Company Christmas Party

I know that a lot of Straight Doper’s aren’t Christians, so apologies in advance. But this deals with human politics as well, so bear with me.

After a year-and-a-half of fairly voluntary unemployment, I started with the St. Louis office of Mettler Toledo Industrial Scales right before Halloween.

I’m now a scale technician. Little scales. Big Scales. Scales big enough to drive a rail car over and weigh to the pound. I calibrate 'em, and diagnose 'em, and fix 'em when they’re broke. Rain or shine, warm weather or biting cold. I’m like the U.S. Postal service.

I wasn’t sure they were going to hire me; I went through my first interview with my fly open. As Homer J. would say, “DOH!” But after a Personality Profile Test (and a pre-employment physical which almost tanked me because of a recuperating rotator cuff which I somehow blew out earlier this year) I was hired on and “thrown into the deep end” almost immediately.

If I have one serious gripe, it’s that the local office didn’t really brief me in on the “Mettler Toled ‘Way’;” I was left to my own devices on figuring out what (and how) I’m supposed to do. But a couple of weeks in and a few hints (here & there) from co-workers has left me secure in the knowledge that this job is practically a license to print money.

And now we come to the annual Christmas party.

Being hired on in late October, and being left pretty much to my own devices, I haven’t developed a real sense of the intra-office politics. So lo-and-behold I’m the only “worker bee” from my office to actually show up at our District’s Office Party. Our District Office Manager (my immediate boss, and a 1st class snake-in-the-grass) has the dinner tab, and our District Sale Manager (another 1C SitG) has the bar tab. I load up on good wine, a pricey appetizer, and an above average entree.

Dinner is nice enough (even if I made the mistake of ordering seafood in St. Louis in December; the shrimp were tough as shoe leather), with plenty of small talk passing back-and-forth between me and the spouses. But the District Office Manager and District Sales Manager are performing the Corporate America version of comparing penises.

Which means that they’re trading “There I Was…” anecdotes about business mettings, and dealings with various customers. Having worked with some of those customers, I can interject the occasional “Front Line Witticism” and leave my own urine mark against the “Corprate Tree of The Pack.”

Being as I’m the only “Worker Drone” present, I have an invaluable opportunity, as well as a very dangerous Corporate precipice to edge along. Profanity is right out, what with the spouses present, but I must appear “manly” in some fasion or another. Yet I cannot make either the Office Manage or Sales Manager look or feel bad about their cushy “office” jobs as compared to one of us “field dogs.”

I feel like a soldier who sudenly realizes that he’s smack in the middle of a minefield. Any step, in any direction, has potentially catastrophic results.

Fortunately, I’m “peon” enough that neither feel the need to drag me into their pissing contest, which means I’m safe to discuss such mundane topics such as The War In Iraq, abortion, and gun control with the spouses.

About four glasses of wine into the meal, I realize that I need to slow down on the vino; in vino veritas looms threateningly on the near horizon, and I must avoid it, for the sake of any potential future pay raise, even as I want to tell both of the “Managerial” pukes that they wouldn’t last a day in The Cav.

Dinner being over, yet the night being young, We decide to head over to a local “Comedy Club.” We manage to sneak in right before the Cover Charge hits, and listen to a weak routine by a comedy troupe who take suggestions from the audience on a wide variety on topics and incorporate those suggestions into a routine. For “non-historic personalities,” I suggest Spiro Agnew; for famous movie quotes, I suggest “I know it was you, Fredo.”

For Grand Topical, I toss in my sig line, and three people in the audience caught the reference. None of the “performers” did, though. But I get two-out-of-three, so I’m content.

My boss and the Sales Manager being weak, they cut out at 11 PM., and I listen to the band through four or five (I forget) songs; they’re like Three Doors Down taken down a notch or two. But I give 'em full props for dong their thing, even if I can’t listen to them any more without barfing, and leave.

And here I am.

Weak as it sounds, what the hell did you do tonight, besides reading this lame-assed post?

Now my neighbors (a buncha college-age kids) are having a raucous party, and I’m heading out to tell 'em that their neighbors are a lot less likely to call the cops for a Noise Complaint if you invite them to your party and offer tham beer.

I went to Dope the Halls at the WeirdNorth residence last night, but we had to bail early. It’s now Sunday morning and I have no idea what the day holds.

My office party was Friday night. In a tent. In the parking lot. Outside our building. The temps hovered in the 20s. I didn’t attend. Can’t wait to hear the post-mortem on Monday.

I rented “Bewitched” on Pay Per View - meh. Then I watched SNL

I baked Christmas cookies to bring into work tomorrow. I burned my hand on one of the cookie sheets, so I ended up using one hand to get the trays out of the oven while I soaked the other hand in a bowl of cold water. Damn, that hurt. After that I watched The Two Towers on TNT.

My company’s holiday party is on Thursday afternoon. This is the first time that it’s being held outside of the office, which means that I’ll need to wear something nicer than jeans that day. Fortunately I like most of my coworkers, so it should be fun.

My company holiday party isn’t until January 7th; last night I hung out with my best friend (let’s call him Steve, as that is his name), his wife (Jen), and their 4-year-old (Nick).

Jen and I had appointments to get our hair cut yesterday: I arrived at their house at 11:15am, and she and I took Nick with us to Pentagon City. Haircuts went well, lunch at the food court went well, a little window shopping went well. We left the mall and called Steve to find out what the plan for the rest of the day was: they needed to go to Home Depot to get their Christmas tree, and there are a few stores nearby that Steve and I like to go to whenever we’re out there. We decided to meet Steve at Borders, and then go next door to the Home Depot.

Nick – who had been in desperate need of a nap – fell asleep in the car, so what we wound up doing was having Jen drop me off at Borders, and then she went and parked at Home Depot and waited in the car for Steve and me. On the way to Borders she let me run into Circuit City, where I picked up a video game for Steve for Christmas (which is cool, because now all of my shopping for him is done). I also saw a car stereo that I like, with the auxiliary input I’ve been wanting … I’ll have to keep that in mind for after Christmas.

Anyway, I found Steve inside Borders, and we each saw a few things we wanted, but the line was really long so we decided to come back on our own after getting the Christmas tree. Nick was still asleep when we met up with him and Jen in the Home Depot parking lot, so this time I sat in the car with him while Jen and Steve picked out their tree and tied it to the top of Steve’s car. Then Jen and Nick went home, and Steve and I went back to Borders. He got a bunch of magazines, and I got a nice big blue mug for my mom and a book (which I didn’t know was out, so it isn’t on any of my Christmas lists) and a deck of cards for myself.

On the way back to his house Steve and I stopped at a Peruvian chicken place and picked up dinner for everyone (yum), and made one last stop at the Starbucks near his house to get coffee for Jen and a peppermint mocha frappucino for me (yum!). After dinner Nick and I helped Steve get their Christmas decorations out of the basement, while Jen wrapped presents and chatted with us.

I left their place around 10:30pm. When I got home I watched an X-Files episode on DVD, and then read for a while in bed.

Today I get to do all of the stuff I didn’t even think about starting yesterday: filling out my Christmas cards, doing a little bit of work from home (looming deadline), and working on my final project for this semester’s class. And, apparently, procrastinating all of that by surfing the SDMB. :wink:

Yesterday night? I babysat and made $40, which is not inconsiderable when thinking of Christmas presents. So ha. :stuck_out_tongue: