Company Holiday Party

[soundman98]

this won't even be top 10!

at the midwest chapter electrical contractors christmas party, they always do a raffle of a number of stuffs donated mostly by the supply houses we all use.

anyways, i was complaining one year midway through the raffle that i never win anything at these stupid raffles. i was barely done saying that, and they called my name. i won a single 65 watt led flood lamp bulb.

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Now, 20 years ago when my wife worked in the head office for a small hairdressing chain and I played Santa every year with a couple of hundred scantily clad and drunken' stylists that loved to sit on Santa's lap...

Given the profession it begs the question, men or women?

During my corporate career they mixed local venues with blowouts every few years flying associates and their guest to Hawaii for long weekends. We grew to expect it until the new teetotaler CEO bean counter put the screws on and handed out turkeys instead.

[humfrz]

OK, let's hear some juicy stories of what happened to you just after the company Christmas party -


humfrz

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Atmo

Given the profession it begs the question, men or women?

During my corporate career they mixed local venues with blowouts every few years flying associates and their guest to Hawaii for long weekends. We grew to expect it until the new teetotaler CEO bean counter put the screws on and handed out turkeys instead.

All women at that point in time and location.


Now if it had been San Francisco...

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I haven't worked for a place that had a Christmas party in over 30 years. They just simply do not exist for larger companies these days...

Same here, never had an official "company party" or even the infamous "Christmas Bonus" unless you count a $100 gift card or such.

Then again, doubt I would go even if they did have one unless it was held someplace interesting like the Lucas Arts one described above.

[Atmo]

Originally Posted by humfrz

OK, let's hear some juicy stories of what happened to you just after the company Christmas party -
humfrz

The most memorable party that people always ask me to retell is what happened when the party was on a ship docked at the Port of Portland before it departed for Asia.

Our marketing director planned it months ahead and it was a huge hit...for the most part. Fine dining, open bar, fun entertainment, casino games, gifts and prizes and went on half the night until we had to clear out, the ship was departing the next afternoon, a Sunday.

When we got to work Monday morning we got a call from one of our dealerships whose owner was in attendance at the party to ask if we'd seen him. We remembered that he was very drunk that night so it didn't take much to figure it out. A sat call from the ship's broker to the Captain triggered a vessel wide search and they found him, still passed out, in a head on a lower deck.

By then the ship was far out to sea, beyond the range of a standard helicopter so we hired a long range helo to go winch him off the deck and bring him home.

That was the last Christmas party on anything that moved.

[DarkPira7e]

We do a "rolling" holiday party each year ( ours was last Friday) of which teams provide food near their suite and other teams come along to grab it. So you'll have 15-20 teams providing all sorts of different food and baked goods and you get an hour to troll around, finding all the different groups and eating what you find.

2 years ago while this was going on, our smoke alarms started going off in the building. As we were evacuating, we were looking to see if anyone's stuff was obviously burning.
Fast forward 45 minutes as we all stand in the parking lot while it snows and was about 15 degrees F, they found the culprit - A toaster oven had been left on in the kitchen overnight, and since the kitchen staff didn't working during the holiday party; the toaster oven finally caught on fire.

Only a few people were smart enough to run outside with the food they'd already gotten. Everyone else afterwards had to go find where they had set their plate down and re-heat their now cold food

[Sapphireho]

I worked for the gubment for 30 years, so no holiday parties or bonuses. We would have a potluck lunch.

But some of the companies my wife worked for had some great ones. For several years she worked for a venture capital firm. Party was always at a michelin star place in San Francisco. They sent cars to everyone's home each year so no one had to drive. My favorite was when they rented out the entire kokkari restaurant in SF.

a tech firm she worked for one year bused us all to the wine train in napa. That was cool.

But the over the top one was last year. It was like @DandoX described, but at the Monterey Bay aquarium. Food stations everywhere, bars everywhere. I hung out mostly between the sushi station and the rack of lamb station. Then there was the dessert room. It was the company's 40 year anniversary too, so they went all out. live band, dancing, pro photographer, champagne toast, the works. It was amazing.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Sapphireho

at the Monterey Bay aquarium.
It was amazing.

