‘Survivor’ 스타일 기업 리트릿, 지옥 같은 악몽으로 전락

Source: Slashdot

Overview

120명의 Plex 직원들을 위해 50만 달러 규모의 “서바이버” 스타일 기업 리트릿이 온두라스에서 “일주일 간의 재난”으로 변했으며, 이 재난에는 질병, 야생 동물, 무장 경비, 그리고 외딴 섬에 고립된 직원들이 포함됐다고 Daily Beast가 보도했습니다. CEO는 E. coli에 걸려 침대에 누워 있었고, 직원들은 해군 SEAL이 이끄는 훈련 중 무더위에 쓰러졌으며, 화염개미 공격, 익히지 않은 음식, 그리고 고장 난 설비가 이어졌습니다. 어느 순간엔 고슴도리가 손님의 방 천장을 뚫고 떨어지기도 했습니다.

Tech media company Plex flew its 120 employees to a Honduran resort in 2017 for what was billed as a Survivor‑style getaway. They called it “Plexcon.” The first harbinger of trouble was an email that arrived before the group departed, informing them that the hotel manager and chef had both quit within days of each other. Things went sharply downhill from there.

CEO Illness

CEO Keith Valory, 54, had flown out a day early, intending to channel his inner Jeff Probst and welcome his staff off the buses like a game‑show host. Instead, he spent the arrival morning flat on his back.

“I got E. coli, which is maybe the worst thing you could get, possibly, ever,” Valory told the Wall Street Journal this week. “Just as people were arriving on the buses, I was like, ‘Uh oh.’ 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.”
Read the WSJ article

Retreat Challenges

• With the CEO incapacitated, chief product officer and co‑founder Scott Olechowski, 52, stepped in to run proceedings, beginning with a forced‑eating challenge in which one employee had to consume a dead tarantula.
• Sean Hoff, 42, founder of Moniker Partners (the independent retreat agency that planned the trip), was running himself ragged attempting damage control as showers, water, and electricity kept cutting out.
• Senior software engineer Rick Phillips, 53, was trying to sleep when he heard a crash in his room. He ignored it until morning.

“I got up and went over to get in the shower, and there was a porcupine,” he said. “It must have climbed a tree and fallen through the ceiling.”