Office Party

I've managed to survive 2 office Christmas parties and one leaving party over the past 7 days. That's a pretty good effort, I reckon. The leaving party was nice. Not nice about our colleague leaving, but nice that we could have a good night out. The problem with our group is that it always starts out low key with a quiet meal, followed by some bowling, and then a quiet sit around and chat. For some reason it always seems to end by sitting at the bus stop with your pants on your head and having no idea how you got there. Our work colleague is moving south to Göteborg and I'm pretty certain he's not going to find the same calibre of companionship there. Some might say that's a good thing.

Friday before last, we had my wife's office Christmas Party. Their structure is a little different to my company, despite us being almost identical in services offered. We are one office split up into several departments. Her's is several departments sharing one office. The difference being that, in her work environment, the different departments seldom get together for any common activity. Whereas my company does. So her Christmas parties are full of people I have come to know over the years. I'm still struggling to figure out who some of the people are at my Christmas parties. For my wife's party, I think I wrote earlier that we were travelling to a large function centre south of Luleå. We have been there previously on our own for the weekend. The event was dinner, a show, and then dancing. These types of venues are extremely common in Sweden, I've found. Much more so than in New Zealand at least. At a guess I would say there were between 500 and 700 people there for the evening in a large banquet type hall, of which we were about 60 including partners. A crowd of that size does make it a little difficult to socialise properly with friends. The food was ok but, again, it's tough to do something really special when you're catering for several hundred every night. But it was perfectly fine. The show itself was entertaining. It was a musical revue which we had seen before (minus the Christmas theme). To be fair, the show isn't likely to ever make it to Broadway. It was amateur, but without being amateurish, if that makes any sense. The cast didn't try to pretend that they were a world class act. They were who they were, and had a great time performing. There's a certain amount of charm attached to that, and it's something I really enjoy. They did a pretty good job and if you were watching it as a High School production you would be quite impressed. Free food, free drinks, fun entertainment, and nice company. No one hit anyone, and no one was chucked out. All in all, a success.

Last Friday was the turn of my employer. To be honest, I'm not much of a fan of Friday night functions these days. Frankly, when Friday evening comes around, I just want to be home. Being at work all day and then going out in the evening feels like I'm losing a bit of my weekend. I would have rather that it had been a Thursday night as it would also mean that things finished at a reasonable time. Showing my age a bit here. Anyway, our venue was an old hall in a historic village about 20 minutes drive from work. There was a bus provided but many people, such as ourselves, decided to take their own vehicles. Maybe. like us, they also wanted to be home at a reasonable hour. Because we had booked the venue just for ourselves, we were able to be catered with a traditional Swedish Christmas buffet. I'm getting rather keen on that now, I  must confess. I think I would feel a little shortchanged now if I had to go back to the Southern Hemsphere summer Christmas food of salads and BBQ. There's a time and a place for that, and it's not Christmas. Not for me anymore, at least. The smaller venue had a nice intimate feel to it, but did make it harder to move around. You were pretty much stuck with the table you sat at. That wasn't too horrible for us as we had chosen a good table, but it would have been nice to chat more with the people I don't normally see much of during my working days. The entertainment provided was, well, unique. It was a guy on his own and a guitar. This combination frightens me sometimes as often those performers have a view of their talent level which differs a little from those who are watching or listening. This guy was a case where the line between amateur and amateurish got crossed. There are several golden rules in entertainment, in my opinion. Some lines you just don't cross. For example, under no circumstance should you ever attempt a Bon Jovi number when you are performing on your own with an acoustic guitar. That's a no-brainer. Some artists you just don't touch. Like Bono, Phil Collins, or Sting. It's the Kiss of Death to even try it. However, should you, as a middle aged solo performer, make the fatal mistake and try a desperate attempt to pull off a Bon Jovi song, you should never, under any circumstances, try to follow up that distaster with a Mariah Carey tribute. Plans were being made to storm the stage should he try Bonnie Tyler.

Overall we had a pretty good night out. A few bridges were mended within my company. There's a long way to go yet before we're a truely happy bunch again, but this was a step in the right direction.