One of my coworkers is always coming up with ideas for company outings. Most of them don’t come to fruition because our boss has weird ideas about how we should be ‘in the office’ and ‘being productive’, but that doesn’t stop said coworker from dreaming.

Most of the suggestions are pretty innocuous and well-received. They usually involve going somewhere other than the office and eating / drinking, sometimes with the addition of low-key outdoor activities (like, kick-ball or Frisbee golf. We’re totes not a rock wall climbing crowd). And to be fair, I feel the commitment to the cause of getting paid to do fun stuff on company time is admirable.

Their latest suggestion, however, is enough to make me want to run screaming. They have suggested that we do an escape room.

Escape rooms are pretty much what they sound like: a group of people gets locked in a room and has to try to figure out how to escape via solving puzzles and/or riddles within the room, within a certain time limit. If time runs out, you fail.

You may recall that I did True Dungeon, which is a somewhat similar thing, with my friends back in the summer and a good time was had by all. The key word there is ‘friends’. Friends are people I choose to spend time with because I LIKE being around them. Coworkers…not so much. Don’t get me wrong, most of them are fine in small doses, but the idea of being  TRAPPED IN A ROOM with a bunch of them makes my throat feel like it’s starting to close up. Call it anxiety, call it anaphylaxis…either way, it gets filed under D for ‘Do Not Want’.

Also? The idea of this particular group of people trying to problem-solve their way out of anything is borderline absurd. Most of the people I work with are sales reps who work on a commission-only basis. They have literally no motivation to work as a team – in fact, up until a few years ago, they were actively encouraged to compete against each other. Plus, there are a lot of strong personalities at play. You don’t take a commission-only job in a competitive environment unless you’re pretty confident and most of my coworkers are no exception. So, imagine taking six people who are very used to trying to best each other and sticking them in a room with nothing but some vague clues to part of an even more vague larger puzzle, and leaving them for hours. It would be like a cross between Lord of the Flies and The Office.

No fucking thank you.