I'm back living the life where my employer is having an office party. Of course, we're doing a simple sit-down dinner at a fancy restaurant on a Monday evening (significant others invited — I've already got my date, though). It's been a good long time since I've worked at a place which did such things. Technically I believe the last time was 2004-5 with Maxtor, who rented out Coors Field and set up shop in two floors' worth of luxury suites, with the company logo shown on the scoreboard. I did attend a company Christmas party in '09 or so, but I had already left that place and was invited back as someone else's S.O. (along with MHS).
Anyway, all of this was an excuse to post this article re: the tech world.
At this year’s holiday parties, however, there’ll be a surprising influx of attractive women, and a few pretty men, mingling with the engineers. They’re being paid to.
So what's your employer doing this holiday season?
"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet." — Elontra
My store is offline today due to an IP address change, so I reckon today's a good day for the Kraken Enterprises xmas party. As always, it's just me and my cats.
I haven't been invited to the office party. Maybe they're trying to tell me something.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
The adult party was Dec 1st. It's held at a hotel with what I hear is a good meal and drinks and dancing. It's pretty popular. I've never been as socializing is about the worst possible way I could imagine to spend an evening.
The kids' Christmas party is next weekend at a local fun park. It is thrown by our club who raises the funds throughout the year. The kids get about $30 worth of games to play, a meal, and a picture with Santa. It's pretty nice and my kids always start asking around Thanksgiving when we get to go.
I have lunch events to go to all next week. Double whammy since that's when I usually go to the gym.
The neighborhood lads are getting together next Friday evening for a night of carousing, that's always a good time. I've lost my gloves 4 out of the past 10 years. Now I just buy a pair for the occasion.
" Hey OP, listen to my advice alright." -Tha General "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer." -Stigler's Law of Eponymy, discovered by Robert K. Merton MYT
The office ugly sweater contest was today. I did not win.
The holiday party is next Friday, at a nice restaurant. I actually really like our holiday parties. No +1s, so it's just employees, and we're a small enough company that everybody more-or-less knows everyone else. People tend to get somewhat drunk, but it's very rare for someone to get so trashed that it's a problem. There's just generally a warm atmosphere and lots of fun.
em2nought wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:44 pm
Mistletoe farmers are going to have a really bad year
Mistletoe kisses have been by consent of both parties for several decades. Anyone who is running around with mistletoe in their hand, hoping for some commando kisses when the victim isn't looking is just as guilty as they would be without mistletoe.
If you had a problem with this, you should have brought it up in the 80's. As it stands, mistletoe farmers should see very little change from last year.
AWS260 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 2:40 pm
The office ugly sweater contest was today. I did not win.
The holiday party is next Friday, at a nice restaurant. I actually really like our holiday parties. No +1s, so it's just employees, and we're a small enough company that everybody more-or-less knows everyone else. People tend to get somewhat drunk, but it's very rare for someone to get so trashed that it's a problem. There's just generally a warm atmosphere and lots of fun.
em2nought wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:44 pm
Mistletoe farmers are going to have a really bad year
If you had a problem with this, you should have brought it up in the 80's.
A certain someone hadn't invented the internet yet so... My office is 8 x 8 and I'm the only one in it. I wanted to buy some pine scented Glade to celebrate the holidays but "Cashmere Woods" was as close as I could come.
My company's party is next week but it's on the other side of the state. I went with a co-worker last year and we decided it was not worth the 5-hour round trip drive for a crappy taco bar and a six-pack of crappy flavored XMas beer. They can mail me my $25 check...
Holiday party is three and a half hours of bowling from noon to 3:30 on a Friday. food and soda provided. No drinking; this is on company time. No plus one either...company time and liability.
tlr's company party is next weekend - kid-friendly BBQ in the park. Lots of cold hot dogs, chips, soda, and jumping castles. In other words, boring as fuck, but she feels we should make an appearance and at least say hello.
I just got a Visa gift card in the mail from my boss, so I think my company party is going to be upgraded to Macallan's Double Cask
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
The IT departments in our building had our annual pot luck on Wednesday, because as far as the company is concerned, the best party is one the employees pay for themselves. For the 4th year in a row, I dragged my wife's ass out of bed at 5 am to make pancit. It's boot that I need her skills, but she knows many of the Filipinos inn my office and doesn't trust me to make something even a little less than authentic.
As usual, it was good but this year I missed the pig candy that a fellow refugee from a former company assimilated by my current company used to bring. He was let go in a 20% WFR inn September. #maga
We had hours last Friday. I skipped, It was at the Spaghetti Factory for $20. I can go in myself order the exact items and pay about $14... Plus I was sick when the money was due and didn't bother.
