Corporate ice bath? No thanks.

I've done the business offsites where we play volleyball. Where we do a tug of war. Where we all take a personality test to figure out how we can get better at working together. Where we compose and deliver a cheer. Where we build something with Tinker Toys. Where we escape the Escape Room. Where we bowl. Where we paint our own version of a Van Gogh. Where we sit back to back with a colleague and reveal some deep down desire. Or whatever. Where we trustingly fell back blind-folded into the arms of a colleague. 

So very twentieth century. So yesterday.

Apparently, the current bonding thang is all taking a plunge into an ice bath. As happened when the execs of Daring Foods - a rapidly growing company that makes "plant based chicken" - decided they needed to put their heads together and figure out what to do about the turnover that was becoming as rapid as its growth.

There was one solution: Jump into an ice bath together. The executives spent six minutes in icy cold water, breathing through the pain. “After we all did an ice plunge, and our endorphins were through the roof and we all felt great about ourselves,” [Founder and Chief Executive] Mr. [Ross] Mackay said, they “ripped the Band-Aid off” and addressed the challenges they were facing. (Source: NY Times)

They took the plunge at Remedy Place, a "social wellness club" located, not surprisingly, in New York City and LA. 

Within the spalike setting, members are encouraged to socialize while getting treatments such as vitamin drips, lymphatic drainage massages and cryotherapy.

Hmmmm.

For the most part, I liked my colleagues just fine. Some of them even became life friends. But I can't imagine sitting around with any of them having lymphatic drainage massages or vitamin drips.

The closest I came, I guess, was when I got to go to my company's Winners' Circle trip to Hawaii. 

For some reason, the company decided to add some home office "winners" to the list of sales people who got to go to the big, swank reward trip to Lanai. My boss nominated me, and away I went to paradise. And, other than the few obligatory sessions that magically turned the entire boondoggle into a business expense for the company, it was paradise. 

But it was out and out weird to encounter colleagues bare-legged and bare-whatevered, in their little white terry robes, as we strolled in an out of the spa for stone massages and seaweed wraps. 

Of course, once you got into the spa, you got your stone massage and seaweed wrap in a private room.

No side-by-side lymphatic drain massage for us

Thank God!

Worse yet - to me, at least - Daring Foods also uses the approach on interviews.

Sure, I'd expect an organization that makes plant-based chicken to be a little more daring than the high tech outfits i worked for, but, but, but... 

Mr. MacKay even interviewed a job candidate there recently. “We did an IV drip and had a conversation for an hour,” he said. “We need someone who fits our culture, and this is a good way to find out.”

I'm all in favor of making sure someone is a good fit for the company. But an IV drip to get the job? I would have been permanently unemployed.

Across the country, companies are entertaining clients with foot rubs and sound baths. Team brainstorming sessions are taking place in ice plunges and infrared saunas. Meetings with current or potential bosses are happening over IV infusions. According to executives, employees and spas, companies and entrepreneurs are conducting more business than ever in places designed for wellness — and cutting edge treatments.

“The amount of meetings is actually absurd, considering this is a spa,” said Jonathan Leary, the founder of Remedy Place.

"Actually absurd" sounds about right. But that doesn't mean it's not happening.

“No one is interested in team yoga anymore,” said Kane Sarhan, a founder at the Well, a retreat with locations in New York City and Washington, Conn., which attracts companies from Boston. “It’s much more dynamic stuff like IVs, group support circles, sound baths, energy work.”

Mr. Sarhan said Fortune 100 companies and big financial firms are using the Well’s facilities for sales meetings, team events and client get-togethers.

“We’ve been teaching them tapping and palm reading,” he said. “People are exhausted and people have been sick. It’s the responsibility of leaders to help teams deal with it, and giving a discount on a gym membership or a quiet room in an office isn’t cutting it so they are coming to us.”

Tapping? Palm reading? Sounds kind of Seance on a Wet Afternoon-y.

Still, it would have been kind of fun to learn palm reading. Fun but a little dangerous. Imagine if you read someone's palm and figured out they were out with their long knives to get you!

...The most popular spot for meetings: the foot rub area. “I’ve seen dozens and dozens of meetings take place at foot baths each week,” Mr. Sarhan said, laughing. “People have their computers out on their laps.”

Sorry, but meetings in the foot baths?

Sure, it's fine to go for a mani-pedi with the girls, but hanging out having a foot rub with colleagues or a potential manager? 

Thanks, but no thanks. 

Guess I'm just not cut out for the modern world of business. 

Good thing I'm an old retired geezer.