Survived the dreaded "Holiday" party . . .
mcmel
306 Posts
. . . well, I survived the dreaded "Holiday" party for our company over the weekend, if all goes well this will be the last one I attend, ever! (I'm a short-timer).
We had some offensive karaoke at the party, some complainers, uninvited guests and drinking minors. I don't think it could have gone much worse.
I don't mean to scare the rest of you, who have this adventure in front of you yet, but let's share some funny things that happen at Holiday parties.
Here's my tip:
Don't ever have a DJ who performs karaoke. Somebody nominated the management crew to sing a song and the selection wasn't revealed until we were on stage. The song was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Yay!
We had some offensive karaoke at the party, some complainers, uninvited guests and drinking minors. I don't think it could have gone much worse.
I don't mean to scare the rest of you, who have this adventure in front of you yet, but let's share some funny things that happen at Holiday parties.
Here's my tip:
Don't ever have a DJ who performs karaoke. Somebody nominated the management crew to sing a song and the selection wasn't revealed until we were on stage. The song was "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star". Yay!
Comments
We had our Director/VP party in Ocean City, MD this weekend. Most behaved themselves, but there were some interesting moments. Just when I was leaving our VP "grabbed" the controller's wife and dragged her to the dance floor, after pushing the controller back into his seat. The VP had had a few drinks and the controllers wife was dressed the most provocatively of all the women. At that point, I thought it was a good time for me to leave.
I would think that the controller would soon be told by his wife to look for another job ASAP! If that VP had grabbed me and tried to drag me to a dance floor - I would have belted the joker of a VP good . That VP will be lucky if he doesn't face assault charges. Sexist types like him are a walking time-bomb to any organization.
Chari
Next thing I know Monday morning they announce the Holiday meeting has been reschedueld for January 10th. Here we go again......
See ya,
Dutch2
Whatever and Dragonlady, maybe I shouldn't have mentioned the provocative dress part, but it did add color to the story. I think the VP did it because of the way she was dressed, that is why he chose her. But, she didn't seem to mind the attention. Actually, I was kind of hoping the controller would stand up and protect his wife and disappointed he didn't. And are you implying I'm a male chauvinist pig?
Don, as usual, the hole is probably way too deep for me to get out. Oh well.
Actually ray, I read your whole post and never thought twice about your comment. I must have known you were just adding color to the story, not IMPLYING that she deserved to be dragged to the dance floor.
One of our programs involves outreach to local teens who are experiencing various issues. Three of them joined 5 of our staff to put on a murder mystery dinner theatre. Various staff brought pot-luck contributions and the dinner theatre "actors" decorated our large conference room like an italian diner. Staff sat around an outer square and the actors sat at an inner table and acted out the mystery.
We discovered that some of our staff and a couple of the teens are real hams. They overacted, over-emoted (is that a word?) and generally had a great time. The staff had a great time and in the end we had prizes for people who tried to guess who the murderer was. None of us got it, so we drew names for the prizes.
This was way better than our usual Karaoke and gift exchange. No one would win any oscars, but staff are still talking about it.
Our fund development department is talking about turning this into a fundraiser and going around to local companies and putting on the production - raising money to expand this great teen outreach program.
I didn't realize it until I was reading over the Christmas tree traditions string, but apparently that trouble with the skit so affected me that I no longer enjoy the holiday season. I thought last year that I was just "blue," but it seems to really have ruined the whole meaning of the season for me.
-Abby, HR newbie
It is for administrative staff only and held a country club. We have a very nice dinner followed up with casino gaming, and then an auction using our winnings. Our owner/president is a "gadget guy" so he usually buys out Circuit City and the prizes are usually worth $300-$400. We walked away with a Sony 400 disc DVD/CD player (My husband is in technophile heaven). There is also a grand prize that is awarded by drawing and no company officers or previous grand prizewinners are eligible. This year it was a $3000 travel voucher. Wish I'd won it.
Oh well. We had a great time, no one behaved inappropriately and it was all over before midnight.
Fell asleep sometime around 2:15 am, back to work at 7:30 am. God, I love my job.
The other humorous thing that happened was with our IT guy (quiet, nerdy) - he had just finished a Dale Carnegie class hand was starting to come out of his shell, and had also recently separated from his wife. Well, he showed up with THREE women - one classmate from Dale Carnegie, and two of her friends. I won't describe how they were dressed, lest I get flogged like ray, but suffice it to say that they attracted a lot of attention from the male contingent at the party.
Anyway, everybody (except the A/P clerk) made it to work okay the next day, and the food was fantastic!
Our party is the same every year, and nobody commplains! Corp staff and School Directors meet at a mall. The President and the CEO hand out $50 bills to everyone. Our mission is to spend the entire $50 on ourselves - no buying gifts for others, and gift certificates don't count. We have 90 minutes to do this.
We then meet at a nearby restaurant. One at a time, we show the group what we bought. $20 bills are given to the following;
- whoever spends closest to $50 without going over
- whoever spends the most (one spent $90 of her own money in addition to the $50 she was given)
- whoever gets the most items without going over $50
After lunch, we exchange gifts. (Everyone also brings a gift worth $20) We use the "drawing numbers" game. When it's your turn, based on the number you drew, you can either pick a wrapped gift, OR steal a gift from someone who went before you. Then the person whose gift was "stolen" gets to pick a new gift from the pile. This is a pretty close-knit group, and the gift giving/stealing gets competetive. There are never hard feeligns that I'm aware of, because this group has been together for so long.
The best part about the whole process is, in the end, everyone gets a gift they truly want. (Because we shopped for ourselves.) People appreciate when a company sends them fruit baskets, evergreen wreathes, etc, but getting to buy whatever you want never fails!
OK, I'm rambling again. Just had to share the success of our party!