A tech company retreat turned into a trip from hell with armed guards, crawls through fire ants, and dead tarantula du jour … similar to something out of the movie “Apocalypse Now.”
Around 120 remote workers at streaming service Plex flew to Honduras for what had been billed as a tropical getaway with fun team-building exercises inspired by “Survivor” — the CEO’s favorite TV show.
But what they got was a literal fight for survival, according to employees who opened up to the Wall Street Journal about the harrowing ordeal, which occurred in 2017.
Employees were met by armed guards when they arrived on the remote island of Utila, Honduras.
By day, guests were ushered to the beach to complete grueling challenges in 100-degree heat.
One involved an army-crawl through sand, in which several workers passed out from exhaustion, and one scrambled through a bed of fire ants, leaving her covered in welts.
“The medical area didn’t have any regular antihistamine. So they’re like, ‘Oh, we can shoot some into your butt cheek.’ That was a first for me,” employee Greta Schlender, 41, told the Journal.
Another challenge forced survivors to choose covered platters and eat whatever they held — which in one case was a dead tarantula.
One could argue the challenges were simply staying faithful to the Survivor TV show, in which exhausted, half-starved contestants battle it out to stay on the island.
But even the supposed luxury resort part of the trip turned out to be a nightmare.
The compound was infested with sand fleas that feasted on anyone brave enough to take a stroll through the grounds.
The power, water, and showers kept cutting out.
At dinner, the guests were instructed to cut their chicken and beef in half before eating it because the kitchen had been serving it undercooked.
In one incident, a porcupine fell through the roof into an employee’s bedroom, they recalled to the Journal.
Plex CEO Kieth Valory had intended to play the part of Survivor host Jeff Probst and hopefully moderate some of the chaos.
Unfortunately, he spent most of the trip in his hotel room battling an E. coli infection.
“I lost 8 or 10 pounds … They nailed an IV bag to the bedpost,” Valory told the Journal.
The retreat did have one thing the Survivor show lacked: A former commando hired to scream at the miserable employees.
“One of our biggest mistakes was hiring a former Navy SEAL to pump the team up,” Valory recalled to the Journal. “I could hear them out there doing all their drills and yelling. So I’m in here thinking, ‘This is terrible, but it sounds terrible out there, too.’”
Finally, on the night they were meant to leave the hellhole, the island’s air strip didn’t have enough planes to get everyone away, leaving some workers stranded.
By then, the tribe had spoken.
“I just said, ‘Guys, there’s nothing we can do. Let’s just make the most of it.’ We found some beach hotel and drank beers all night,” said retreat-goer Sean Hoff, whose company helped plan the trip.