office party of 1

I want one!

Like anyone who reads women’s magazines this time of year – and as much as it lowers my cool quotient to say so, I have to admit I’ve been known to take a peek – I am convinced that the rest of the world is currently gearing up to attend glamorous black tie company parties this weekend.  Why else all the fashion articles devoted to whether one should wear panty hose with strappy sandals to corporate events?  (My personal rule of thumb?  It’s December – if you want to be considered competent enough to get that next big career building project, demonstrate first that you have mastered the somewhat less complex skill of avoiding frost bite.)

After a careful review of my calendar, it appears I have nowhere to a) wear an inappropriately low cut cocktail dress, b) drink too much at an open bar, then c) make out with a colleague on an office Xerox machine (did I mention the oh-my-God-what-did-I-do! advice columns also seem full of this stuff?).  I think my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail for the past 25 years or so.

My first exposure to office parties was, quite literally, baloney.  The chairman of the orchestra board – heiress to a candy bar fortune, no less – invited everyone to her home for the event.  I missed it.  Already on a plane and heading back to Mom’s house for the holidays, I imagined crystal chandeliers, gorgeous Christmas trees, silver trays of scrumptious catered food.  Instead when I returned to DC I learned from my fellow symphony serfs that the menu that evening had been baloney sandwiches.

And a “Bah, humbug” to you, too!

The food was significantly better a couple of years ago when I was doing a project for OU’s College of Nursing and got invited to their holiday luncheon.

Now OU may be a state university, but when it comes to Christmas, let’s just say they’re unapologetically Oklahoman.  In other words, we’re Midwestern, we’re Christian, and the janitorial staff has no political correctness qualms about spending weeks getting out garlands and wreaths, poinsettias and a large Christmas tree (decorated in OU red, of course). 

On that day every public space was adorned and the atrium was lovely.  Long tables running down its center were covered with a turkey-and-all-the-trimmings meal.  And 99% of the women in attendance had broken out their black pants and sparkly holiday sweaters (fortunately, my mom and my aunt insisted that, for the first time in years, I buy one that fall so I fit the dress code just fine).  There was music from an acapella employee group, a nice speech from the dean and then – well, public humiliation is not a suitable gift for the season.  When they tried to break us up into small groups to perform carols for the entire packed Student Lounge, my sensible tablemates made a run for their offices, jingling and sparkling all the way.

There may not be any major company Christmas party skeletons in my past – and no opportunity for getting on Santa’s naughty list in my immediate future – but that doesn’t mean I can’t have a little holiday party for one.  I think today while I’m working I’ll switch my radio to the OKC station that plays only Christmas music in December.  I’ll fix myself a big mug of instant hot chocolate instead of iced tea.  I may even pull out my sparkly Christmas sweater to wear with my jeans.  ‘Tis the season after all.

there's no such thing as a free lunch

I was working last week on an agenda for a client’s customer advisory board meeting and amidst all my notes about new product strategies, market feedback requirements and the benefits of JAD sessions versus more freeform focus groups, I dictated the specifics of every single meal.  Why?  When it comes to the software business, it’s all about the free food.

It’s no secret that the average tech start-up runs on 24/7 pizza and caffeine.   A well-fed geek is a happy geek;  I learned that years ago from the Mr. Fields of cookie fame.  I also learned that big bowls of chocolate chips in the reception area and on the conference room tables are a very, very good thing.

Since then, I’ve worked in places where the highlight of the day was the free lunch delivery – and not just for my dog, Geeks (yes, I used to take my dog to work – another tech company perk).  Geeks had a system worked out.  Around 11:15 am, her little internal doggie alarm would go off and she’d move from her favorite napping position under my desk to a spot in the reception area where she could keep an eye on the door.  “Food is coming!” every alert muscle in her body would say.

When the delivery man finally arrived, where, oh, where to go first?

Now a more ordinary dog might trail along after the first person to pick up his or her food.  Stake out the closest office.  Follow her favorite smell.  Not Geeks.  The Geek Dog’s begging calculations were based on a very specific formula:  likelihood of sharing divided by speed of consumption.  Using this equation, my shaggy girl could travel from desk to desk for an hour or more until every last handout opportunity was exhausted.

With 30 employees to beg from at work, Geeks was quite the rotund little dog.  She also developed quite the programmer’s taste in food.  An experiment was once performed (not by me) to see how much pizza she could eat in one sitting.  The results?  Two and a half large pies.  Whenever I’d suggest to my colleagues that perhaps Geeks should go on a diet, they’d respond, “But she always seems so hungry!  Don’t you ever feed her?  She looks at me with those eyes…”  Yes, big beautiful brown eyes, intelligent face, twitching ears – the Geek Dog is a highly evolved free food begging machine.

Unfortunately, at home there’s no one to fork food over and no catering van ready to pull into my drive.  There’s not even the possibility of a stray pizza delivery boy.  Lunch is whatever I remember to buy at the grocery store – most days tuna, yogurt and an apple.  Boring for me, boring for stand-offish cats, boring for little brown dogs.

So sometimes in the mornings, when I'm planning what I'm going to eat for lunch today, I think back to the glory years.  Those were the days, weren’t they, when Geeks lived for lunch – and so did I!