Management’s Attempt At An Icebreaker Flopped As They Encouraged Workers To Share Difficult Things About Their Childhoods

There is no denying the importance of team-building activities in the workplace. At the end of the day, success depends on having a cohesive team! The significance and primary goal of team building is to forge links and connections that will help the team become strong – however, this Redditor’s employers might’ve gone a tad bit too far.

The thing is, u/ivyslayer’s management decided that it’d be a good idea to have employees trauma dump and asked them to share something difficult about their childhoods. Yikes. 

Netizen recalls a time when management requested that staff trauma dump as a team-bonding exercise

They say the things that followed were “deeply uncomfortable” and that they didn’t need to know about people’s pasts to work well with them

“Manager asked us to share something difficult about our childhoods for ‘team bonding’” – this internet user took to one of Reddit’s work-related communities to tell its members about a time their workplace opted to employ trauma dumping as a team-building exercise. The post managed to garner 26K upvotes as well as 1.8K comments discussing this rather baffling idea.

Bonding is obviously crucial, especially when it comes to a job. But it’s also crucial to not cross any potential boundaries, and u/ivyslayer witnessed just that. The Redditor revealed that what ensued was very uncomfortable, and I think most of us can understand why. Recalling your trauma is painful in and of itself, so you should probably only share it with professionals or individuals you trust. Your coworkers, who you may not know well enough or who you may not trust enough, are, of course, not the most appropriate option. According to the author, many cried as they discussed their extremely private and upsetting experiences. Additionally, the netizen also stated that forcing trauma bonding is different from progressively getting to know someone, which I believe we can all agree on. It’s a delicate topic and not all people will have the guts to oppose their management in order to not be perceived as difficult. At the end of the day, the post’s creator was right when they said that they didn’t need to know anyone’s past to work well with them.

Now, to acquire a more detailed understanding of the situation, Bored Panda reached out to the Redditor. “I was reflecting on a bad manager after reading some journal entries I wrote in 2016,” u/ivyslayer said when we pondered about the inspiration behind the post. We then asked the OP to briefly describe their job to our readers, and they responded as follows: “The company was a large public accounting firm. This happened in an HR team meeting. I was an HR Coordinator at the time.”  When BP asked if any of their colleagues refused to participate in such an activity, the netizen then added, “No one refused. I participated because I didn’t want to be seen as difficult.” Last but not least, we asked the person why they think their management thought that it was an acceptable idea: “I think my manager had good intentions but didn’t know how to build trust in the team. Some people on Reddit thought it was a way for management to gather dirt to manipulate us, but I think it was incompetence and weak leadership.”

“I want managers to know the importance of being trauma-informed. A lot of people criticized my former coworkers for over-sharing but I don’t think it was their fault. Someone who experienced childhood abuse won’t necessarily have good boundaries with authority figures.”

What do you think of this kind of team-building activity?

Fellow community members shared their thoughts and opinions on the matter