Until Bain I had never worked for a company that had an offsite or retreat or annual anything, except a shareholder meeting! As a partnership, Bain has an interest in keeping its “shareholders” – its employees – up to date on the goings on of Bain, and so we have a Bain Texas offsite. It’s all just a chance to have a lot of fun and bond with other Bainies, including catching up on professional development chats with managers and partners, as well as seeing folks from in my case, the Bain Houston office. Our offsite starts with lunch on Wednesday and ends Friday, though many people are staying for the “offsite extension” which is a weekend near the offsite facility. This year our offsite is at a resort at a lake about an hour outside Houston.
We kick off the two day offsite at a resort with a yummy lunch and dive right into getting an update on how Bain is performing globally, both in terms of case sales as well as satisfaction of its employees. We then transition into an update of how Bain Texas is performing, including a deep dive into our social impact cases (done pro bono with full case teams), Bain cares (other volunteer events), and our “Results Challenge.”
Results Challenge is our way of seeing what the biggest impact cases of the year have been across our offices. Teams prepare presentations to show the impact they had on the client. All the judges enjoy a little humor, so we also get updates on team culture on the case that tend to include fun photos of case team events. The winner is determined by audience vote as well as a panel, and receives an all-expense paid trip with their team!
After putting on my 70s outfit since the offsite evening theme is 70s, the W@B (Women at Bain) happy hour offers a chance to reconnect with all my W@B pals, as well as the occasional M@B who finds his way to our wine bar. I catch up with a partner and see how her case is going. Lastly, I try to make sure no one’s hair catches fire. (Seriously though, at my last W@B happy hour, which was heroes and villains themed, an associate consultant dressed as Cruella Deville had her hair catch fire when she leaned a little to close to a candle on the bar… I spent 20 minutes in the bathroom with her afterwards pulling out burnt hair… But her costume was amazing!)
During dinner, I can’t wait for the evening entertainment to get started. I am part of the Bain band. Well, bands, actually. We have “two” bands: the normative band and the Bain band. The Bain band does covers of normal songs using Bain-ified lyrics. The “normative” band does normal songs (a.k.a., covers of normal songs with no lyrics changes… except for the HR-induced ones!). We practice on Saturday mornings and this year the band includes about ten people, including back office staff, associate consultants, consultants, and managers. We perform both nights, Wednesday and Thursday, to a packed house and get the crowd cheering and dancing. I’m sort of leading the band this year as a singer, though we have many singers who tend to do one or two songs a piece. For the Bain band, I have “Why’d you have to go and make the slide so complicated?” (cover of Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated”) and “I can’t fail, I’m at Bain” (cover of Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain”). I’m also doing backup singing on several songs, as well as another three songs for the normative band the following night.
Thursday significant others join the party. We have presentations and events in the morning, followed by free time in the afternoon. We have options of taking a wine tour, hanging out by the pool, going boating (actually two options, one is laid back and one is more tubing/waterski-oriented), or golf. Due to band practice and some client work, I stay by the pool.
Lucky for me, the evening is beach theme – which goes perfectly with my poolside outfit. Read: minimal prep time. The evening, like Wednesday’s, consists of more merriment and this time it’s the normative band – again, killing it and making the crowd go wild! Unlimited cookies and candy jars throughout the day may have also helped boost the energy….
Friday morning, I leave the offsite, ready for a fun weekend in nearby Austin.
Filed under: Outside the office, Week in the life Tagged: Adele, Avril Lavigne, Bain, Friday, Houston, Musical ensemble, Saturday morning cartoon, Thursday Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
