Skip to main content

Christmas party 2005

Friday (December 2) was the company Christmas party. I have been to one before this for this company. The party was pretty tame the last time around. I was fairly new as well. This time around however, it was a lot better. There were more people I knew and the venue was closer to the office. There was even a fellow in a kilt. That makes for a fun evening.

The food was reasonable, the DJ was surprising on account of his age and the music he played, the company delightful. Around 9pm, the developers went to bed. Really. It was as if an inaudible WebCT developers only alarm had gone off; all of them picked up and left. That left behind Support and part of IT. One of the IT fellows was celebrating his birthday as well.

One of my managers started to dance. I was thoroughly entertained. There was plenty of video footage to take and I did. They shall entertain me forever.

I had to drop some people (including my date, who is a co-worker not invited to the party on account of the fact that she is not a full time employee of the company which is silly if you think about it) off at the office and pick up my stuff, so I did. With my manager's vehicle. My manager had promised himself he wouldn't drink. Fat chance.

The rest of us went to a place called 'lucy mae brown' (in lower-case as per their signage) and had a good time there. Having made the bar-folks richer for the evening, we left around 2am, only to go to a Chinese restaurant on Davie and Granville known for its good-food-when-drunk reputation. I think most of the lot sobered up there. The only thing that got to me was their incessant tearing apart of other people at work. It was ad hominem at its very best. Alcohol sure does bring out the best in everyone. I resisted the urge to go for a walk on account of the entertaining stories and the cold outside.

Food done, a couple of them walked home, I drove a couple more to their car, left a few to get a ride off someone else. Got close to home, had a disagreement with my manager on how I was to get home. He woke his parents to drive me home. At 4 in the morning. Needless to say, I was not pleased. Got home safe. Went to bed at 5. Was woken by the alarm for Whistler at 5:25am. Didn't end up going there.


The crowd at the Christmas party. The god father sitting out back looking very serious. Dave showing off his pearly whites. The rest of them are just milling about.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Birthday Canada

I have celebrated more than 20 Canada Days in Canada. While this nation is far from perfect and we have so much further to go, there is hope. We are a nation, at 153, looking at the future with a mixed record: we have immense prosperity, peace, safety and a relatively good standard of living for most . We are welcoming to immigrants, refugees and guarantee people with a wide range of rights. We are a leader in respecting people's human rights and punch above our weight internationally. We are also a country that is in the midst of a reckoning right now. We have systemic racism, we are at war with the environment - we are actively digging things out of the ground to sell to the rest of the world. Climate change is ravaging our country - we have floods, fires and drought.  Our past and present deeds towards indigenous people is shameful. We have a long way to go yet, but there is hope. In the midst of a pandemic, with social upheaval to correct past wrongs, or at least make amen...

How to make a good thing go bad quickly in tech

I haven't written a work related post in what seems like ages. I am currently living through the aftermath of a third M&A in my career. The company I currently work for is in its third incarnation - from a small tech startup 15 or so years ago to something that was sold to a large software company - one of those lumbering giants that have their hands in all kinds of technology driven fields - where they invested sufficiently in it to grow it in its current location - to now finally being acquired by an even larger technology company - one that its hands in all kinds of technology fields.I came along post the second phase but I have seen 2 other US tech company acquisitions, one that made me quit fast and the other that took me around the world but made me leave anyway. The difference from the previous take-over of the current place and this one is stark. While there was a lot of churn up top in the previous acquisition and differences in what you paid for benefits etc, for...

Thoughts on the new year