meetings here often have a slow start. First you do introductions of participants. Then you pray, you listen to opening statements by important people. Or semi-important people who can not be by-passed. By the time you talk business people are sleepy, read the newspaper under the table, or full-out sleep, leaning on one arm, not even trying to hide their closed eyes.

But then there are Energisers! The best thing ever. I used to think energisers were drinks that made you run longer. But I learned here energisers are way more fun than some sugary drink.

An energiser here means that one of the participants volunteers and does either a funny dance, sings a song or makes people write their name with their hips. This last one is my favourite as for most people this looks like some exaggerated Elvis moves or some very unsubtle reference to sex and of course this causes a lot of laughter.

Interestingly, nobody is bailing out and all participants fanatically follow the leader in front of the group. If you’d do the same thing in a meeting with Dutch government people I'm guessing they would get nervous and say there is no way they will participate in such a childish thing. Truth is they are scared they can not dance of course. And that’s because we don’t dance enough around the bonfire.

I won’t withhold today’s energiser from you. We could stay in our seats though. It was a story.

"A boy was of the right age and wanted to get married. He found a nice lady and presented her to his father. But the father said; "oh sorry, you can’t marry her. She is your sister". His father had had some sort of affair and she was the result. (*all participants laugh out loud*)

So the boy went away and found a new lady. But when he presented her to his father he got the same response. “You can’t marry her, she is your sister too”. (*at this point all participants laugh out even louder*)

The boy was sad but he found a new lady. But again, the father said she was also his sister. So the boy was getting desperate and went to his mother and told her the whole story. But the mother said; “oh son, don’t worry be happy. You can marry all three of them because you are not your fathers son”. (*Participants stay quiet and make upset noises*).

But at least, they were all wide awake. A story about sex did the trick today, but I'm hoping to learn a sexy dance in tomorrow's meeting :-)