I’ve told this story before but i think it’s applicable here. HR team building exercises are painful because they’re neither fun nor do they build teams. These activities are appropriately aged for small children. You want team bonding make us have some collaboration on a project where we all have to work in the same room for a day and have us take 15 min breaks to talk. We’re adults we will figure it out.
Had a similar issue when I worked at a science museum. Same type of woman who insists on taking everything as “fun first.” And lost all the seriousness of topics that spark actual passion and life long learning.
A good example was those mineral kits you might have bought as a kid, 40 or so samples of different rocks and minerals. One of my supervisors who became head of our program would lay out the minerals and let kids hold them. She’d tell them the names and that was it. I learned the chemical make up of each one. I learned their applications in medicine and construction, in biology and electronics. Why is this one magnetic? Why is this one red? I would teach kids the periodic table and basic physics. I would give them leading questions making them think critically about why the rocks might have certain properties. I would get parents as interested as their kids. People would spend up to an hour going over them with me. Meanwhile she would let them hold the rock. Isn’t that fun. Now you know science. Don’t forget to come next week for our Harry Potter theme night.
I don’t really hate a lot of people, not irl ones, but I hated that woman.