Excuses to Get Out of Team Building

Team building is the only workplace activity that is compulsory, unpaid at the margins, and described in the invite as optional. There is a reason the word 'mandatory fun' exists in every language that has an office in it. Somebody booked an escape room. Somebody else has decided that the way to fix a communication problem between two departments is a ropes course. The useful thing to know is that organisers are far less attached to attendance than to numbers, and numbers are usually locked a week out. Declining early is a favour: it saves a deposit. Declining on the morning is what makes you the person who ruined the group photo. The other useful thing is that a partial yes lands better than a full no. 'I'll skip the go-karting and come to the pub afterwards' concedes the actual point, which is that the team building happens in the pub and always has. Below are ten excuses to get out of team building that don't make you sound like you dislike your colleagues, plus twenty short ones in the generator. Physical constraints are the sturdiest, because nobody argues with a knee.