Outbound: The corporate version of college tours.

A mail knocked on my inbox inviting three teams from the company to spend a couple of nights(20 and 21st of the month) in Coorg. 

"I shouldn't go. I hardly know anyone." "Coorg isn't a great place anyway. Chuck it!" 

After overcoming all these thoughts that clouded my mind and a forceful push from the friends, I finally decided to enter my name in the Excel sheet.

The company offered us a pretty good deal. 

1. Spend two days in mansion-like rooms. (Comparison being done with the match-box sized rooms in my PG.)

2. Hog unlimited food. One plate of entrée+main course followed by one and half plates of desserts was the order of the day. (Of the night too!)

3. Don't spend a penny from your pocket.

4. Two days of 'work from home Coorg'. This meant that the compensation working that had to be done on a Saturday for the Bharat Bandh on Thursday could be given a miss. 

The deal was too hard to resist.

We decided to leave Bangalore on Wednesday night before the bandh could take control of the city. Choosing to occupy the last seats in the bus for the night journey to Coorg was the weirdest decision we could have made. Sleepless night and body aches the next morning were the obviously visible results.

Entering the alloted room and meeting two complete strangers with whom you have to share your room for the next two days is certainly not a great way to begin the day. The morning was spent in trying to catch up on lost sleep and rushing to the breakfast area at 10.20 am because we were told that breakfast closed by 10.30. The rest of the day was mostly spent on trying to learn about coffee plantations, sleep, some indoor games, sleep, taking pics, sleep, exploring the resort, sleep, badminton, sleep and more sleep. Amidst all this, we just ensured we were on time for lunch to hog some yummy food. Spa and the pool were also other options for a few. 

That evening was eagerly awaited by most people because it was the DJ night. You could suddenly see a few girls change their outfits(they called it 'freshen up') and get ready to hit the dance floor. Deafening volumes and flashing lights. Most seemed to love it. If you could shake your body or swirl your glass or bang your head, you could take center stage. Personally, the best option for me was to have dinner and hit the bed early and that's exactly what I did.

The day that followed was awaited with a lot of enthusiasm as a trainer had arrived and had raised our levels of expectations by giving us a sneak peak into what was in store for us for the rest of the day. Seven teams were formed, each having a blend of varied experienced people from different scrum teams. Each team was awarded points for their diversity. Teams called themselves Mafia, The Invincible, Expendables, Storm Troopers, Dark Knights, Bandla Express and Fantastic 12. The games that were played slowly gathered momentum and everybody pitched in for their teams to ensure they scored maximum points. Some bit of googling (I know, it did help! ;) ) and some internal dealings with other teams came in handy to push up the scores. 

The fun quotient shot up when all teams were asked to build their own catapults with the given materials. You could see the technically inclined workaholics of various teams talking about having a design document and even performing regression testing on the built catapult. Pah! Celebrating when the other teams' catapults failed to deliver and cheering aloud when your team's catapult magically worked was a treat to watch.

At the end of the day, lessons were learnt and friends were made. Despite the trainer's attempt to be nice and say that the whole of SAP had won, let's just accept that the Dark Knights won. (Yay we! Yea, that's my team. Why else will I give it a special mention?!).

The day drew to a close with camp fire where the guy with the guitar was tortured to sing and the rest of us were also almost tortured to listen to him. Some of them went "super" high. Tired, drained out physically and mentally, some of us hit the bed immediately while a few continued in the merriment late into the night.

The next morning, we packed and left the place. Upon reaching home, it felt awesome to just have a shower in my own bathroom after having had showers in the freakiest bathrooms that my eyes had ever witnessed. A special mention of the bathrooms in the resort that had glass walls and were roofless. Off-the-wall experience! 

At the dawn of this trip, everybody around me seemed to be a stranger but as we returned, it did seem like we were all in familiar land. This Monday when I went to work, suddenly it felt like I knew most of them in the coffee corner and in my block. More smiles and greetings were exchanged. If the aim of this outbound was to achieve just this- knowing each other, then it certainly did not fail to fulfill my expectations. It was worth the two days spent. Afterall!

As strangers we met, as friends we parted.