I should write a book on team building

The team I work with at my new job has been in storming mode for sure the past few months. That's why we got to spend an evening last week playing bocce ball.

It's frustrating because there's a huge lack of communication and people not getting along. So last night one of the team members arranged for us to have sushi. Along with us came a Brit who's working as a consultant for us. He's so professional and unruffleable I couldn't help but pick on him. After he sat down I said "So, are you really from UK or have you been faking that accent all along?"

That is not the typical way we talk to each other (my company is pretty formal) so he was taken aback. Then he said "I'm from Surrey" and I remembered a famous serial murderer case there from 2009 (don't ask me how - I can't remember my phone number) and T accused him of being a serial murderer. The night went down hill from there.

So this morning I sent out an email asking for some information. Normally no one responds but in this particular email I included a few sentences about how we discovered last night that our consultant was a serial murderer. Of course everyone responded because they wanted to make a serial murderer joke. Even my manager said "I don't think [my company] covers serial murderers as a protected group". (we employ gay and transgender people and they are considered "protected" as in you can't discriminate against them)

Then our poor consultant tried to respond that he was an upstanding citizen and had a clearance.

So I was like "HA! I knew you worked for MI-6!"

Later on I got an email from an executive director who had somehow gotten on the thread. He said "Congrats on your team building even if it's very unorthodox. I'd love to attend your next sushi dinner." He's a guy that usually ignores my group and does his own thing which makes extra work for us. Perhaps that's changing because he also sent me 3 work related emails and wants to collaborate with me on a cool project I'm working on.

It's funny. I was being low key at work because I'm new there and there's all kinds of political land mines that I keep stepping on. Lesson learned - sometimes being me is a good thing.