A co-worker of mine read my blog on myspace about the company's Christmas party and has been asking me to post it here since he first read it. I wasn't going to post it because: first, it's really long. Second, it's not Christmas. Third, more people I work with read this page than do myspace, but then I thought "what the hell" if the party sucked, then the party sucked - so, here is the blog as it first appeared on myspace:

I am not big on parties, especially office parties, more specifically office Christmas parties. I am like that cynical employee who sits in his cubical saying, "I don't want to go to a party where the supervisors are going to tell me how much they appreciate the work I do, but then I never hear from them throughout the rest of the year. If you like my work give me a cash insentive if you don't like my work then tell me to 'shut the hell up' and get back to work" It seems that I'm not the only one who feels that way. Many of the people that I work directly with feel the same way. It was decided early on that I was not going to go to the Christmas party, but then things change and as in past years, at the last minute I decided that I would give it a try to see if I were pleasantly surprised.

I have to admit that I was surprised. I was surprised at the lack of quality and professionalism of the catering staff and how bad this party was. This was the mother of all bad parties. We were all shocked and awed by how bad this was. The first thing I noticed was that the party was located in a bad area of town. Later, I would hear from someone who works at the clinic, whose husband is a cop that when they arrived he pointed out the police barricade and the sheet covering the body down the street from where we were having the worst Christmas party ever. The place was dark, we had to drive around the building a few times because the big sign in front of the building was off, so it was hard to see from the street. We had to park at the back of a dark parking lot. In keeping with the holiday spirit set by the party, I almost expected a vagrant Christmas elf to jump out of the dark and beat us to death with a giant candy cane.

Once we got inside the building, which took a long time because the lady at the door was passing out raffle tickets to each person, counting out ten and then going into a five minute speech as to what to do with the tickets. She never changed her speech so it almost felt like we were waiting at the entrance of an exclusive club - a club that I would call "Christmas in Hell with all your bosses that don't know your name or care who you are" I'm not being synical, I'm being honest - there's a difference. Once we got passed the lady at the door we noticed that there weren't any seats. I'd understand the seating problem if we had been late, but we weren't. We figured we'd worry about the seats later, first we would get in the long food line and get something to eat. The menu was supposed to be a good one. We got in line for the food expecting to eat something good, or at least something edible. We got cold noodles and cold garlic/ginger or some other nasty spiced mashed potatoes - we were the lucky ones. Some people didn't get anything at all. I would think that a party put on by a government agency would at least have enough food to feed the people who attended.

At other parties that I've been to we were offered tea, water, or coffee with our meals. At this extravaganza we were offered neither. If we wanted a drink we were forced to pay $3 for a small bottle of water, $4 for a 12 ounce can of soda or $5 for a drink at the bar. We decided that if we're going to pay $4 for a soda we would get a bar drink instead for a dollar more - things don't always work out the way you think. My friend went to the bar to get the drinks and the bartender didn't have any of the ingredients needed to make any of the drinks he ordered. We settled for a $4 Coke and a $4 Sprite. The funny thing is that if you did break down and pay the fee for the drinks and then you set them on your table you better not even look away or else the staff would take your drink and you'd be forced to pay for another one.

It was bad, but the thing that really blew my mind was the fact that at no table were a salt and pepper shaker to be found. We asked four different catering staff members for salt before we were able to get some and that's only after we asked to speak to the manager. They all looked at us as if we were asking for the Pope to come and spoon feed us cold nasty ass spiced mashed potatoes. We found out that our friends sitting at the table by the door had gotten salt only after they talked to the manager, so I told the waiter "they have salt at the first table."

The waiter then said, "So, you're saying you want me to take the salt shaker from their table and bring it to your table."

I answered with, "You're saying that you only have one salt shaker for the entire room." The waiter made a face at me, then I asked to speak to the manager. After asking for the manager I was finally given some of the hard to find salt. It wasn't a salt shaker though, it was just a packet of salt and a small packet of pepper.

Well, at least we had a dance floor and a DJ - the DJ was ok, he's an employee where I work and has always been kind to me, so I can't really say anything bad about him. The dance floor was amazing. It was just big enough for about six people. Everyone electric slid right onto the carpet. Oh well, what can you expect when the party committee spends a year raising money and then charges everyone $30 a ticket <-(That's me being sarcastic)

The desert was an ice cream bar - that just screams class - The problem with the ice-cream bar was that as we finished our meal we got up to get ice cream and were told that they had just wrapped everything up, so we weren't allowed to get any. How hard is it to take the cardboard top off a tub of ice cream and serve a scoop of ice cream in a dish? The funny thing and I'm sure you'll agree with me on this is that my friend then saw the same catering staff that had just told us that the ice cream was put away eating bowls of the stuff.

Another thing that seemed out of place at a Christmas party such as this one is the fact that instead of taking care of the partygoer's needs the staff seemed to gathered watching as people danced. Some of the catering staff even came out and were actually dancing in the dining area. In a professional setting as this was supposed to be, I don't think the catering staff should be out dancing while the needs of the people who paid for the party go unattended. They should have been out looking for salt.

On the bright side, it seems like the catering staff had a good time. I'm sure that this will be the last work related function I'll go to in a long time, but then never say never. Hell could freeze over and I'll be out there dancing on dance floor that is just big enough for me and my date wondering if they brought the salt to my table to mask the flavor of the nasty ass mashed potatoes.