Thursday, November 20, 2008

I'm Dreaming of a . . . Corporate Christmas?

Ah, the season is upon us. The relentless commercialism. The fruitless quests for appropriate gifts. The insurmountable entertainment expectations set by Martha. THE DREADED CORPORATE CHRISTMAS PARTIES.

Don't get me wrong, I like and respect most of the people I work with. Some of them are brilliant, edifying individuals, and others are genuinely nice human beings. I bet a lot of them are fun to hang with . . . if only I didn't deal with them in a work setting. On a daily basis. For the last ten years. There's just something about a work setting that kills any desire to spend more time with a person (aside from the fact that I'm happily married, I'm obviously not a good candidate for a hot office romance). But one must attend corporate Christmas parties if only to be polite. And as a demonstration of thanks that someone other than you took on the task of actually planning such an event.

Some people do appear to enjoy these socially compulsory get-togethers. They eat and drink and socialize without appearing stressed about their mandatory nature. Others use the opportunity to "network" (i.e., feign friendship in hopes of commercial advantage). I, for one, am largely preoccupied at these events with controlling an urge to flee screaming out the closest exit. As you can imagine, it's hard to carry on a conversation under these circumstances, and it usually makes for a grueling night.

Here's a little song I wrote called, "The Question of the Corporate Christmas Party"; it's to be sung to the tune of "Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow":

The party's sure to be frightful,
And the food's only had by the biteful,
So if we're voting yes or no,
Let it go, let it go, LET IT GO.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe the bad economy will mean fewer of these horrific affairs?

500Jerk said...

Unfortunately, I guess that's true. I wish the economy weren't the cause of any decline in corporate Christmas parties. In a perfect world, the economy would be going gangbusters and everyone would STILL decide against a firm party.

Switching topics, it's at least 40 degrees today, so I'm hopeful that means you can come out to socialize soon. We have blankets at our house. And a fireplace. We even turn the heat on sometimes.