The Wall Street Journal has this month reported an exclusive on on the corporate retreat held by streaming service Plex that “went very wrong.”
The story starts: “When Plex took its 120 workers to Honduras for a weeklong bonding experience in 2017, the disaster began the moment they arrived. Six people who were there—and still work together—spoke to WSJ about how things went sideways.”
And in an Instagram post with more than 7000 diabolical comments, the WSJ says:
“The plan for the Honduras trip was simple: company meetings and team building by powdery soft beaches during the day and island fun at night, at a cost of roughly $500,000 to the company.”
Sounds like a standard corporate attempt at bonding. But there was a theme to the retreat which was a bit… unique.
“They’d build the trip around a Survivor theme, with teams and challenges. But it’d be fun, not too physically gruelling. The CEO of Plex… would play a role similar to that of ‘Survivor’ host Jeff Probst.”
Even though no one could ever come close to hosting Survivor like the GOAT Jeff Probst, the intentions were solid.
Sadly, though, the retreat turned out more like a comedy of errors than an iconic show designed to reward who can “outwit, outplay and outlast” their teammates.
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Plex holds Survivor-themed corporate retreat
The drama began weeks before the retreat. Sean Hoff, founder of Moniker Partners, who organised the event, tells the WSJ:
“About three weeks before we arrived in Honduras, we got an email from the hotel’s general manager that said, “I will be departing. I wish you the best with your retreat.” I knew something was off. Three days later, another email: The head chef was no longer going to be at the hotel.”
So it’s already off to a red flag-filled, suspect start.
Scott Olechowski, chief product officer and Plex co-founder, recalled what happened upon arrival: “We get there. We’ve got to take a bus from the airport. Dirt roads. You start getting closer and there are guard towers around the property. People with machine guns and stuff. A lot of people were like, “Where are we going?”
Nothing says ‘team bonding’ like machine guns.
Keith Valor, Plex CEO, explains, ” We usually go a day early and we set up… we have to get it just right so the employees have the best experience possible.”
Unfortunately for Valor, he accidentally consumes E. coli from the salad bar the night before arrivals, so all his plans to play Probst go down the toilet, literally. He admits he’s bitterly disappointed as he’s (quite evidently) a die-hard Survivor fan.
“I lost 8 or 10 pounds. They had a doctor come to me, which apparently is pretty standard. They nailed an IV bag to the bedpost.”
Valor also shares that he made a huge mistake in hiring a former Navy SEAL “to pump the team up.”
He says, “As I’m in my room dying, I could hear them out there doing all their drills and yelling. So I’m in here thinking, this is terrible, but it sounds terrible out there, too.”
Not quite the beach excursion they’d envisaged. Image: WSJ
‘Such an unfit group’
Even though the Navy SEAL tones down the intensity upon request, people are still passing out because of the heat and humidity.
Olechowski admits, “I don’t think he’d ever seen quite such an unfit group.”
Over the course of the next few days, one woman sits on an ant hill and has to get a shot for the bites, the hotel makes 100 cupcakes with the wrong company logo, without a chef in the kitchen the food continues to be dodgy, people have “incidents” in the golf carts needed to get around the spread out resort, and the power goes on and off.
Hoff, the retreat’s organiser, is so stressed, an ambulance is called for his heart palpitations.
But, in conclusion, one person the WSJ spoke to admits, “There are probably hundreds of little inside jokes that came from that retreat.”
Team bonding done… wrong. But they still somehow got it right…?
7000 comments on Instagram
Epic social media response to the Survivor corporate retreat includes comments ranging from scathing:
“Only a “corporate type” thinks these things are a good idea. You want to build a team come up with and implement a winning strategy for going to market. Followed by treating your people like human beings. Throwing away $500k on the CEO’s ego trip is worse than a waste of money. The Board should fire this guy and get someone focused on the business.”
To delight in the chaos:
“Sounds like something from an episode of “the office.”
And utter disbelief:
“I thought this was the onion at first ? Lmfao.”