And the office party!
Whats the next best thing if you are having cost cutting but still want your employees to be happy? Go for an offsite inside the city!
Anyway considering thats the folks at work decided, the next best thing was to have as much fun as possible and obviously it would have to be at the expense of my colleagues.
So here we are at around 5 and I am still wrapping up work. Party starts at 5, me leave work at 545! EWWW! Waltz in after getting frantic calls about my whereabouts and that of my team. There is a little do which as the boss said has to be done so as to justify the expense!
On an aside, some of the shenanigans reminded me of ONGC. Once upon a time when I used to work there, the ED's daughter was getting married. Nothing great there, people generally do in life, except me that is! :P
So here was EDD (ED's daughter) getting married and all the people reporting to him even the General Manager etc was there from the day before to "help". Made me puke at the level of sycophancy people would stoop to.
And I thought its a Govt office, I wont have to do it in G. But lo and behold a mini version of it was on at the office do! Or maybe I am just imagining it but I really thought that some of the people (Shrek, Donkey and Simpson, Popeye was also there but he was just accompanying the others and not on a boss pleasing mission) were pushing it a little too much! Of course the whole idea of sending invites late and instructions and maps later so that the turn out would be lower by itself sucks! Just so that the budgetary allocations don't fall by the wayside and per capita consumption especially of alcohol remains high!
All said and done, reached, sat through speech, collected award (ya ... that was nice hehehe an ego massage never hurt anyone!) and then it was time to dance and have alcohol or as is in my case have alcohol.
No one was venturing onto the dance floor at first, then some took the bold move of being the first ones out there! And then the rest of the junta followed!
Ever noticed how office parties are always about 2 or 3 different groups. There would be a bunch of men dancing together grinding hips Bollywood style already at a stage where alcohol has started to take effect. There would be the women who would be dancing amongst themselves just so that they can be away from the "dancing men". Ofcourse some of the first group would be trying to make inroads into the second group! Then there would be the group who stand aside alcohol in hand watching the fun (ME ME ME) and finally the ones too inhibited to go on the dance floor and sit in some corner (is it still ME ME ME?).
Anyway Big B and Small B were there cracking juvenile school humor jokes to which people responded by raucous fake laughs! Why is that they cant see through it? Or do they and the acceptance of it would increase their own fallibility and they choose to let their own eyes gloss over these issues so as to not confront terrible truths? The new Catbert was the cynosure of all eyes ... people not being used to an extroverted catbert till now!
I wonder what these actually achieve other than booze for the likes of me. I don't see the team bonding that is supposed to happen. People remain in their small groups that they tend to be at work. I guess in some way, human tendency is to cling on to what is comfortable and there are very few that decide to go beyond those unfamiliar lines! Ofcourse you do give away your true self especially if you are alcohol induced in which case certain sides of you which would be carefully polished over during work hours come to the fore! Most of it is I guess not really flattering!
Maybe I am just cynical and I need to let go of some really terrible posturing and melt in. But then I don't like porridge. It's just one homogeneous mass clinging to each other, like being faceless in a crowd feeding of each others' cowardice, just one of them and that I am not sure I want to be.
Anyway makes for nice writing material!
Anyway considering thats the folks at work decided, the next best thing was to have as much fun as possible and obviously it would have to be at the expense of my colleagues.
So here we are at around 5 and I am still wrapping up work. Party starts at 5, me leave work at 545! EWWW! Waltz in after getting frantic calls about my whereabouts and that of my team. There is a little do which as the boss said has to be done so as to justify the expense!
On an aside, some of the shenanigans reminded me of ONGC. Once upon a time when I used to work there, the ED's daughter was getting married. Nothing great there, people generally do in life, except me that is! :P
So here was EDD (ED's daughter) getting married and all the people reporting to him even the General Manager etc was there from the day before to "help". Made me puke at the level of sycophancy people would stoop to.
And I thought its a Govt office, I wont have to do it in G. But lo and behold a mini version of it was on at the office do! Or maybe I am just imagining it but I really thought that some of the people (Shrek, Donkey and Simpson, Popeye was also there but he was just accompanying the others and not on a boss pleasing mission) were pushing it a little too much! Of course the whole idea of sending invites late and instructions and maps later so that the turn out would be lower by itself sucks! Just so that the budgetary allocations don't fall by the wayside and per capita consumption especially of alcohol remains high!
All said and done, reached, sat through speech, collected award (ya ... that was nice hehehe an ego massage never hurt anyone!) and then it was time to dance and have alcohol or as is in my case have alcohol.
No one was venturing onto the dance floor at first, then some took the bold move of being the first ones out there! And then the rest of the junta followed!
Ever noticed how office parties are always about 2 or 3 different groups. There would be a bunch of men dancing together grinding hips Bollywood style already at a stage where alcohol has started to take effect. There would be the women who would be dancing amongst themselves just so that they can be away from the "dancing men". Ofcourse some of the first group would be trying to make inroads into the second group! Then there would be the group who stand aside alcohol in hand watching the fun (ME ME ME) and finally the ones too inhibited to go on the dance floor and sit in some corner (is it still ME ME ME?).
Anyway Big B and Small B were there cracking juvenile school humor jokes to which people responded by raucous fake laughs! Why is that they cant see through it? Or do they and the acceptance of it would increase their own fallibility and they choose to let their own eyes gloss over these issues so as to not confront terrible truths? The new Catbert was the cynosure of all eyes ... people not being used to an extroverted catbert till now!
I wonder what these actually achieve other than booze for the likes of me. I don't see the team bonding that is supposed to happen. People remain in their small groups that they tend to be at work. I guess in some way, human tendency is to cling on to what is comfortable and there are very few that decide to go beyond those unfamiliar lines! Ofcourse you do give away your true self especially if you are alcohol induced in which case certain sides of you which would be carefully polished over during work hours come to the fore! Most of it is I guess not really flattering!
Maybe I am just cynical and I need to let go of some really terrible posturing and melt in. But then I don't like porridge. It's just one homogeneous mass clinging to each other, like being faceless in a crowd feeding of each others' cowardice, just one of them and that I am not sure I want to be.
Anyway makes for nice writing material!
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