Another Office Party

In addition to the annual lunch at Maggiano's, we have a second party. That's a potluck plus a gift exchange. This year's event highlighted to me the problem with potlucks. I made spring rolls, which are easy but take some work, especially in shopping. Our operations director got a three foot sub from Subway. Another person brought a home made, elaborately decorated cake, since his wife is a pro. I have no qualms about people who sign up to bring paper plates or beverages or the like. (We actually went through the process of getting permission to have beer and wine.) But the guy who shows up with a bag of potato chips and a small jar of packaged onion dip doesn't seem to have put in much effort.

As for the gift exchange, a $10 limit is pretty constrained. I contributed a copy of It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Zombies, purchased on Sunday at the San Francisco airport and ended up with a tin of cookies. I held onto an itunes gift card for surprisingly long, but it was stolen last minute.

The party was also the going away for our acting director and our operations director asked for "antidotes" instead of "anecdotes." Which prompted another colleague to say, "my friend would still be alive if I'd known the difference between those words. He got bitten by a copperhead and I was telling funny stories as fast as I could."

I have a party at my condo complex on Sunday and the party at my corporate office on Monday. Then I can go back to being unsociable.