Questions to get to know you!

I don't have any fun pictures to share right now, but I thought I'd do a post about one of the things going on in my life right now. All this week, I am involved in meetings that include folks from all of our training centers (Lake Placid, NY; Colorado Springs, CO; Chula Vista, CA; and our education center in Marquette, MI). Performance Services folks from all of these centers flew into Colorado Springs for these meetings. In the three years that I've been here, we've never had all our folks together in one place. Some of us are meeting for the first time.

So, as a "get to know you" ice breaker during the first day of meetings, we did a scavenger hunt. We each got a piece of paper with 40 random questions that we had to get a co-worker to sign off on that he or she could answer "yes" to. There are 40 of us in the group, so that meant you had to meet everyone and get to know them well enough to see if they could sign off on one of your questions. Actually, the questions weren't all that random, most of them applied to the sport-specific, international travel stuff common to our lives.

Some of the questions were:

1. Have you ever been world-ranked in any sport? (There are many of our co-workers who are former Olympians or Nationally level athletes).

2. Are you fluent in a foreign language (name the language)?

3. Have you ever broken a bone playing a sport (identify the bone and sport)?

4. Have you ever overslept and missed a flight? (no Dave, I didn't miss movement because I overslept!)

5. Have you ever dropped your cell phone or other electronic gadget into the toilet?

6. Do you have a tatoo?

7. Can you curl your tongue into a tube shape?

8. While in a foreign country, have you ever tried a local food despite misgivings and now love it (name the food and country)?

It was pretty cool that everyone in the room could sign off on at least one question. They gave a gift for whoever had the best story associated with one of the questions. I won a slinky (remember those?!) for the best story associated with three of the questions. Actually, I had lots more stories, but these were the only ones I shared!

Breaking a bone in a non-sport related incident. . . I broke all three bones in my left arm when I was 13 by getting caught in a shrimping net wench! Nobody could top that story!!

Another story was for a breach of etiquette in a foreing culture by inadvertently doing or saying something you should not have. . . actually my whole personality is a breach of etiquette in most cultures, but I won the prize for wearing a tank top into a Muslim country. I totally blame Whit for allowing me to board the ferry to Morocco in a tank top!!!!

The third question was "have you ever snuck something through airport security (if so, what was it)? I brought my whole Navy aircrew survival vest onto a commercial flight in the mid-1990s which included a parachute shroud cutter (a crescent shaped knife), a survivial knife, and pencil flares. Granted, that was pre-9/11, but nobody could top that one!!

If anyone would like to share a "yes" answer to any of these sample questions, I'd love to hear them. . . !