I guess what this makes me think about is, part of being an adult is doing things you don't necessarily like.
A company gathering, a few hours a couple times a year, that should be something a person can tolerate. They're your coworkers, you know them all to some extent already, and it's an evening or whatever once a quarter.
Especially since your managers will already know you pretty well.
I don't know, it's hard to be sympathetic, cause there are lots of awkward situations I just put up with in my day-to-day, that are a lot higher-pressure than that.
As I mentioned, it ends up being the thought of it that's the worst. I can grin and bear it - as you mentioned that just tends to be part of life.
I think we're probably talking about this a little too broadly. I wasn't thinking so much of the semiannual office party. On that side of things I'd probably completely agree with you.
I was thinking more about things that were some kind of event designed to "raise morale" or something with dedicated activities, potentially run by outsiders, for "team building." The sorts of things that have a strong "drink the koolaid" feel. Those are the things I start to think about (and dread) when that ultra-optimistic corporate speak shows up.
And I've seen at least one blog post on HN advocating for that sort of thing to be as frequent as possible for company size, down to even weekly IIRC - although at such a small size it might be harder for it to get too terrible.
A company gathering, a few hours a couple times a year, that should be something a person can tolerate. They're your coworkers, you know them all to some extent already, and it's an evening or whatever once a quarter.
Especially since your managers will already know you pretty well.
I don't know, it's hard to be sympathetic, cause there are lots of awkward situations I just put up with in my day-to-day, that are a lot higher-pressure than that.