Ten thousand people in the audience. Fifty people performing a play. One key role, played by yours truly. 2nd place! What am I talking about?
It started about three weeks ago. I received an email asking me to join a Task Force Group. What the ultimate purpose of the task force was will come later. The important thing is that it meant that I had to learn how to dance. Me. Dance. Once again, Me. Completely inept at dancing. When I was younger I used to hide at weddings so that my mother wouldn't make me dance with my sisters.
Despite my pleadings not to be sent to my own personal dance hell, it could not be avoided. So I was sent to a resort, where I joined with my team who had already been practicing dancing for four weeks. I was given two weeks to do my best to learn the art of dance. Honestly, I started entirely with the wrong mindset. Constantly thinking that it was crazy for me to be there, that it would be impossible for me to learn the dance steps in enough time, much less actually move like Im dancing, and not just a robot. Partially because of that mindset, the first week was torture. Morning joggings followed by intense exercising and the afternoon and evening into the late night practicing dance.
It wasn't until after I realized that this was more than just a dance. It was a performance telling a story. A story to improve the culture of the company, Samsung. All it took was a small change of mindset. A team working together to paint a picture of the future. The second week went so much better, being able to see how the constant practicing in dance came together into a real story. I actually learned how to dance... at least the two dances that I had to learn. While I can't actually dance them like a real dance, I can at least simulate it. And after all that hard work, my twisted two and a half weeks took an interesting twist. The story was all about a global employee, Ademola. Ademola was an actual employee at Samsung that came to join us for the play. The thing is, he is actually of the class of 52, while this play is part of the Blue Festival for the class of 53! As a celebration for the class of 53, it would not be very practical to have someone from the class of 52 as the lead role. The upper management agreed, and commanded us to do something about it. There was a total of 5 foreigners in our group. 3 of them were from the class of 52. 1 was a chinese girl. The last one was me. There really was no choice. I had to step up to the plate and become the lead role, two days before the performance.
But what performance? What is this performance all about? Every year Samsung hosts The Blue Festival for new employees. It is a very large festival to celebrate and show the energy and passion of the new employees. The festival ends with a performance from various teams representing each different Samsung company. It is a totally different experience from any thing in America, practically unfathomable for its impracticality. More than 250 new employees spend six weeks doing nothing but dancing and getting paid for it. Imagine! Why? Well, as I mentioned, to show the energy and passion of the new employees. It gets the employees fired up and excited to work for such a company as Samsung and gets the other employees inspired and recharged seeing the new employees and remembering when they were new employees. It also helps to bond the new employees together and teach them about overcoming the impossible, accepting challenges that they never thought they could overcome.