We have our OR party tomorrow night. No idea what it will be like, other than it's at a convention center and a nice meal will be served. The neuro fancy party is next Saturday. Departments of neurology and neurosurgery. Cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. The expected attendance is supposed to be over 500.
I have not been to an official office party in over a decade. My employer always does the official +1 format. I think that defeats the whole purpose of having a company party. Everybody is on their best behavior or else their spouse/partner/date shuts things down. The best holiday parties I have been to where just the employees present tearing it up. Airing of grievances, telling a supervisor to have a hot cup of STFU, fistfights, and maybe a cat fight or two. Plus some hookups . Otherwise nothing gets resolved and the tension remains constant.
Probably the best holiday party I was at was hosted by the CEO, at his house! His teenage daughters and their friends were employed to bring trays of hors d'oeuvres to the guests, and he hired a professional bartender to serve us booze and a DJ to play music. He had a big house.
Second best was hosted by a manager at her apartment. She was my boss at a fast food joint I worked at when I was 16. It's memorable because I had my first beer there. In retrospect, I'm embarrassed to admit it was Old Style.
The boss rented a small "meeting room" cabin at a local park. The school brought in BBQ and fixings. It was really just like a slightly longer lunch in the breakroom with a few +1's. Beer would have been nice but was obviously not going to happen at this event.
My current employer has a strict no-alcohol policy at corporate events. We couldn't even have a beer when they treated us to lunch at BWW after we moved the corporate IT headquarters
When I worked at the hospital, I'd take my minions out for a holiday dinner on my dime. Generally this cost me about $500. After the place was acquired and we were all mostly unemployed, I organised what turned out to be a final get together with this group. I made no promise to pick up the tab because hey, I was unemployed too. They all mostly assumed though and I was stuck with another $500 tab. The only person to give money was a girl who quit sometime before the implosion, but was in school. She was by far the youngest. I gave her money back...of the lot of us, she could least afford.
We go to a small pub for a couple hours in the afternoon (partially work time depending on your shift, usually 3-5 I think). That's coming up next week. They provide everyone 2 drink tickets (for alcohol, non-alcohol is unlimited), employees only, no +1's, appetizers galore. These are decent places, not scummy hole in the walls or anything.
Going is dependent on workload and desire to drive 10-15 miles out of my way. Not the most social person (though I tend to make it to more of these things than anyone else on my team, even the one guy who actually is kind of social). I don't drink booze, so if I do go, I give my tickets away.
Sometimes have gift cards too. Used to do in office holiday potlucks (local senior management would provide the main course meat) and one of the local VP's would buy a number of gifts - a few nice ones (got my first flatscreen LCD monitor that way, got years of enjoyable use out of that) and enough so everyone got a lottery ticket or something.
previous company had upper management that got progressively cheaper as the years went on. the last one where you could bring your +1 was a horribly organized, painfully awkward and singularly terrible 'murder mystery dinner' - the response to that was that non-work-hour, invite-your-SO holiday parties were cancelled forevermore afterwards. i was laid off three days after the final 'holiday gathering' (also the year they cancelled the summer employee picnics).
the current company always has the holiday party in January. last one was a masquerade ball and this upcoming event is going to be at a hipster Millennial event space with the theme "SpaceProm 2999". there is going to be a lot - a lot - of drinking and shenanigans
Last edited by hitbyambulance on Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 8:33 pm
Second best was hosted by a manager at her apartment. She was my boss at a fast food joint I worked at when I was 16. It's memorable because I had my first beer there. In retrospect, I'm embarrassed to admit it was Old Style.
From everything I've read from/about you on here, I had not expected it was beer that was your first, and that is why she was memorable.
My wife had her company party tonight at one of our favorite local restaurants, and I got to go as her +1. It was awesome. My jobs don’t do much. At most I’ll get a free lunch at some point.
I also do work as a DJ, and I’ve been hired to do a party at a local mansion next Saturday. I’m looking forward to seeing what that’s going to be like.
msteelers wrote: ↑Sun Dec 10, 2017 1:58 am
My wife had her company party tonight at one of our favorite local restaurants, and I got to go as her +1. It was awesome. My jobs don’t do much. At most I’ll get a free lunch at some point.
I also do work as a DJ, and I’ve been hired to do a party at a local mansion next Saturday. I’m looking forward to seeing what that’s going to be like.
You should get a bonus if there's no entertaining debauchery.
Since I went self-employed 12 years ago, Wife's office party has been the only one I get to go to. This year there is no +1, so no parties for me. That's ok. She's had some epic parties in the past, but this employer's parties are pretty modest. Unless they're pulling out all the stops now that they're rid of spouses.
Jeff V wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 8:33 pm
Second best was hosted by a manager at her apartment. She was my boss at a fast food joint I worked at when I was 16. It's memorable because I had my first beer there. In retrospect, I'm embarrassed to admit it was Old Style.
