Her Boss Accused Her Of Sabotaging A Team-Building Exercise By Solving An Escape Room Too Quickly, Even Though He Was Taking Forever
This 29-year-old woman’s boss is a 42-year-old man, and recently, he decided to organize a team-building exercise for her department at work. He wound up settling on an escape room as the activity, and it was made mandatory for the whole staff.
One important trait to know about her is that she absolutely loves solving puzzles, especially escape rooms, as she’s completed around 20 of them already.
“The thing is, my boss is kind of the ‘control freak’ type who loves being the smartest person in the room,” she said.
So, from the beginning of this team-building exercise, her boss made it crystal clear that he was going to “lead” everyone – and that they all needed to follow his instructions.
She was fine with this, except for the fact that her boss was not very good at it. He would overthink every single clue and come up with ideas that got them no closer to solving the escape room.
“Meanwhile, I had already mentally solved half the puzzles but kept quiet because I didn’t want to be that person who takes over,” she recalled.
Well, around 15 minutes into the activity, it was obvious that all of her coworkers were becoming frustrated with her boss. They were just standing there while he struggled to figure out clues that she’d already decoded.
That’s why she decided to “casually” solve a couple of the puzzles and unlock one door while her boss was still rambling. He didn’t appreciate that, though.
“He immediately got annoyed and said I was ‘ruining the team experience’ and needed to ‘let others contribute,'” she explained.
Petr Bonek – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
This led her to back off for a bit. However, their team hit a dead end again, and time was running out in the escape room. And when there were only 10 minutes left on the clock, she couldn’t stand it anymore.
She finally stepped in and solved the last big puzzle, which opened up the exit door and allowed her team to “beat” the escape room.
At the time, she thought all of her coworkers were happy about this, too, since they were literally cheering. Her boss, on the other hand, was furious and began muttering about how the point wasn’t to “show off.”
Yet, the drama only escalated later that day when her boss actually approached her and blamed her for “ruining the team-building experience” by refusing to let the whole group figure it out on their own.
“I told him I was just trying to help because we were falling behind, but he accused me of undermining him in front of the team,” she vented.
Thankfully, some of her other coworkers have taken her side – pointing out how the department would have failed the activity if she didn’t get involved. Even so, her boss won’t stop giving her the cold shoulder.
And now, with things so awkward at work, she’s not sure if solving the escape room and stepping on his toes really did make her a jerk.
Did she do anything wrong, or does her boss seem insecure? Could she have handled this situation differently?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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