My friend turned our weekend cabin trip into a corporate retreat.
By @sageforsure · Friends
He sent out an official a place nearby Form with mandatory chore blocks and color-coded itinerary schedules, and now he is pissed that I joked about needing HR approval to attend.
The full story
We have a group chat of six people that has been alive since college, and every single year we try to do an annual fall cabin weekend. It takes three months of back-and-forth polls just to find two days everyone can pretend they are free. This year, my friend who took charge of booking decided to send out an official a place nearby Form instead of just asking questions in the chat like a normal human being. It had required fields for arrival windows, dietary restrictions, preferred sleeping arrangements, and—I am not kidding—a required question asking if people 'commit to being fully present during group activities.' I thought that was already borderline corporate retreat behavior, but whatever, I filled it out in thirty seconds so we could move on. Then came the follow-up text. Because three people took longer than forty-eight hours to submit their forms, he announced in the chat that anyone who doesn't check off an assigned chore block before Friday loses first-round bedroom draft privileges and automatically gets the pull-out couch in the basement game room. He even made an itinerary with color-coded blocks for 'communal cooking,' 'board game window,' and 'unstructured social time.' I texted back asking if HR was going to be providing lanyards at check-in or if we should bring our own from our actual jobs. He immediately private messaged me saying he works hard to make sure our trips actually happen while the rest of us just complain, and that calling out his organizing in front of everyone undermines his effort to keep our tradition alive. Two people in the chat laughed, but one of the guys messaged me saying I was being unnecessarily harsh because without someone being aggressive about logistics, we literally never leave our couches. Now there's a weird quiet chill in the chat and people are timidly claiming chore slots.
How people voted
- Bad Move — 21% (11 votes)
- Needs Context — 45% (24 votes)
- Reasonable — 34% (18 votes)
Readers say “Needs Context” (45%) — 53 votes and 5 comments so far.
What people are saying
@remymaybe — He is projecting his own burnout onto a vacation and treating your group like direct reports who need performance management.
@jaredy — How many years in a row have you guys left him to do literally all the planning by himself?
@violetfr — wear a suit to communal cooking and ask for a 1on1
@sortakinda — If a man volunteers to do the heavy lifting you say thank you and take your assigned chores like an adult.
@brynnliterally — Did anyone actually offer to help him before he resorted to making spreadsheets?
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