everything that could go wrong went worse

In 2017, the technology company Plexcreator of the free streaming platform with his same namedecided to organize something that should be the event of the year for its employees: a whole week in Honduraswith a “Survivors” theme, to unite the company’s 120 remote workers. The budget that the company had allocated for that activity team building It wasn’t exactly modest: $500,000.

The reality was, according to everyone who was there, something radically different. The experience was so “unique” that almost a decade later, the protagonists continue to tell it and even The Wall Street Journal has been echoed of that trip. And what they describe sounds more like a collective joke than a business trip.

When chaos unites more than planning

Corporate retreats have been gaining weight in human resources budgets for years, especially in companies with distributed teams to unite teams that do not see each other face to face throughout the year. According to IEBS data collected through the specialized portal Trafalgarpolo86% of companies that implement these corporate retreats report improvements in internal cohesion and talent retention, especially when your teams operate remotely.

Plex is the perfect example: a streaming platform, whose employees work all over the world, that needed something to truly unite them. Something like a survival-themed experience, which in the end turned out to be more real than they would have liked.

Keith Valory, CEO of Plex, acknowledged in the WSJ that the result was exactly what was expected despite the chaos: “You forge very strong bonds on these trips. It’s like the force that gives life to the company.” Almost a decade after that trip, many participants continue to work together and the adventures of Plexcon 2017 remain one of the team’s favorite topics of conversation. They even have a video of his adventure.

The first signs that something was wrong on that trip came weeks before it began. Sean Hoff, founder of Moniker Partnersthe event’s organizing agency, told the WSJ that “about three weeks before arriving in Honduras, we received an email from the hotel’s general manager saying ‘I’m leaving. I wish you the best with your retirement.’ I knew something was wrong.”

Three days later, another email: the head chef would no longer be at the hotel. Without a manager and without a chef, buses in Honduras began to fill with Plex employees. The adventure promises.

The arrival did not reassure anyone. Scott Olechowski, product director and co-founder of Plex, said that they found the arrival disturbing: “Dirt roads. You approach and there are surveillance towers around the property and people with machine guns.” Many employees began to wonder where had they been taken.

The first to fall was, precisely, the CEO who was supposed to lead the week with his team. Keith Valory disobeyed the unanimous advice of avoid raw vegetables and ate a salad. “I caught a E.coliwhich is the worst thing you can catch in your entire life. I lost between 8 and 10 kilos. The doctor came and they nailed an IV bag to the bedpost,” the manager told the American newspaper.

Tarantulas, anthills and 38 degrees in the sun

With the CEO prostrate, the tests with survivor theme They started under a blazing sun and at almost 38 degrees Celsius, led by an ex-Navy SEAL they had hired. In one of the tests, an employee had to eat a dead tarantula. He was from Texas and claimed to have eaten worse things.

In another test, another employee fell onto an anthill of fire antswhich forced give antihistamines urgently. There were no pills left, so they had to inject it directly into the affected buttocks.

The infrastructure of the “luxury” complex didn’t help either. In the absence of the main chef (who had resigned weeks before the group’s arrival) the food came half cookedwater and electricity were cut off at any time of the day and the solar panelscovered by vegetation, could not charge the batteries and the premises were dark during the night.

Sean Hoff, the person responsible for making everything go well on the trip, ended up with palpitations caused due to dehydration from running from one side of the complex to the other in high temperatures, trying to solve the problems that kept arising. “They had to call an ambulance and give me an EKG. They told me, ‘Sir, you need to slow down. You’re pushing your body to the limit.'”

One morning, a Plex employee found in his shower an animal similar to a porcupine which, apparently, had fallen from the ceiling during the night and became trapped in the screen.

Stuck on an island with reggae and beer

One of the nights they organized a dinner on one of the paradisiacal beaches on the premises. What should have been a pleasant evening with the sound of the sea as a soundtrack, ended with many attendees bitten by sand fleaswhich forced antihistamines to be distributed among employees.

The next day, the group traveled to the neighboring island of Utila to visit the reconstruction of a baseball field that the company had financed. What no one had calculated was the return trip: the runway was very small and only allowed eight-seater planes. To make matters worse, it had no night lighting, so the planes could not operate at night.

Despite hurrying as much as they could in the transfers, part of the group was trapped on the island without being able to return to the compound where they were staying until the sun rose again. One of the employees who was trapped wore out the antihistamines and had to notify a local doctor who improvised an intravenous line to administer it.

Maybe karma wanted to wink at them, and the group that was stuck on the island spent the rest of the night listening to reggae and drinking beer until the planes could operate again. A stroke of luck amid so much misfortune.

Between E. coli infectionssurvival tests worthy of the elite corps, porcupines falling from the ceiling, various stings and an island with no exit, the week in Honduras was, objectively, one of the hardest experiences that an employee can live.

Although, if you think about it twice, it’s not that big of a deal: at least no one called them to a meeting on a Friday at six in the afternoon.

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Image | Moniker Partners