Simon's job log: 8

The story so far... Simon works for a small IT firm in North Yorkshire, and runs marathons to raise cash for Alzheimer's research.

A shoot-out in the woods 

As regular readers may know, my company recently moved into a new office building with several other small-sized businesses. As in any kind of environment, a default community of those who have been there the longest (and are prepared to make the most effort) has arisen. One of the great things that the community has proposed is the idea of some sort of regular event to bring tenants (as they are known) together.

The question is what to do? What activity is wholesome enough to be enjoyed by as many people as possible, yet robust enough to form a team-building experience which can bring everyone together? I can list a few suggestions here, possibly a day trip to a museum or even a theme park (for the more adventurous).

There is an activity enjoyed by some, which, while it may lack the innocence of anything that may have made it onto that list, has been relied upon for years by team-building experts. Yes, someone at our building was mad (or perhaps brave?) enough to suggest paintballing as our first team outing.

At first, I resisted signing up. I’ve never been paintballing before and the idea of running around, paramilitary-style, shooting at people only appealed to me in virtual arenas like the multi-player mode of Call of Duty.

However, as often happens with things like this, my other work colleagues signed up and applied some pressure. Also, I decided that I should be a little bit more adventurous by trying something new. If nothing else, it would give me something to write about here!

Perhaps it’s just me being old-fashioned, but I always thought that any kind of bonding exercise involving weaponry was, well, rather risky. Tensions could rise, rivalries could rise to the surface - It’s easy to see how teams could be torn apart by rivalry and jealousy as much as it could bring them together.

When the day came around, everyone met at a car park in a forest about an hour’s drive from where I work. After another journey deeper into the forest via van, I saw our base for the first time: A timber-built shed with a porch, which was shrouded in netting (all part of the strict safety precautions). The setting made it feel a little like a mercenary outpost.

I’d heard plenty of rumours about what to expect from paintballing, about whether it hurts (and how much!) and therefore whether to wear padding or not. Fortunately the friends I went with were all paintball ‘virgins’ too, so I wasn’t alone in these concerns.

Weapons of choice

The first half-hour was spent putting on some rather fetching camouflaged boiler-suits, gloves and facemasks, as well as the obligatory safety lecture.  Then we were split randomly into two teams (I was on the blue team) and shown our weapons.

At this point it became clear that the reason that paintballing was chosen as our first team outing was because the organiser and a few others were keen paintballers themselves, enough to bring their own equipment.

Our first course was a rather narrow stretch of forest with plenty of logs and places to hide and duck and dive, just to ease us into the sport. It was a simple capture-the-flag game.

When the whistle went, it was pretty intense. We decided on a two-pronged approach: Half of the team would draw fire by attacking on the left whilst the other half would attempt to out-flank the enemy by sneaking down their right flank. I dived for cover almost straight away behind a log, but the first thing I realised was that it was pretty impossible to actually aim or even hit a target. It was more luck than anything else that I managed to hit anything. As I tried to crawl to my left and make a run forwards towards the next nearest tree for cover, I heard a dull thud and realised I’d been hit on my shoulder. Almost instantly after, another one hit the visor on my mask. I was hit already, just a few minutes into the game.

In this particular game, once you’re hit, you have to walk away and watch the rest of the action from behind safety netting. Fortunately, we had most of the regular paintballers on our team, so we managed to win that round anyway.

The stealthy option

The next two games were more like what I expected. We walked into a separate area of the forest where there was a mock Native American village setup. The challenge this time was to capture some rings and throw them over one of the totem poles in the village. The other team would naturally have to defend it. We tossed coins to see who would get to attack first.

We won the toss, so we formulated a plan. A group of us would go to the top of the village and attempt to cause a distraction whilst the rest of the group would try and sneak in and capture the rings. Trying to be as stealthy as possible, we all crawled up to the perimeter of the village when the fighting kicked off. It certainly got the blood pumping when you’re diving from mound to mound trying to fire at people, but also trying to stay mobile (because firing gives away your position).

After about fifteen minutes of this, both groups in our team had barely managed to breach the perimeter and were being held down by heavy fire from the opposing team. Eventually, we reached the time limit for the game, so we had to stop before anyone had a chance to capture anything. After that, we switched sides and it was our turn to defend the village. We did a better job of it naturally, limiting their attack to the upper end of the village.

Finally, we had a chance to recover from the crawling, the shooting and diving, before we had a final last-man-standing game to use up our remaining paintball pellets. Now this was intense. We went back onto the first course we tried and everyone was firing at everyone. I ducked behind a log again and managed to hit a few people, and then I moved behind a tree for cover. Unfortunately it didn’t provide enough, so I ducked behind another log in front of me, but I had failed to check my left flank and one of my colleagues managed to empty the rest of his gun on me, which smarted quite a bit. I was overtaken by blind panic as I struggled to shuffle over the ground out of the way.

After the smoke cleared, everyone had emptied their guns and had enough. We were all exhausted, but everyone had really enjoyed shooting at each other with paint. As we walked back to the van, which would take us back to the car park, there was a consensus that it had been a worthwhile day out and it probably had been a good team building exercise after all. I had got to know these people much better than if the only contact I had with them was a passing chat in a corridor. The best aspect of it all though was that my team won!

My earlier job logs 

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