From everything I've read from/about you on here, I had not expected it was beer that was your first, and that is why she was memorable.
Nope, the beer was pretty much it. I've never been into older women and she probably had 20 years on me.
We had our annual gathering for our Infrastructure department last week. About 400 people (those are just the folks that are local here) and we do it at a place called Pinstripes (bocce and bowling). They put out a big buffet, there's free bocce and bowling for the afternoon, and they have a big charity raffle where leadership donates a bunch of stuff like PS4s and Xboxes and iPads and Apple Watches and the like, and then after the raffle everyone goes to the bar or goes home early. It's always a nice time, food is pretty awesome. But we've been doing this at the same venue for about the past 6-7 years, and folks have been asking for a change. Me, I like it.
And Wednesday this week, we are going out for a team lunch. That's always pretty nice as well, just usually to a local restaurant/pub. So I have no complaints about holiday office parties.
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We usually do a potluck. The boss almost always suggests some sort of event but always after hours/on the weekend and we all see way too much of each other to voluntarily spend time together if we aren't being paid to do so. We will bring booze in for the potluck but since work has to continue afterward, people will only have a drink or two.
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Last week we had the annual Chicago legal department Christmas tree lighting on our floor. It's just a standard fake tree that the assistants usually decorate, and then everyone eats cookies and snacks in the big conference room.
Tomorrow we're having an end of the year lunch provided by the Pro Bono committee. It'll be pasta and salad from Maggiano's. I didn't do much in the traditional pro bono sense last year, but I am organizing an effort for next year on our floor, so I feel like I'm entitled to some grub.
That's about it. Nothing super formal, no booze, during work days. With a company this size, I think the corporate brass just lets various organizations decide whether or not they want to do anything, and they don't provide any money to pay for it.
Our's is at Topgolf. We had it there two years ago and it was pretty fun. Unlimited golfing for 3 hours, Fajita bar Plus 2 drink tickets! Owners + upper MGMt give out extra tickets all night so everyone is pretty toasty. It's usually a blast as we have a ton of field techs that don't get to mingle with the office folks. I started in the field so I am equally at home hanging with both groups. That and I usually have a pocket full of extra tickets . Last year we had a casino night with a bunch of good-great raffle prizes. That is my favorite but it's fairly pricey so we only do it every 3 years or so.
We did ours at my bosses house tonight. We have a pretty small team, so it was 13 of us there with a +1. No booze, but a really good catered dinner from a local bbq place. His daughter is in a high school chamber choir, and a bunch of them came over and did a little mini-Christmas show. Had a hilarious white elephant gift exchange at the end. It was all surprisingly fun.
The big corporate party is next week. They rented out a ballroom at the Grand America hotel, and will have a boatload of food. I’m sure they’ll have some local performer come do a show. We had Kurt Bestor a couple years ago, Jon Schmidt (a well known local pianist), some Osmond group or another one year...that sort of thing. I’m not really looking forward to that one...I do much better in small groups.
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Ours was last week. The company rents out an amusement center near the main office...Go Karts, bowling, Arcade games, mini indoor rides, bumper cars, etc...
My wife and I went last year and it was fun... Our main office is 2 hours away from where I live though and the party was on a Thursday night, so I didn't go, but I went last year and it was a lot of fun.. I'm also dealing with multiple injuries, so even if I lived nearby, I probably wouldn't be able to do much.. I still appreciate them doing this though..
We had ours last Thursday. My first with this company. It was at a reception hall and it cost us $82/person. That is, the employees (including myself) paid $82/person. Needless to say, there weren't very many attendees. The up side to that is that all the top level execs were there, so face-time was had. It was very much like a cocktail hour at a wedding reception, only longer. The only saving grace was the open bar with top shelf liquor. I got polluted and was pretty much useless on Friday.
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Sectoid wrote: ↑Tue Dec 12, 2017 1:53 pm
We had ours last Thursday. __During the week, that sucks.
My first with this company. __A decent way to interact with new folks at work. Neat!
It was at a reception hall... __Meh
...and it cost us $82/person. __UGH
That is, the employees (including myself) paid $82/person. __Hopefully in pre-tax contributions.
Needless to say, there weren't very many attendees. __At least few that aren't showing up in their Teslas, I'd imagine
The up side to that is that all the top level execs were there, __Meh
so face-time was had. __Double-meh unh!
It was very much like a cocktail hour at a wedding reception, __Ugh
only longer. __Double-ugh!
The only saving grace was the open bar with top shelf liquor. __Ding! Saving grace, full points to Gryffindor!!
I got polluted and was pretty much useless on Friday. __Well handled, sir.
"Better to talk to people than communicate via tweet." — Elontra
. Otherwise nothing gets resolved and the tension remains constant.
