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Unless you’re a particular brand of goody-two-shoes (no offense), almost everybody dreads the day management trots out the “team-building exercises” at the office. Whether it’s because you’re put on the spot or because they demand too much time (or both), these activities feel like adding insult to the already long list of injuries our jobs inflict upon us.

But for one worker, their office team-building exercise went from merely annoying to downright delusional in a way that is a perfect accidental satire of office life.

The worker’s boss suggested they all run a marathon as a ‘team bonding’ activity.

I once had a job that forced us to have a team bonding DAY in which we had to take breaks to take part in an office-wide beanbag competition AND have a pizza party where we played “Two Truths And A Lie.”

There was no opting out allowed, and it was held on the final day of a major deadline for my particular team. Which was also a Friday. Nobody got out of there before 6:00, and everyone’s late projects resulted in a round of talking-to’s the following week. When I suggested that maybe in the future, management take workflow into account before scheduling “team-building” days like this, I was looked at like I was an alien.

But there’s that level of delusion, and then there’s what a worker on Reddit has just experienced. “Today, in a meeting about how to have more informal meetings/time together, my boss casually suggested we run a marathon together… as a team bonding activity,” the worker wrote.

Let’s just skip right over the fact that a meeting was called to discuss how to have better meetings, otherwise I will be forced to scream at the top of my lungs while bashing my skull against a cinder-block wall until the sweet release of unconsciousness frees me.

A marathon? As a “team bonding activity”? Has anyone checked on this boss to make sure he isn’t suffering from some sort of psychosis?

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His boss seemed completely oblivious to what goes into running a marathon.

“Just to clarify: we are not a team of sprightly twenty-somethings brimming with energy,” the man wrote. “I am an elder millennial — the third youngest person on a team of 14. If anyone on this team runs anywhere, it’s usually away from responsibility.”

That’s a solid joke! But it belies how absolutely insane this is. Do you have any idea what goes into running a marathon?! People train for months, and a lot of them drop out before completing the training, let alone the marathon itself!

RUN 4 FFWPU | Pexels | Canva Pro

According to studies, the reasons for dropping out range from illnesses to injuries, because it may shock you to hear this, but running 26 miles is very hard on a person’s body, regardless of their age!

And that’s all before we even delve into the obvious: Many of us would rather walk out into the ocean with our pockets full of bricks like Virginia Woolf drowning herself in the River Ouse than run a marathon. By many of us, I mean me.

And I am a person who has gone for 18-mile hikes! By choice! I am not a couch potato! But I will see you in hell before I run a marathon, let alone run a marathon FOR WORK. I feel like someone must have drugged my lunch because this simply cannot be real.

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Studies have shown that workers really, really, REALLY hate team-building exercises.

Obviously, this boss’s delusional suggestion is on a whole other level, but in the end, it doesn’t much matter what the activity is: Workers hate team-building exercises. A 2022 poll of British workers found that 60% found team-building exercises and forced workplace socialization “embarrassing or cringeworthy.”

Another conducted by HR company ACAS found that team-building exercises were far and away the most hated form of forced “fun” in the workplace, beating out things like workplace cocktail parties by 11 percentage points.

In its analysis, ACAS also cited an important and all too often overlooked part of this story: These activities can be brutally dull and infuriating for everyone, but they can be particularly difficult for neurodivergent people, many of whom struggle with social skills or social anxiety to begin with.

In the comments, Redditors had all kinds of examples of team-building disasters. One told of an overweight co-worker who was forced to sit out a company “ropes course” due to being over the weight limit, leaving them humiliated. Another told of an impromptu “office yoga” class that required people in suits to get down on the conference room floor.

This stuff is dumb and maybe even insulting. They suggest that if only you and your colleagues would spend more time learning how to do trust falls, you’d actually be good at your jobs. A Christmas party or company barbecue is one thing. Forced fun and “team building” are another. And a marathon? Well, that’s just flatly insane. Hard pass!

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John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.