In November 2010 I was on a Corporate Retreat. The retreat itself wasn’t going too well, but there was one thing people were looking forward to with a mix of excitement and fear.
Free massages.
The retreat was a good idea to iron out some things within the company – but it was a 4 day, 3 night retreat on Stradbroke Island. And as much as team building is a good thing, you sometimes just don’t want to be around your colleages from 7am-9pm for 4 straight days!
Very few people had ever had a massage before. Like most offices, we were a large mix of ages and backgrounds. Some people were incredibly nervous at the concept of being naked in the same room as a stranger.
I wasn’t too worried, but at the same time, it was an unknown. We had two people getting massaged at any one time, and my biggest concern was that the massages would take place in the same room – that was something I was NOT comfortable with!
So becasue of that I was a little nervous as I was walking down to the on-site spa with someone from a regional office that I had only met for the first time in person a few hours beforehand! But I was put at ease immediately by the staff at the spa, who directed us to separate rooms. The staff were fantastic. They clearly knew that most of us had never had a massage before and had no idea what happens or what you’re supposed to do. I guess staying at a resort, this would a be fairly common place for people to have their first massage.
They put me at ease, talked about what kind of massage I wanted, if I had any areas that were sore, or needed working on. I was generally fine, so I just asked for a general massage. They left me alone in the room to get undressed, on the table and covered up.
A few minutes later, they came back in (knocking first) and started the massage. It was a really relaxing hour! I don’t class myself as a prude but like most people I don’t exactly strip in front of strangers, so I wasn’t expecting to be comfortable so soon. They are really good at being discreet. Despite the fact that you are only wearing your underwear, you’re covered with towels and they only uncover the part of your body that they’re massaging at that specific time.
The worst part of the massage was that it ended!! They also had a great hot towel massage of your feet and that was amazing – I never knew my feet needed or would enjoy that much attention.
This is still the only massage that I’ve ever had, but it’s one of the things on my ‘to do’ list – have regular massages.
