In Which I Attend a Holiday Party
As you already have learned, Javert started working at a new job about two weeks ago. I've been forbidden from revealing the exact name of the company or even using the very clever alias I came up with, so I'll just call it Initech. (It's not like Initech, but so what?)
Initech had their Holiday Party on Friday. I was looking forward to this party for weeks (okay, for the one week that I knew about it) and even went shopping in The-Car-Seat-Lady's closet for something appropriate to wear (didn't find anything). Conveniently, my mother was coming to visit on the night of the party, and since we didn't think it would be right to bring her (Javert: Hello new Initech friends. This is my wife, Emil, and this is my mother-in-law) we had to do some arranging to keep her occupied during our absence. In the end, my brother ended up babysitting her.
Anyway, since my mom was at my apartment, she helped me get dressed for the party. After rejecting almost every item of clothing I own, she finally accepted a pair of brown and sparkly gold Old Navy pants (an old donation by The-Car-Seat-Lady) and a black sweater, coupled with a scarf I had made and pointy Bruno Magli shoes (yet another CSL donation). I worried that I'd be underdressed, but really didn't have anything else.
My mother also forced me to wear makeup. I wore concealer (or foundation? it came in a bottle) and rouge and eyeliner, plus chapstick. I have to admit that I did look good. But there's no way I'd spend 10 minutes doing that every morning.
Javert showed me the tickets he'd received for this party. They were laminated and said Initech's Winter Party 2005 on them and had a picture of a snowflake. My first thought: I spent all day trying to find money so that Holocaust survivors can afford to buy food, and here we are with a pair of laminated tickets to get us into a party. This company obviously has money to burn. Which I already knew, but I can't tell you why or you'd figure out what company it is. Anyway, this company has a reputation for being benevolent and friendly but very exclusive, so I didn't really know what to expect from their party. I guess I did expect a goody-bag, since my friend who crashed last year's Martha Stewart holiday partygot stole one.
Initech's party was at a club/event space downtown. When we got to the door, Javert flashed the laminated tickets and the bouncer moved a red velvet rope aside so we could enter. Inside, we had to hand over the tickets, have our names checked off on a list (even my name was there, not just "guest") AND have our hands stamped. We checked our coats and walked into the party room.
I don't even know what to describe first. I guess I'll start with the ice sculpture in the middle of the bar area (well, one bar area, since there were like 29), which said INITECH. But it was a technologically advanced sculpture with hollowed out sections where bartenders would pour drinks in one side and catch them on the other. We both ordered gin and tonics, which turned out to be 99% gin. Hmm, I thought to myself, maybe Initech is okay... Then we found the people Javert knows, who were in line for food. Which was little tiny veggie burgers (think bite-sized), equally small pieces of pizza, french fries, and some other stuff I didn't eat.
By this time I had noticed that I could divide the people at the party into two groups based on their clothing. Group 1 men wore nice pants and button down shirts with ties, or shirts without ties, or sweaters. Group 1 women wore things similar to what I wore, or the skirt equivalent. Group 2 men wore full suits with pink or purple ties. Group 2 women wore fancy dresses. Based on this, I concluded that Group 1 were tech people, and Group 2 were marketing and MBA types. Meeting these people confirmed my assumption. Group 1's seemed nerdy and pretentious but mostly normal, meaning I could communicate with them. Group 2's seemed overly smarmy and pretentious and on a different social plane from me.
A Group 2 male and female were ahead of us in line for food, totally making out the entire time. While attempting to stare at anything else to avoid looking at them, I noticed that EVERYONE IN THE ROOM WAS UNDER 30! I'm not kidding here, there were probably 20 people out of the 300 or more at the party who were older than 30. Really!
When the dj started playing Madonna, I realized I was actually at a high school dance. Except this high school dance allowed alcohol (and LOTS of it) and had unkosher food and I only hated about 3/4 of the people there instead of 7/8.
Every girl I met, no matter what her Group designation was, told me how she'd heard the dj was famous and had been engaged to Nicole Richie. Too bad that a. I don't care and b. he sucked.
The most embarrassing incident at the party: I went to sit down with Javert and his friend, and my chair collapsed and I FELL OFF. I'd not even finished my first drink at this point, so it wasn't that I was wasted or anything. Of course both men jumped to help me, and then I made Javert sit in that chair, but still, super-embarrassing.
In the end, I had a good time, but mainly because Javert's friends are funny and nice (and older than me), and their spouses were there to moderate boring/pretentious job-related conversations, and because of the copious amounts of free alcohol and butter-cream frosted mini-cupcakes. Regarding the company, I came out with the same impression I had gone in with: its got way too much money for its own good, and pays its (immature) employees way too much. I guess I'd hoped the employees would be more like me, but if they were they wouldn't be working at Initech.*
Also, no goody-bags. What's up with that?
*Actually I have lots more to say on this company, but this post is too long already. I'm confident that I'll have plenty more opportunities to share my views.
