Coworker Makes Team Building Even All About Her
Published February 2024 0 Comments | Share:
Sheryl Lekhonen turned a team building event to be all about her.
CHARLOTTE, NC – A company team building event that was intended to focus on staff unity and communication, quickly turned to be all about Accounts Receivable Accountant Sheryl Lekhonen.
“We were supposed to be out there getting to know each other and build bonds and whatever but Sheryl just made the whole thing about her,” said Lekhonen’s coworker, Deb Badon. “The second the thing started, and I mean the second it started, Sheryl started loudly telling no one in particular that she probably can’t participate much because she hurt her foot and she then launched in to this long story about how she hurt her foot because her daughter did something and her husband got sick or something? I don’t know. (Lekhonen) has one of those voices that you just can’t listen to for long periods before you just have to tune her out.”
The first event of the team building was “icebreaker” where each team member was supposed to tell the rest of the team their favorite pizza toppings.
“We were supposed to go around in a circle and tell everyone what we like on our pizzas. Just a fun little thing to break the ice I guess, but when it got to Sheryl, she started saying how she can’t eat pizza anymore since her best friend’s dad died and he use to work at a pizza place,” said Mark Adams. “She then stated to cry but not in a normal way but like, a really exaggerated way where she was wiping away tears in big dramatic movements and sighing really loud and occasionally mumbling things like ‘he was such a good man.’ So, it kinda killed the mood and no one wanted to talk about pizza anymore. But for the record, I just want it out there that Stephen from the IT department said his favorite topping was peaches. That’s fucked up.”
During one of the last events, the Trust Bridge, Lekhonen told everyone that she was going to faint and was helped to a chair by coworkers.
“You know what? I’m actually glad that we didn’t even get to the Trust Bridge. Fuck. That!” said Adams. “Have you seen that shit? It’s sketchy as fuck. I’m pretty sure that Stephen from IT would have died because homeboy is 300 pounds easy, and you know, I don’t think Stephanie from Reception can handle a load like him. It would not have ended well. I bet it’s all the fucking peaches he put on his fucking pizza. Yeah, seriously, that’s messed up. I’m cool with the people who like pineapple on their pizza, but peaches? That sounds like some stupid shit he got from a podcast or something.”
Lekhonen says she did not intend to distract her coworkers from the team building event or to put the focus on herself.
“I was just letting people know that some of the things were going to be hard for me because… my daughter just told me that she wants to go live her real father and my husband just got COVID again and my friends dad died and I hurt my foot trying to get the tree that fell on my car off my car and… I… just… it’s so hard…” said Lekhonen. “But I just felt that everyone I work with needed to know these things so that they knew I wasn’t just not participating. Because I want to participate. Ever since I was little, when Mary Berdard wouldn’t let me play with her dolls, I swore that I would never let someone feel that they weren’t important. But then Markus, he’s my husband, he said to me that if I was going to go to this event, I would need to make him dinner before I left because let’s just say that Markus isn’t a smart man. One time he burnt water! Can you believe that? It was so funny. It was almost like the time that I went to this frat party in college, and I was totally hoping that someone was going to give me roofies because I figured that would be a great way to lose my virginity. See my parents were really strict when it came to that kind of stuff so I didn’t even have my first kiss ‘till I was 17 and that was at the carnival where Miles Durry bet Tim James that he wouldn’t kiss me and then he did so Miles had to pay Tim 20 dollars and Tim felt bad about the trick so he gave me three dollars that his mom had given him to spend at the Winter Carnival. Anyway, that’s why I wanted to let everyone know what was going on.”
According to coworkers, Lekhonen has a history of making herself the focus of meetings and team events.
“Yeah, she sucks,” said Badon. “It’s gotten so bad that we don’t invite her to meetings anymore, we just draw straws to see who goes and tells her what all was talked about. The best part is that the drawing is rigged, so Stephen from IT is always the one that has to go talk to her.”
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