I’m back in the Bay Area this week for my work team’s retreat, which is the first one we’ve ever done. We’ve rented a cabin-type house in the middle of the woods in Pescadero, just 1.5 hours south of San Francisco, for a three-day, two-night retreat to strengthen our team bonds, go through our Insights training (basically like Myers-Briggs but with a different mindset and approach; this is intended to help increase our self awareness in how we are perceived and how we can better work with others who are different), and set goals for the new fiscal year.

My colleague and I have volunteered to be the chefs for the time, and we’re in charge of two breakfasts and two dinners for our group of 16. We devised our menus, planned out our ingredients and shopping lists, and spent almost three glorious hours raiding the shelves of Costco, Target, and Trader Joe’s today.

And when we arrived… it was probably the most “rustic” place I’ve ever stayed. The bedrooms had spiders, moths, and other creepy crawlers on the ceilings and walls. The hot water was nearly nonexistent and slow, with drip-like water pressure at times. The hand soap provided was practically water itself. The kitchen had stove tops and ovens that looked like they may have been from the early 1900s (and yes, I have to deal with this the next three days myself), with burners that literally only had one heat setting (HIGH, HIGH, HIGH), and the dishwashers had a questionable fuse. The heat was extremely high in some rooms to the point of causing everyone in them to sweat, while the bedroom I so luckily chose (that slept three other female colleagues) had a broken heater; it was the coldest room of the house. This is certainly going to be an adventure that will be character-building to say the least.