Dreams of ‘shooting’ your boss: Here’s how I did
Let me let you in on a little secret fact: being the only female writer in an office is HARD.
I must admit, I love working with the team at Ghafla! but it does get a little testosterone-y up in this office sometimes. I am privy to some conversations that I really think I should NEVER hear (somewhere there is a man crying out NOOOOO you broke the bro-code and told a female our secrets!!! Yes, they break the bro-code EVERY DAY). I am perpetually trolled by colleagues. I am automatically expected to write articles about “Top sexiest actors” or “Sexiest male singers” or “Guys you meet in a club”…
So enough was enough. I talked to the everyone at Ghafla! and tried to convince them to come for a weekend out. I really was tired of all the crazy talk in the office and wanted to give these men a piece of my mind get to know these guys for real. In the THREE YEARS of Ghafla being in existence, these men have never had a team-building weekend, never had a weekend together, never done anything together as a team. *sigh* MEN.
Sneaky me… I had to figure out a way to take my frustrations out on these fools co-workers of mine, but let it still be a “fun” day out. Cue in my list of other ways to spend your weekend. And there it was: #20. Rongai. Rolf’s Place. Paintballing. *evil smile* Shoot my co-workers???? COUNT ME IN! It took a LOT of convincing, a lot of cancelling, but I finally got a sizeable number of them to agree to come. Even got Imbuhila from the legal team to come, and Lewis from the sales team (although he cancelled last minute).
So couple Saturdays ago, we took a little road trip to Rolf’s. Had lunch, chilled, spent the whole afternoon there… Got back to Nairobi, -got derailed drinking at Junction thanks to Chimwani and Kone- and headed for two hours of floodlit paintballing. Yes. You read right. Me, the cover of darkness, ammunition and some grudges. Cue the revenge…. So I thought. Right up till I realised I didn’t have my contact lenses on (aim fail). We split into two teams, capture the flag was ON. Then out of nowhere competition got so fierce that surrendering was no longer an option and we started shooting each other at pointblank range (BAD IDEA, WOULD NOT SUGGEST TO ANYONE).
Well, with all the bruises I have to show for it (and yes, I did gather quite a few of them -clearly there was no pity for girls, it was all out war-) I think I FINALLY convinced some members of the team that all of us hanging out together once in a while is not such a bad idea. (Sidenote: I may just have graduated from being flabbergasted by the men that I work with to being mildly -note MILDLY- fond of them.) And to boot, I think I have officially started the official annual Ghafla! hang-out day!
If you all are wondering what your team of writers here at Ghafla! look like, and how we are from behind our laptops, notebooks and desktops…. Here’s a couple pics we took from our day out.
And check out the list of 40 better ways to spend your weekend, see if you can convince a couple of your friends to get together and do any of them. It’ll be worth the hassle. I think the Ghafla! team agrees.
