What did you score at your office holiday party?

[OriginalGeek]

I got a nifty fifth of Tullamore Dew


We do the gift swapping game thing - someone stole my case of beer from around the world so I stole a bottle of Beam that only had one hit (at our thing, a two hit gift is done so you get to keep it but only one hit means someone could still take it). I wanted the Dew but my boss got that and had no hits on it so I took the Jim Beam expecting someone else to take it and hoping that the Dew would have been on its' last hit and that's exactly how it went down. I took the Beam, bosses' boss took bosses' Dew, boss took my Jim Beam and I grabbed the Tullamore for its' last hit.

We have fun.

[jmowreader]

1. What's an office party?

[OriginalGeek]

3. It's like a house party

only at the office..

We had pot luck food - lots of ham and chicken and mac and cheese and plenty of desserts

then we had the gift exchange but we had to hide the booze we scored when going back to our department so so busybodies in other departments wouldn't get all snitchy.

[progressoid]

2. Haven't been to an office Xmas party for 14 years.

That's when I went self employed.

But when I was the manager, we always had a big spread of food/drink. Not much made it to the end of the day!

[OriginalGeek]

4. One lady made red velvet cup-cakes

I asked her if she would marry me but she pointed out that my wife may object. :/

But they was some daaaaaaaaaaaamn good cupcakes.

[progressoid]

5. I do miss that part of that job.

The interaction with the other employees.

It was stressful sometimes. But if my boss hadn't been a right wing racist homophobe, I might still be there.

[OriginalGeek]

7. Yikes!

that's a plenty good enough reason to leave. I've been pretty lucky here - going in 15 years and even the time I had a republican boss he was never a bigot that I noticed. And his boss (our former CIO) was a wonderful, liberal, ridiculously smart lady whom I loved dearly and am still sad she retired so she might have tempered any crazy right-wing tendencies he might have had. He's pretty socially liberal and that's more important to me anyway.

Then again, we are a pretty large not-for-profit org so maybe we attract people of my political bent - even in IT.

[lastlib]

17. (I once prposed to a co-worker when she brought in chocolate fudge for Christmas.....

I LOVE chocolate fudge!! And hers was worth dyin' for! She called her boyfriend and told him she had a better offer! I had to do some fast-talkin' to get out of it.....)

[OriginalGeek]

23. lol! I understand completely

man...these cup-cakes.....just soooo gooood...

[Zavulon]

6. Nothing. Avoided it.

I have a standing deal with my boss: if necessary, I'll work any holiday, no questions asked. In exchange I want the Monday after the Super Bowl off and I want out of the office Xmas party. It's a deal that has been going strong since 2002, and we both cash in on it twice a year.

[OriginalGeek]

8. Hey that sounds like a good deal

I might have to start that Superbowl thing...but I like getting free food and liquor so Imma keep going to the party. It's just our department so it's not like I gotta go somewhere and mix with people I don't know.

[shenmue]

9. I didn't get squat

I'm hoping maybe a gift card when they let me go in January.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

10. THAT is a nice bottle! I love that stuff...

to your question, though : I have not gone to our company Christmas party (Holiday party) in years. Before our company got bought out we used to have amazing parties. They were always held at a nice facility away from the office and featured fingerfoods, drinks, live music (well, there was a DJ a couple of times and he was great) and dancing... after the buyout? The last party I went to was held on the company office site, started at 4PM (scheduled for two hours) and featured an igloo cooler full of 'mostly' cold cheap beer and a small snack setup... oh, and piped in muzak kind of stuff... it sucked. I stayed for 10 minutes and have not been to one since. It is a real shame...

sP

[OriginalGeek]

12. That is a crying shame

I did get in trouble a little bit when some modern christmas song came on talking about how it was Jesus' birthday I said (apparently a little too loudly) "but we all do know that, assuming he was real at all, there's no way he was born in December right?"
Since it was a department full of IT people the comment was accepted by more folks than maybe other departments would have but it was not unanimously accepted... lol..

We have some good cooks in our dept (or at least spouses of good cooks) so we get a lot of great homemade food. We can't drink at the party (it's held during work hours on premises) but we do love to give and get booze in the white elephant gift exchange.

That's my fault too - for years everyone brought boring crap and gift cards so one year I decided to bring a bottle of honey mead. I was the only one to bring liquor and it worked out that I got the last steal of the game and I stole my own bottle back. There was a tiny uproar but it was not against the rules so I snatched that thing and kept it and told everyone "Hey, if everybody brings liquor, everybody can get liquor."
The next year there were around 10 bottles in the gift exchange and ever since there has been a pretty solid core of us that do that so we all go home happy.

[DFW]

11. Zero. The party was held 6000 miles away from me.

Keeps the nice people back at HQ away from riffraff like me............

[OriginalGeek]

13. lol if I could trade the party

for a week in Germany I guaranteeeeeee I'd be bathing in German beer in a heartbeat.

[DFW]

14. I've been told many times what a waste this is

But I HATE beer. However, I am married to one of the more comely friendly natives, and her cooking more than makes up for it.

[OriginalGeek]

19. Yeah brother

I've seen pictures you post of your wife - You win even without drinking the beer.

[DFW]

26. Yeah, that was the only lottery I ever won

It was by far the most important one, though.

[onethatcares]

15. first year I worked for the present company

I asked where the Christmas party was and was told there was none,

Second year I told the admin clerk that it was ok to tell me where the Christmas party was and she told me there was none,

The next year, in January, one of the other guys that works out of the same office told me I missed one of the best parties ever,

that it was open bar and whatever you wanted to eat at the Vinoy hotel. Fuck em all, I don't even want to deal with asses like that.

btw, I'm almost 8 years in the same job and aside from a bit of phone contact and a check, there is no contact.

[OriginalGeek]

22. Aww man that sucks

GO give yourself a nice bottle of Irish Whiskey and don't even share it with any of them mopes.

[catbyte]

16. Home made "Death by Chocolate" cheesecake that my boss made. YUM.

He should've gone into business selling his cheesecakes. He would be a multimillionaire by now, I swear. Several days of chocolate ecstasy to come, yay! It weighs about 5 pounds, but it is still light. I don't know how he does it.

[OriginalGeek]

20. That sounds fantastic!

And weird because my boss also makes cheesecakes although we were all sorely disappointed that he didn't have time this year. He usually goes way out of the bounds of just a regular cheesecake and it seems to always just be amazing.

[olddots]

18. thankfully nobody scored an STD

[OriginalGeek]

21. hey I don't follow everyone home

so I can neither confirm nor deny that...

[El Supremo]

24. That's great!

I love that stuff.

I got a $100 gift card for Home Depot and some Enstrom's toffee. No bonus yet.

[Initech]

25. We had an expensive meal at a nice steak place.