Office Holiday Stuff

[bjarvis]

I just got word that my division's holiday party is set for next Monday, 1-5 PM. I have no excuse not to attend: it's during business hours in the conference rooms in my own data center. I'm sure management will be taking notes who attends.

It's not that it'll be a horrible event but I'm not fond of office socials, especially mandatory socials. My professional relationships are not the same as my family relationships or friendships: I prefer to keep them separate. Events designed to manipulate one into another feel unnecessary invasive into my otherwise normally ordered world. Still, when the time comes, I'll grin & be appropriately cheery, partake in the food & beverages and schmooze as needed. Once I'm sure all the appropriate levels of management have noted my attendance, I can slip away quietly.

In other news, my employer is doing a toy collection for local charities. This year, a large tree is in the lobby of our building, decorated with tags; each tag is from a child in a shelter or who uses a food bank who describes what they'd like for a holiday present. Employees are invited to take a tag from the tree, obtain the gift, attach the tag to it, and place the wrapped gift under the tree by next Wednesday for delivery to the child. We've always done a gift drive, but I think this is the most elegant, best organized and labor-free mechanism used thus far. It certainly beats having volunteers trapping people in their cubes asking for cash donations.

Comments

[brunorepublic.livejournal.com]

...I'm not fond of office socials, especially mandatory socials. My professional relationships are not the same as my family relationships or friendships: I prefer to keep them separate. Events designed to manipulate one into another feel unnecessary invasive into my otherwise normally ordered world.

I totally agree with you on this. Being forced to socialize with my co-workers feels almost like an assault. I spend more time with these people than my own family or friends; I shouldn't have to give them any more of myself.

[london-bill.livejournal.com]

I say that you figure a way out to have "an issue" happen at the same time as the party, and that it needs to be taken care of right away, so with regret, you are unable to attend...

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

I could set up a cron job to send a help message to my pager. I'll be chatting up my senior director when the page arrives... oops! Critical issue! Sorry, gotta run... service continuity and production uptime needs me immediately! :-)

[rsc.livejournal.com]

As far as I'm concerned, there's really only one important question about office parties:

How good is the food?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

The past couple of events have been pretty good but some prior ones have truly sucked. My greatest fear is there might be some sort of party games set up...

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Not exactly a party game, but it reminds me of something that used to happen when I worked at the Open Software Foundation that I really really hated. At staff meetings, somebody from Marketing (which for no known reason was called "Operations" at OSF) would hand out the words to one or more filks (I wasn't familiar with the term then, but I've since found out that that's what they were) of either currently- or once-popular songs or (at this time of year) seasonal ditties, with words that had some relevance to whatever the company was up to at the moment; whereupon everyone was expected to sing along. Apart from all the obvious things wrong with this, the words were usually stupid, and of course I never knew any of the tunes (except for the Xmas songs).

Holiday Cheer?

[cuyahogarvr.livejournal.com]

Oh no.... Party Games!!!! Definitely a reason to get out as quickly as possible. I totally agree with you on all points. If there were any professional contacts that I wanted to socialize with outside of the office, I would arrange that on my own. Party games - my god, just shoot me. The food, however, is another issue. Our office party is held at a rather swanky country club so the "meat" dish is usually prime rib or filet mignon while the seafood dish has been shrimp, lobster or orange roughy stuffed with crabmeat. Needless to say, the menu makes it tolerable. Besides that, we're bribed to show up at the "holiday" party. If we want our Christmas bonus, we have to be there - no show, no bonus.

Re: Holiday Cheer?

[bjarvis.livejournal.com]

no show, no bonus.

Wow, that's vicious *and* effective! Thank god my office doesn't do that. Then again, we don't have holiday bonuses... :-^

A suggested way to avoid party conversation

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

well if you're trapped into going ANYway (at least it's on company time), buy yourself a set of felt reindeer antlers, put 'em on your head and go thataway. Maybe a red foam nose.

Have a sticky "hello my name is..." nametag, either as "Rudolph" (with red nose) or "Olive"[*] (no red nose), and a second one that says "sorry, reindeer can't speak". Then go through the rest of the party as mute as Harpo Marx (pointing to your mute label when appropriate). Smile beatifically, nurse a drink, get yourself seen by Those Who Will Be Taking Attendance (and with the antlers, they'll notice you), and disappear after half an hour.

[*] the other reindeer, who used to laugh and call Rudolph names

(the userpic is me at easter -- I can't readily find a more seasonally appropriate photo of moi and antlers)

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

Do you need more emergency pages on the day of the party? :-)

On the Giving Tree - I was disillusioned by this when I found out how they ACTUALLY work (though your mileage may vary). In Cupertino where I used to work I'd buy the exact gift, maybe include a $20 bill in the package, and a note, then wrap it up and put the gift tag on it as directed... Then the local newspapers revealed that all the gifts were sent to a warehousing operation. The named gift tags were removed (little Joey doesn't exist) and then the gifts were redistributed across multiple charities. Yes, the gift still went to someone in need, but the personal touch had gone. I'd ask the charity if the gift tags are real, and if the gift actually goes to that person.