I realized today yet again how much more civilized the Europeans are in comparison with Americans. First of all, because they get so many weeks of vacation, they normally don't work at all around the Christmas and New Year's holidays. This, to me, make perfect sense. Because really, is anyone doing work for the next two weeks - real work - or are they just working to look busy until after the holidays have passed.
Today we had our office holiday party for the better part of the day, 11:30 - 3:00. It included a White Elephant gift exchange with the most convoluted and confusing rules I have ever seen. For the first time ever in one of these things I actually did alright. I got a decent-sized Starbuck's travel mug, and no one "exchanged" with me. I think that the right tactic in these things is to go for the middle ground - a gift that's decent enough to be useful but not interesting enough to be in high demand. Apparently the high demand gift for this crowd was a bottle of wine. I brought in a decent New Zealand Sauvingnon Blanc (not my favorite - but decent nonetheless.) and it must have changed hands at least a dozen times. Other popular gifts were $15 gift cards for Starbucks (people must have done some last minute shopping at Starbucks right before the party), a Chia Homer, and a box of Belgian Truffles (goodness knows how old they actually were).
All in all, not a bad way to re-enter the work week after a glorious weekend in NYC.
3 comments:
Yes, Europeans definitely have it right. Even though I started a new job today, it's exciting, blah blah blah, it's still having to go to work for 40 hours a week and 2 weeks vacation. Blah!
mmmmm......worthless weeks.
your output is slacking!
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