Induction Course Wrapping Up
I believe I've mentioned this week has been DHL's orientation week or "Induction". It's turned out to be the most fun I've had at a company in a long while. Besides the top brass giving us their strategy/history lessons, a field trip to the local hub at the Prague Airport and several team building exercises, we have also explored our personalities and examined cross-cultural differences. But today's activity topped it all. We divided the 17-strong class into three teams. Our team of 6 I would brag had the most fun. And as three Czechs, a Slovak, American and Uzbeki, we were almost as diverse as the other 2 teams.
As the team leader (elected against my will), I was briefed by our 2 course instructors. On purpose, the briefing was short and incomplete. I then briefed the activity to the team: one person would stay as "dispatch", while the other members will subway into downtown Prague. For three hours, dispatch would receive instructions from the instructors to ferry documents, parcels and envelopes around Prague. Turns out these instructions included bad addresses, impossible to meet deadlines and the instructors would say I've moved to "here" now. It all meant constant phoning back to Dispatch with corrections and updates.
Bottom line...there was no winning. No way to win, unless we three teams operated as one and broke their system. We didn't, but we all had fun losing.
Lastly each team had to give a 20-minute presentation, complete with photos of numerous things, e.g. evidence of any company's charter, company's commitment to customer satisfaction, etc...
Apparently this DHL scavenger hunt/delivery run is notorious throughout the Prague center. At a company party last night, once a person discovered you were in Induction, the very next question was "Have you done the delivery around Prague yet?" -accompanied by a deep laugh that made you shutter when having to answer "No, not yet." Finally, today it's "Yes! -What a great time..."

Anyway, 2 more sleeps and a wake-up. May is likely now off to Manchester, NH and her adventures have already begun.