Wow...it sure does...

Ouch. Last year's post was prophetic.

The finest newspaper I ever read was the strike paper put out by the locked out journalists of the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. One thing it taught me was how much management can hobble real journalists.

Actually, that is not as depressing as my company holiday party... it's pot luck this year and in the warehouse. Kinda depressing. Oh, and BYOB. Makes the Sun party look incredibly festive, eh?

My family can top that. One of my sons works for Yahoo and this week they have been watching people walk out the door with all their belongings in a big box. The company party is tonight--wonder if anyone will show up?

My company party was a lavish affair that they even had us in the satellite offices fly in to enjoy it with them.

Its been cancelled this year and the "party" is dessert and "holiday cheer" at the company president's house.

So, when they have their get together in MD next Friday, we will retire to a local watering hole for our own holiday cheer.

Our company party is in a room that the employees outnumber the space for by about at least 500. They have tables set up to take your food and stand and eat but everyone usually files though, loads up their plates and takes 'em back to their work areas. I personally wish they'd end the facade of holiday cheer and just give us all turkeys and hams or Giant certificates or something.

We have department parties. In my department, they'll order in a cold cut plate or something, plus suggest that, if we wish, we could maybe bring something. So, one has to cook, too.

Now, I like cooking. A well run potluck where there is planning and everyone cooks something except for the 3 hopeless people, who bring drinks and plastic forks and all can be lovely. But, a kind of passive-aggressive, we're doing this, it is expected but we won't tell you exactly what we expect from you kind of party...it can get painful. A couple people will go to a lot of trouble to make wonderful things from scratch. This will embarrass everyone else, who brought nothing or a bag of off-brand doritos.

Letting us out an hour early would be more festive. Or a $5 gift cert to a supermarket. Heck, even one of those logo coffee mugs would be less painful. People who want to party can get together with others who want to party, and take a long lunch.

Enforced celebration makes me cranky.

Enforced celebration makes me cranky.

Now there is a list that would be fun to read: Ms Lissa's Cranky List. (And, for the record, I am a great fan of Ms Lissa. Who couldn't be a fan of someone who goes to Delaware to make Mead?)

"Enforced celebration makes me cranky." - Lissa - AMEN!

Enforced celebration makes me cranky

I positively refuse.

At work, I don't do: birthdays, cakes, showers, Christmas parties, or anything thing else that requires me to spend time or money on people I don't choose to be with. I am very lavish with gifts for family and close friends, but that's it. Acquaintances get a holiday card, co-workers get nada.

I once had a supervisor try to force me to do the holiday gift exchange. She even offered to buy the gift if money was the issue (at that point, it was just pure principle). I asked her point blank if she was telling me it was "required" as part of my job. She backed off real fast.

Our departmental party is Wednesday and I'm really looking forward to the enforced celebration. ahem. At least it's an organized potluck.

I should confess that I am one of the hopeless-I am bringing plates. (In my defense, I am having hand surgery the next day, so I have a lot to do at home before then. No time for potluck cooking.)

Enforced celebration makes me cranky.

What she said...

Enforced celebration makes me cranky.

Amen.

Our potluck is Wednesday. I will bring something. I will smile. I will get out as soon as I can.

(I once did not go to a previous company's Holiday party because it was a formal affair in the DC suburbs. I liked the person I was seeing too much to inflict my co-workers on him and we hadn't been going out long enough for him to just do what had to be done. I didn't want to drive to DC alone. I was gigged on my annual review as "not a team player" with my lack of attendance cited as supporting argument. I won't ever make that mistake again.)

I was gigged on my annual review as "not a team player" with my lack of attendance cited as supporting argument.

Eve,

That is SO wrong! What an employee does on there own time is just that, their OWN TIME. If they don't want to spend their time hanging around people they don't like, it should not affect their work review AT ALL.

I would have fought that comment to the death. I work the hours I'm scheduled to work, not one minute more or less. I don't travel (they wanted me to, I refused), or attend anything outside of the hours I'm scheduled to work. As stated before, I don't do parties or contribute in any way to social activities during work hours. I have never, in 15 years, gotten a bad review or been told I wasn't a team player.

As a furthermore, to the lack of team player crap, my employer makes us sign papers essentially saying that if we are photographed stripping on the Block or in some other potentially embarrassing or bad taste scenerio, we can be canned. I don't know of anyone who it's happened to yet but I guess it's in the war chest just in case. We're also not suppossed to have tattoos which is part of the reason why I had to have at least one (hoping to get #2 before the new year).

"When I'm good, I'm very good. But when I'm bad I'm better." -Mae West

Joyce - I know what you mean...I just wear a disguise during my gigs on the block! ; )

Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History.
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Joyce, I'm going to guess that clause says something about embarrassing the company, which can be interpreted as the ocassion (wish I could spell that word) calls for.

This summer, we had a college kid in doing odds & ends. It was 90 zillion degrees out and she was wearing long sleeve and high collars. Don't want to know what was on those arms.

Remember there is no I in TEAM, but there is MEAT.

Every time I hear of an evaluation complaining that someone is "not a team player," I have deep suspicions that there is not much of a coach.

Well, I know that when I'm taking it off and swinging on the pole, I'm always wearing the Groucho Marx glasses,nose and mustache ensemble. They'll never get me, I tell ya!

Owl - you are so right! and no "I" but "me"!

Mr. McIntyre, precisely!

Those kinds of things inspire me, like Joyce, to get more tattoos. Or worse.

Mr. McIntyre,

Your observation is quite accurate. And sometimes, the coach has his/her own nefarious goals. I know that from recent/current experience. Be a team player (shut up) and let Corporate handle things.

I've said too much.

"Not a team player" is just business-speak for "had the nerve to say no".

I'm cracking up, because when I've looked for jobs in the past, the line "must be a team player" always made me immediately jump to the next ad. I just thought it was another manifestation of my square peg syndrome!

“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” - Albert Einstein

Managing employees is really, really hard. That is why so many consultants make so much money peddling pop-psychology shortcuts to perfect management.

Put me on the right team, with the right people, doing the right stuff, and you bet I'm a team player. Send me off to seminars on finding out my true emotional colour scheme or on dealing with problem people, and it brings out the Hell's Angel in me.

You might as well insert every rant I've written here on the word "nice", too.

After all, in order to get the puck in the net, you have to complete your passes, play heads up hockey, take a lot of shots and pounce on those rebounds. After a lot of elegant, yet brutal failure, you'll get that goal. It may be dirty, it may be beautiful, but at the end of the game, you'll only remember the final score.

Unless, of course, there was one hell of a brawl in the third period. Then no one will remember the score.

Enforced celebration makes me cranky. Ditto!

I tried to opt out of the last two office holiday parties. Unfortunately for me, both times the Office Manager insisted on staffing the reception desk for me, so I HAD to go. DAMN--foiled again!

I worked at the Sun from the mid-60's to the early '80's. Our department always sponsored a dinner, including open bar, at a downtown hotel or restaurant private room. The women brought cocktail dresses to change into, and the men wore their good suits. There was the obligatory "sales pitch" after dinner to boost morale for the next year, but it ended with us receiving our bonus checks. In those days it was still a family-owned business.

Hey, Dottie, I might be able to take a little enforced celebration if it ended with a nice fat bonus check! I've never received one in my life.

Bonus checks? I've heard about them but thought they were actually urban myths...

Lissa,

Love the hockey reference!

Cheers