Office Parties.

Thursday and Friday evenings were office party nights for me. Thursday was the Division party and Friday was the Department party.

I didn't think I'd care much for Thursday's, but bossman told us we had to go and mingle. It was a cocktail party at the hotel across the street. They had hors d'oeuvres and open bar. Bossman was very adamant that we drink since he talked the Big Boss into an open bar. The department clumped a bit at the start, but by the time I'd been there 15 minutes or so I was out and about. I chatted with my primary users and had a couple glasses of wine. It was nice and I really enjoyed chatting. I ended up staying 15 or 20 minutes past what was supposed to be the ending time. Then cheerfully went home to watch the porn actor win Survivor.

Friday was a whole different kind of evening. The first year I was there it was just the department out for a nice dinner. The next us and a couple of our favorite vendors. Last year was them and the Exec VP from across the hall. This year it was us but not the vendors because bossman said it was "just family". Apparently family now includes a couple of the management heavy hitters.

We got there and had a drink waiting for the various car loads to assemble. Then we were shown to our table in what I like to think of as "the party pit". It's a semi-private separate area in the restaurant. Boss man appeared sloshed after his first drink. He stood up on a chair mocking the big boss from the night before. He told the waiter his name was the big bosses name, and then he explained that he wanted the drinks to keep on coming.

The restaurant itself is excellent. We had a selection of appetizers around the table. The phone answering consultant ordered a couple of bottles of wine for a psuedo wine-tasting. The boss and his best management buddy wowed us with their useless knowlege of sports trivia. The new web-chick too pictures with a disposable camera.

It took an age for them to take our main course orders. Bossman and his buddy were going on about this and that and then bossman started singing the welcome song from Cabaret, at the top of his lungs. He was kissing the other men on the head or cheek, he was discussing his porn collection, it was bizarre. His management buddy even said that he kissed him in the men's room while he was taking a leak. That was almost more than he could take. The meal was good but I was about done by the time it arrived. They were smoking cigars right in the hallway next to the table. It stunk, they were loud, embarassing and just too much to bear.

Apparently they had reserved a room upstairs at the Cigar Bar for after dinner. Apparently desert was to be served up there. I had enough by then and declined. They don't pay me enough to sit with a bunch of stinky cigar smoking drunks on my own time.

I expect that on monday I will catch shit for leaving "early" (it was 9:30). I will catch bigger shit for telling the story about the admin opening a box addressed to the boss and finding it was full of porn tapes. I plan to tell him that if he wants us to drink while we are out with him, he'll just have to deal with what comes out of our mouths while we've been drinking. Of course, then again that supposes that any of them will be in tomorrow. I'm thinking me, the admin, one tech, the phone guy and the new webguy. At most.