Your leaking thatched hut during the restoration of a pre-Enlightenment state.

 

Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").

links

decay & ruin
Biosphere II
Chernobyl
dead malls
Detroit
Irving housing

got that wrong
Paleofuture.com

appropriate tech
Arduino μcontrollers
Backwoods Home
Fractal antenna

fun social media stuff


Like asecular.com
(nobody does!)

Like my brownhouse:
   company picnic
Friday, July 16 1999
At noon our managers kicked everyone out of the office and we all headed to the beach at Crown Point in Mission Bay (very close to where I was at the stroke of midnight that sliced 1999 from 1998). The purpose of all this shocking lack of productivity was the celebration of the company's sixth birthday.
Our company has a number of unusual traditions, and even after nine months on the job I'm still learning what they are. At company picnics, I was to learn, the rules are as follows:

  • Members of the "executive team" (the head honchos, usually sporting "VP" or "Director" in their titles) had to serve the lowly rest of us. On this one day of the year, unlike on all the others, they had to do our bidding and fulfill our wishes. Us peons had even been given forms to fill out by which we could request services, foods, and tangible objects. Some of us requested car washes. Some wanted massages. Others wanted to race around on jet skis. Still others requested various strange objects (including a midget and a vintage convertible Cadillac with genuine leather seats - these requests were usually fulfilled with images downloaded from the internet or models from a toy store). One person even requested that the members of the "executive team" come to the picnic in drag. With my usual cynical eye, I saw all of this honcho-peon role reversal as yet another way to demonstrate who has and who does not have the power in the company, as if that wasn't clear enough already. But they can't fool me; I'm fully aware that things said ironically are still said.
  • At company picnics, there is plenty of alcohol and a great variety of obvious expensive food such as lobster (requested in the forms mentioned above). But you had to show up early or you didn't get any of it, since this event definitely came with a budget.
  • At a certain point in the festivities, after we're all good and drunk, the Grand Pooh Bah makes a little announcement in which he jokingly sums up the past and ironically downplays the work necessary to make it to the hoped-for future. After that, he awards ten or so prizes in various categories such as:
    • "Best Pig Freaker" - a somewhat bestial act done with a pink plastic piggie bank; this is a frequent "penalty" doled out to those who have given energy to more than one person at the weekly "Energy" motivational ritual.
    • "Person from whom Energy seemed to contain the least bullshit" - lots of our culture seems to revolve around this motivational ritual that I so often skip.
    • "Person most in touch with [our particular market's] demographic"
    • "Mole award"- to the person so focused that everyone else forgets they're even there. (I eventually won second place on this one.)
    These awards are determined by the results of a secret ballot.

It didn't take many drinks before I'd basically lost my cynicism about the picnic. Though there's nothing inherently interesting or comic about a bunch of hairy, conservative corporate executives in drag, their mortification definitely had a certain entertainment value. I was especially impressed that, of all of the head honchos, the Grand Pooh Bah seemed the least mortified in his skimpy little number. It's during humiliating circumstances that you have the best opportunity to see how confident someone is with his ultimate life's plan. By the measure of his coolness in a dress, the Grand Pooh Bah is very confident indeed.
There were plenty of activities in which I could have participated, including the jet skis that someone had requested and the massages in the massage tent, but all I really did was drink alcohol and engage in light comic conversations with people. I certainly wanted no part in a relay-race drinking game that combined running, spinning, crawling and chugging. I did, however, do some show-and-tell with the nipple errata in my arm pits.
Every now and then Eric the Web Developer would update me on his perceived progress with the attractive blond temp worker chick. He was especially delighted just after the two had gone jet-skiing together.
Originally my plans had been to sneak out of the picnic at the earliest possible convenience. But with the free alcohol and fun conversation, I stayed from noon until sunset. That was a hell of a lot of sun exposure for me, and as usual it left me weakened and lethargic. As I was leaving, I snagged some expensive alcohol, dropped Eric the Web Developer back at the office so he could pick up his vehicle, and then I returned to my place. Eric joined me there, actually took a shower in my shower, and then we prepared to hit Newport Street in Ocean Beach.
At Pacific Shores we met up with a few of our work colleagues, real live girls believe it or not. One of the girls, Barbie, knew about a party happening only a block from my house, so that's where we went next. When we got there, the people all looked like the sort with whom I'd normally be compatible, but they were all strangers to me. For some reason the alcohol was no longer doing anything to reverse my shyness and boredom, so I eventually slipped off and went back to my place to pass out.

For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?990716

feedback
previous | next