Hope you did not confuse the sushi station with the fish food station!

[Sapphireho]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Hope you did not confuse the sushi station with the fish food station!

Lol. That reminds me of another time at the Monterey Bay aquarium. My daughter wanted to go to the aquarium for her 12th birthday. A friend mentioned he had a buddy doing a research project there. I figured we would get in free or something. No. This guy met us at the door and spent half the day with us and took us behind every single door in the place. Absolutely amazing! We got to feed the giant tuna, and even got to hold one of the penguins. All the fish food is in a building on the roof. Giant tanks with live clams, crabs, etc..

[extrashaky]

The last Christmas party I attended was with my group at a Big 4 accounting firm. We borrowed a space in our managing partner's condo building and walked over from the office. The most exciting events at these parties were usually the stories about prior parties, especially the one about the girl who shit on the floor in front of the Nashville audit partner's office door. Good times.

The central feature of our party was "Dirty Santa." If you've never played, each of us brought a wrapped gift and drew numbers to determine the order people would select gifts. The "dirty" part was that you could steal a gift from someone who picked before you and force them to pick again, but a gift could only be stolen once.

I brought what I thought was an unusual but nice gift, a gourmet elk sausage. I had had one before and found it delicious. Everybody made fun of it and made the guy who got it feel like shit. He asked me if I wanted it back, but the group started yelling that it was against the rules to take back your own gift and made him take it home.

My number was 3, which meant I chose early. I kept having to go back to the pile over and over as every gift I selected was stolen. I got a bottle of wine... Stolen. I got some electronic doodad... Stolen. I got a $25 gift card... I just looked at it, sighed and said, "Okay, who wants this one?"

I finally ended up with this ridiculous concrete sculpture of a seal. It was curled around itself with its nose sticking straight up. It actually looked like a pile of shit. Somebody said, "Hey, you should leave that on the floor in front of Steve's office!" Hilarity.

The woman who brought it said, "I remembered this morning I needed to bring something, so I grabbed that out of my yard on the way out." It still had dirt on it. Obviously nobody wanted to steal that.

Meanwhile, we had all brought food for a pot luck. Everything had meat in it. Even the potato salad. That was fine for all us Nashville residents. Our visiting team members from India, who were all vegetarians, surely enjoyed watching everyone else enjoy lunch.

There was leftover food, so when we were done the boss loaded me up with stuff to carry back to the office along with my idiotic concrete seal. In among the stuff he piled on me was a boiled shrimp platter. It leaked. I arrived back at the office covered chin to crotch in shrimp juice.

As soon as I dumped the food off at the kitchen, I put that fucking seal on the filing cabinet outside my cubicle, right in the corridor outside my manager's office. I made those sons of bitches look at it for a year. The manager whined about it but wouldn't make me take it home because he'd have to admit everyone actually hated Dirty Santa but him.

[humfrz]

Good story -


humfrz

[Hoahao]

Office I worked in had a Xmass party where everybody brought a dish. Being single, and not being a cook, I'd have to buy something. Usually I'd get a cheese cake.

One year I forgot all about it, and had to buy something on the fly. So I got a Fruit Cake!!

Naturally, nobody touched it. I don't eat fruit cake, so wasn't going to take it home. That said, I didn't see any point in throwing out a perfectly good fruit cake. So I carefully re-wrapped it and placed it in the back of the freezing section of the company's kitchen fridge.

Next year I quietly got it out, scrapped the frost off the out side, and set it out. Naturally, nobody touched it. Rinse and repeat!!

I got away with this for three years until one July somebody left the door to the fridge open and the girls decided to defrost the fridge. They came upon the now ice encased fruit cake and put two and two together.

Next thing I knew, I had three females in my office giving me the what for!!

I promised to bring cheese cake from then on.

[extrashaky]

Originally Posted by Hoahao

So I got a Fruit Cake!!

Naturally, nobody touched it.

People give the fruitcake a bad rap because all they've had is the crap sold at the local drug store. It's like saying you don't like wine because all you've ever had is Mad Dog 20/20.

We have a family friend who makes gourmet fruitcakes soaked in liquor. They are fantastic.