Biotech. It’ll be interesting to see how this works out because most of the people in my department, including me, have a fair amount of lab work that has to be done on Friday, and only the morning to get it done.
I doubt that it’s something as lame as a pizza or ice cream, since those tend to get announced around 10 am on days I’ve actually remembered to bring my lunch, instead of having this silly build up.
I do like the idea of voting people out, as long as management and HR are included. 
Because they’re afraid that their jobs may be eliminated in the next round of cutbacks, the Human Resources folks have decided to supplement their incomes. You’re invited to a Tupperware/Pampered Chef/Tickle Your Fancy/Amway quadrupleheader of a party! (exact company names may differ, you being in Canada and all)
The last time our management tried this on us it was a motivational session followed by bowling :rolleyes: , so I just walked out and went back to my cell to do something useful. (To be fair, I had informed my boss well in advance that I would probably do so, and I am in the somewhat enviable position of being both the only one who has been around long enough to know where all the bodies are buried in the accounts and able to retire on full pension if I get pissed off enough )
Seriously, is 8 PM still part of your normal work day? I would be extremely pissed off by any mandatory event that required me to stay late, especially on a Friday evening, that was not required by some urgent operational requirement (and I’d damn well better be paid for the time, too!).
7 hours is a long time. I’m definitely thinking field trip. I’m thinking a boat trip. (Perhaps a three hour tour?)
Or here’s another thought – your company is being bought out, and the new bosses are taking you out to car dealers to buy each employee a new car to make you like them. (Hey, if you tell me that I’m going to have fun at a mandatory work event, it definitely involves the workplace buying me something pricey.)
No joke. They can pay for childcare too.
Please please please don’t forget us on Friday at 9PM, and post what the real “surprise” is.
If you don’t post, well we’ll all know that ParentalAdvisory was right.
Bookkeeper - 8pm certainly is not part of my work day. I generally work roughly 8:30-4:30, and except for one or two people who’ve made special arrangements, everyone else works similar hours. Assuming this is something I want to attend, it actually throws a bit of a wrench in my weekend plans, as I had been intending to catch the ferry over to Vancouver Friday evening.
Oh, and under BC labour laws, high tech workers, including biotech, are considered “exempt employees” and the company doesn’t have to pay us overtime.
LilyoftheValley - One of my co-workers suggested something similar. Not that they’re buying us all cars, but that the company has been sold/formed a partnership or something and it’s a celebration of that.
ZipperJJ - Supposedly we’ll find out what’s going on on Tuesday. I’m not holding my breath, as HR has a history of not passing on information in a timely manner. At any rate, I’ll post what it is as soon as I know, and since I’m going out of town for the weekend, my disappearance after Friday won’t necessarily mean anything unless I don’t reappear by Monday.
Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s some sort of bullshit that Who Moved my Cheese!??!, Six-Nine Smegma Delta, or Tossing fish for a living is fun, fuckface! (or whatever the latest bullshit corporate america memetic disaster is) told them will make you more motivated and happy than things like a pay increase, more vacation, and better working conditions would.
Suprise dinner followed by Middle Manager of the Year award presentation and 2 hour speech by pissed-as-newt Supervisor.
Since you’re in BC I’m going to guess;
Wilderness Team Building Exercise/Corporate RetreatBiotech, hmmm… are they testing any new vaccines that have deadly side effects which take up to eight hours to become apparent?
I’d get worried if they follow up with an email that says “please ensure your will is up to date and don’t forget, bring your own syringe!”
Geez, didn’t anybody watch the U.S. version of “The Office”? Oh, yeah, right. Never mind.
Pizza & Beer for Lunch, followed by a pre-screening of Serenity and the next Harry Potter movie, you lucky, lucky bastards.
Either that or a mass layoff.
It’s Tuesday night! Update, please?!
Sorry, no news to report. I had to talk to the manager of HR about an unrelated matter this afternoon, so I asked her what was going on. She wouldn’t tell me anything other than they’re waiting to confirm some details and she swears they’ll tell us tomorrow morning.
In the meantime, the rumour mill seems to have settled on some kind of trip. Where to is anyone’s guess, but no one can come up with anything else that would last 7 hours. Unfortunately, I was way too busy on Friday to get a chance to talk to my most reliable source of gossip (i.e. her info normally has at least some basis in reality) and she took today off, so I’m in the dark.
You realize that if this were an attractive option they would give you more of a hint, so that everybody would be sure to be there.
I would plan for the day off, myself.
But, see, if I’m wrong, then I’m really wrong, and they’re trying to double-psyche you so that not that many people show up, and it is cars.
No, it could be worse:
“We have a famous motivational speaker today, and today his topic will be ‘Life after Retrenchment!’”
If it is a field trip, start running when you see an altar of any sort.
It’s going to involve goats I reckon. And leather aprons.
Or one guy with guns.
Maybe that Labatt Blue bear will be the motivational speaker. That might be mildly amusing before you want to shoot yourself in the head. All I can be sure of is the phrase " 'eh?" is going to come up frequently.
Just got an email from HR:
If it’s the 30th, I’ve got an easy out - not only have I already booked that day off, I will be out of the country (well, Seattle, but out of the country sounds cooler). Of course, if that’s the case, given my luck it would wind up living up to the hype and being something I really, really want to participate in.
Bookkeeper - given your past experience, you’d probably have appreciated one of my co-workers yesterday. Every few minutes: “Oh, I hope it isn’t something lame like bowling.” Later on, that changed to “Whatever it is, they better give us lots of booze.” I think we can pretty much all agree on that one (assuming it’s good stuff and not that swill Labatt’s passes off as beer).