Initech had their Holiday Party on Friday. I was looking forward to this party for weeks (okay, for the one week that I knew about it) and even went shopping in The-Car-Seat-Lady's closet for something appropriate to wear (didn't find anything). Conveniently, my mother was coming to visit on the night of the party, and since we didn't think it would be right to bring her (Javert: Hello new Initech friends. This is my wife, Emil, and this is my mother-in-law) we had to do some arranging to keep her occupied during our absence. In the end, my brother ended up babysitting her.
Anyway, since my mom was at my apartment, she helped me get dressed for the party. After rejecting almost every item of clothing I own, she finally accepted a pair of brown and sparkly gold Old Navy pants (an old donation by The-Car-Seat-Lady) and a black sweater, coupled with a scarf I had made and pointy Bruno Magli shoes (yet another CSL donation). I worried that I'd be underdressed, but really didn't have anything else.
My mother also forced me to wear makeup. I wore concealer (or foundation? it came in a bottle) and rouge and eyeliner, plus chapstick. I have to admit that I did look good. But there's no way I'd spend 10 minutes doing that every morning.
Javert showed me the tickets he'd received for this party. They were laminated and said Initech's Winter Party 2005 on them and had a picture of a snowflake. My first thought: I spent all day trying to find money so that Holocaust survivors can afford to buy food, and here we are with a pair of laminated tickets to get us into a party. This company obviously has money to burn. Which I already knew, but I can't tell you why or you'd figure out what company it is. Anyway, this company has a reputation for being benevolent and friendly but very exclusive, so I didn't really know what to expect from their party. I guess I did expect a goody-bag, since my friend who crashed last year's Martha Stewart holiday party
Initech's party was at a club/event space downtown. When we got to the door, Javert flashed the laminated tickets and the bouncer moved a red velvet rope aside so we could enter. Inside, we had to hand over the tickets, have our names checked off on a list (even my name was there, not just "guest") AND have our hands stamped. We checked our coats and walked into the party room.
I don't even know what to describe first. I guess I'll start with the ice sculpture in the middle of the bar area (well, one bar area, since there were like 29), which said INITECH. But it was a technologically advanced sculpture with hollowed out sections where bartenders would pour drinks in one side and catch them on the other. We both ordered gin and tonics, which turned out to be 99% gin. Hmm, I thought to myself, maybe Initech is okay... Then we found the people Javert knows, who were in line for food. Which was little tiny veggie burgers (think bite-sized), equally small pieces of pizza, french fries, and some other stuff I didn't eat.
By this time I had noticed that I could divide the people at the party into two groups based on their clothing. Group 1 men wore nice pants and button down shirts with ties, or shirts without ties, or sweaters. Group 1 women wore things similar to what I wore, or the skirt equivalent. Group 2 men wore full suits with pink or purple ties. Group 2 women wore fancy dresses. Based on this, I concluded that Group 1 were tech people, and Group 2 were marketing and MBA types. Meeting these people confirmed my assumption. Group 1's seemed nerdy and pretentious but mostly normal, meaning I could communicate with them. Group 2's seemed overly smarmy and pretentious and on a different social plane from me.
A Group 2 male and female were ahead of us in line for food, totally making out the entire time. While attempting to stare at anything else to avoid looking at them, I noticed that EVERYONE IN THE ROOM WAS UNDER 30! I'm not kidding here, there were probably 20 people out of the 300 or more at the party who were older than 30. Really!
When the dj started playing Madonna, I realized I was actually at a high school dance. Except this high school dance allowed alcohol (and LOTS of it) and had unkosher food and I only hated about 3/4 of the people there instead of 7/8.
Every girl I met, no matter what her Group designation was, told me how she'd heard the dj was famous and had been engaged to Nicole Richie. Too bad that a. I don't care and b. he sucked.
The most embarrassing incident at the party: I went to sit down with Javert and his friend, and my chair collapsed and I FELL OFF. I'd not even finished my first drink at this point, so it wasn't that I was wasted or anything. Of course both men jumped to help me, and then I made Javert sit in that chair, but still, super-embarrassing.
In the end, I had a good time, but mainly because Javert's friends are funny and nice (and older than me), and their spouses were there to moderate boring/pretentious job-related conversations, and because of the copious amounts of free alcohol and butter-cream frosted mini-cupcakes. Regarding the company, I came out with the same impression I had gone in with: its got way too much money for its own good, and pays its (immature) employees way too much. I guess I'd hoped the employees would be more like me, but if they were they wouldn't be working at Initech.*
Also, no goody-bags. What's up with that?
*Actually I have lots more to say on this company, but this post is too long already. I'm confident that I'll have plenty more opportunities to share my views.
posted by Emil at 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
oh god emil, that post made me laugh out loud! you fell off a chair?!
jeez, i wish i could have gone to that party. i love that shit. my friend jessie and i are planning to crash some christmas parties at some of the big resorts here. we're debating whether to just get dressed up, or actualy try and look all-out hawaiian and pretend we're the entertainment. we're working on it... makes me wish i brought my wig!
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