The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Work + Party = ?

Tonight's the annual Christmas party for the company I work for, and I have a spot set for me. I'm not much interested in parties period, and going to a semi-formal affair with people from work (and their dates) doesn't really sweeten the deal. To be brutally honest, a solid 95% of the reason I attend is because that's when the Christmas bonuses are handed out by the host as he sees people come in and does the meet-and-greet any good host does.

That's been the traditional situation.

However, by Friday afternoon we found out that reportedly due to too hectic a schedule this week (and it was hectic, there's no denying that, and moreso for the head honcho than for any of us from what I could see) the checks were not processed and would not be handed out then. It seems they're coming almost two weeks later, on or around the 16th.

Were I following my life like the latest volume in a series of poor novels I would have seen this coming the first time I caught myself telling someone that this is when we receive our Christmas bonuses. The not very good, but nonetheless All Powerful Writer looks on and says "Oh, Reeeeallly?" and the script takes a turn in the simple spirit of malice.

Color me disappointed.

Do they still make that color, or was it retired with "flesh"? (Further aside: Several sites inform me that "flesh" was retired in 1962, replaced with "peach," which reinforces the extreme shelf life for crayons as I know there were still boxes of crayons with "flesh" printed on them much farther into the 60's.)

Yes, I know it's a bonus. An extra. To make any complaints about the timing may seem to reek of ingratitude. But as Chevy Chase taught us in Christmas Vacation, people come to expect it, count on it and incorporate it into their December financial plans. If people come to expect it at essentially the start of the month it's likely to be counted on, and having it shifted from then to just past the middle of the month...

This year in particular it's going to prove tricky due to my wife's health & work status, which (combined, yes, with some less-than-essential spending along the way) have left me feeling as if I'm back where we were years ago, jumping anxiously from paycheck to paycheck, reshuffling the latest bills, looking for which ones can be held off the longest and paying some at or near the required minimum, all of which I hate doing.

Piss & moan. Repeat.

It would probably help if I were a drinker. Certainly, "open bar" continues to be the #1 response on the worker survey for why they attend. I drink at these things (Good Lord, I have to do something to get through these social events, and dropping into a trance is less socially acceptable), but I don't get smashed, and year by year the seeming demand for it becomes louder. The next best thing - probably the better thing, period - remains watching others get hammered. We have some promising first-timers coming up to the bar this year, so I'll be watching for... irrational exuberance, hostility, etc. It's a spectator sport!

It's a very nice affair - pleasant surroundings, good food, generally good people, and I do appreciate the effort involved in pulling it off - but it's something I endure more than enjoy. I'm not well-suited to these affairs. It's not a fun time for me.

At last word two friends won't be attending, which will make this a full level of magnitude less tolerable still. It wasn't confirmed that they'd be skipping it, but odds favored the tone I was picking up Friday. Potential excuses were coming out like a fan of cards during lunch, so I'm not expecting them to be there.

With the auctions I have running coming to an end starting shortly after 10 tonight I'll have an extra incentive to skip out shortly after dessert and our host giving his annual address to the troops. Hopefully more interested buyers will have found my items in the final hours and it'll at least be a complete sell-off. The stars of the show thusfar are the Mechwarrior convention exclusive with inquiries from Germany and Japan (The former Axis powers are looking for battling robots! Alert President Roosevelt!) and the REV set of Titanium Man. The latter's rare due to the changes in rarity levels in this most recent set of Heroclix.

Well... I have some other tasks to attend to around here, including getting dinner started for everyone else and seeing what I'm going to wear.

Hey! Isn't this supposed to be my time off?