'Survivor' Style Corporate Retreat Descends Into Hellish Nightmare (thedailybeast.com)
- Reference: 0181423860
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/26/04/08/2126247/survivor-style-corporate-retreat-descends-into-hellish-nightmare
- Source link: https://www.thedailybeast.com/survivor-style-corporate-retreat-descends-into-hellish-nightmare/
> 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 " [2]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 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 [3]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."
>
> 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 -- the showers, water, and electricity kept cutting out. [...] Meanwhile, 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."
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/survivor-style-corporate-retreat-descends-into-hellish-nightmare/
[2] https://vimeo.com/257065495?fl=pl&fe=vl
[3] https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/workplace/corporate-retreat-gone-wrong-07754741
Terrible Movie (Score:2)
Sounds like a terrible movie. I think I will pass.
Porcupines climb trees? (Score:2)
I had to Google to confirm that. I dont want to be impaled by one when it falls
Re: (Score:2)
> I dont want to be impaled by one when it falls
Don't worry, it's just a little prick.
Slashdot - ancient history for nerds. (Score:2)
2017?
Re: (Score:2)
> 2017?
Seriously. Why are we just now hearing about this?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it was a slow news day at The Daily Beast?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe it was AI article day
Look all the news is really quiet and boring right (Score:2, Troll)
So it's not like the editors have anything important to be posting about right? Everything is just so calm and dull but you've got to expect this. It's just one slow news day after another and has been since the beginning of 2025.
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They could be posting about something interesting in coding, or new security vulnerabilities, or some articles about amateur radio, or bio hacking, or any number of things. Instead we get old and recycled stuff, and we get endless articles on AI slop. Sometimes we get AI slop included in the TFS. Slashdot has become so great over the years...
Fun porcupine fact (Score:5, Funny)
They can live up to 18 years in the wild. So, if it wasn't injured in its fall through the ceiling, it's possible the porcupine is still alive today to pester other tech bros on vacation in the jungle.
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> it's possible the porcupine is still alive today to pester other tech bros on vacation in the jungle.
We can only hope.
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Sadly, it's too old to date them.
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Thinking of new and exciting ways to fuck it up.
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...Beginning with a forced eating challenge in which one employee had to consume a dead tarantula. Hey chief product officer Scott Olechowski, quit stealing my moves!
I was there (Score:5, Interesting)
So the first question, why is this a news story now when it occurred in 2017?
My best guess is that with the second season of Jury Duty being about a corporate retreat, the WSJ (who wrote the first article on this) contacted Moniker as they organize such retreats (and have organized them for Plex for many years). I expect they ask about bad experiences and this trip immediately came to mind.
Did this all happen?
Yes Also, I was talking with Sean (Hoff) just over a year ago and he told me other things that happened that I likely shouldn't repeat. This trip was extremely stressful for him which likely ranks it very high for worst trips for him.
The shower porcupine mostly became a topic of laughter as it started contained and remained so.
120 employees?
Uh, I think that's a confusion with Plex's current employee count and not what it was in 2017. This was before the AVOD side of the business and everyone worked on Personal Media so the company was much smaller then. I think it was ~70 or so then. Now the Personal Media side of the business is significantly smaller than what it was back then.
How was it overall?
Mostly it was a fun trip. There were several things we did have to concern ourselves with which did detract from the trip. Yes the water broke all the time but also we didn't want to drink it anyway (I never did; didn't even brush my teeth with the water from the tap). There was also a concern about mosquitos especially since Zika was spreading there. We couldn't really go into the ocean because there were jellyfish all over the place. On the planes to Utila (the island in the article), looking out the window I could see nothing but water and jellyfish.
How was it for me?
Mostly it was fine. I did prepare by getting up to date on all my vaccinations beforehand, getting malaria medication, mosquito repellent, etc. I did make the mistake of eating the salad on my last day so I got sick when I got home. Fortunately I had gone to a doctor who specialized in travel beforehand so I had medication on hand already. Never had it as bad as Keith.
Honestly, the most dangerous I felt on the trip was the bus from the airport to the resort.
Re: (Score:2)
You paid $500,000.00 for this?
Re: I was there (Score:2)
I believe the company paid $500k to fly the employees there and stage the event, not a $500k per person event.
Re: I was there (Score:2)
How did you get the idea that the number was per person? How disconnected from the economy are you?
The CEO ignoring the locals' advice == red flag (Score:2)
Right from the start, you could see it wasn't gonna go well. FTA:
Locals: "Don't eat the salad! Don't eat the salad!" (Translation: We don't wash our hands down here in Nicaragua like we should. BAD news, essay!)
CEO: I can't skip my salad. I'm a healthy eater! (Translation: I know better than you people.)
Locals: Ok, boss. (... !Que pinchi cavron.)
Weird (Score:1)
Weird Plex but ok
Hmph. (Score:2)
Still better than working for Electronic Arts.
"Oh, dear. Anyway..." (Score:2)
...My installation of minidlna still works fine, is Free Software, and doesn't phone home or exfiltrate my metadata.
Navy SEAL drills work best for Navy SEALs (Score:2)
I read Richard Marcinko's leadership book (Marcinko was the SEAL who founded DEVGRU, the SEAL's most elite unit, aka Team Six). From it, I concluded this: Applying Navy SEAL principles to lead people works best when the people are physically and mentally built like Navy SEALs. Most people are not, not even elite company CEO's and their staff.
It becomes a game of square peg / round hole.
It's either Honduras ... (Score:2)
... or we take all you cute guys for a weekend at the Bohemian Grove.
You choose.
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I might pay to see a documentary of it though. Pure comedy.
Re: Yeah (Score:2)
I'll download it and watch it on jellyfin.
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> I might pay to see a documentary of it though. Pure comedy.
Nah, I already watched the Anaconda reboot. That was definitely not as good as people made it out to be, unless you're Gen Z and meta humor really does it for you.
Re: Yeah (Score:2)
That shit was pretty bad. Jack Black could not save it. I knew it was going to be stupid, but for some reason my girl's mom recommended it to her, so I was stuck watching it.
Re: (Score:1)
How about a brand-new season of The Office?
Re: (Score:2)
> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy defines the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetic Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes,"