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December 8, 2017: Party Time

52 Comments

I'm crazy busy at work trying to close a deal (ABC!) while also getting our work holiday party together tomorrow.

What festivities does your place of employment provide, if anything?

52 thoughts on “December 8, 2017: Party Time”

  3. Our Commissioner usually provides those of us working in our central office (~70 people) with a holiday luncheon, invariably catered from one of the best 'lunch counters' in town: Cossetta. Probably not common knowledge here, but his assistant told me that he pays for it out of his own pocket, which is pretty generous if unsurprising (he's a pretty amazing individual).

    My little corner of the office: 3 'departments' (...8 of us) does a get-together with white elephant gifts and a group activity like bowling or an escape room.

    1. Ooh, I had Cossetta's for the first time when I was at a conference up there recently. Good stuff.

    2. what the heck is an "escape room"? Is that where you bring in a gropey older guy to chat up all the womens?

  4. My office consists of me and a part-time secretary, so we won't be having any sort of office party. The United Methodist women have a luncheon tomorrow, though, and we have children's Christmas programs coming up. Plus, Christmas Eve falling on Sunday will be an interesting time. I'll have my regular three services in the morning, a nursing home service in the afternoon, and then three candlelight services. All weather permitting, of course, but seven services in one day will not be a record I want to try and break.

      1. Oh yes, I'll be at the UMW Christmas luncheon. I doubt there'll be much there that's low-carb, though.

    2. My office consists of me (and after the first of the year, a part-time secretary), so I'm going all out for an office holiday party! I'll... order lunch from somewhere or something.

  5. I'm a stay at home dad with TLO for the time being since my internship period is over.

    She's having a bottle, which I guess counts as our dept. lunch.

    1. This was supposed to be under your LTE...

      I loved doing the bottle feeding, especially before 'first' bedtime.

    2. I'm to the point where any NY/Boston/Chicago/LA team is right up there with the Yankees in terms of my dislike for their sports teams. Not #1 but #1A.

    3. Also, if the signing amounts are made public, it will be interesting to look back 10 years from now at all the international signings from this offseason (maybe add in last year's and next year's) to see which helped their team the most. I totally get the fun factor of Ohtani as a 2-way player, but it could also be a distraction and make the transition harder. Some of the less-hyped players could turn out to be better. And winning has its own fun factor.

  9. Our department party will be tomorrow evening. The school doesn't do anything official for/with us, but (almost all...) the people in our department like each other, so we get together at someone's house for a potluck-style get together. Doing it that way means we can drink, so that surely makes for a more entertaining time anyway. Should be fun.

  10. I won a prize at the holiday baking contest at work last Wednesday, so that was fun. (We've not had a similar event before, but there's a new person in HR who isn't yet burned out.)

    Next week, we'll have a "progressive lunch" with a different course on each floor. It ends with a speech from the head honcho, who really doesn't enjoy speaking to large groups. I've been around long enough that the awkwardness is part of the charm.

    1. My institution's holiday party will feature a speech by the boss that will be tortured at best. Yeah, it's part of the charm. Also, the younger folks take bets on which member of the board will croak first during the holiday party. Yeah, probably not part of the charm, but a way to deal with the charm.

  11. Word to the wise - don't wash your hands with strongly "Seasonal-scented" soap before eating a meal that doesn't require utensils. My cheeseburger seemed to taste of sweet cinnamon pumpkins ... ugh.

  12. Work party is Saturday night. Some levels have pretty high turnover with very young employees. Recipe for potential disaster.

  13. time for another work password change -- it's always a challenge to find a password that is 8-characters long, contains at least one number, is not a real word. and does not have the same letter twice in a row, so that I can use the same password in all environments. In addition, I have to remember it! My last three: j0emauer, n01draft, play0f17

    1. Can't have the same letter twice in a row? That's a limitation I've never heard before. Also, I can't think of any way that would make a password harder to guess.

      1. Most of the password rules are stupid. I haven't done the math, but I'm pretty sure that just adding an extra letter to your password would do more for its security than requiring a symbol, for instance. If not one letter, then two or three. Once people can't remember their password anymore, then you just make it easier to social engineer the password, since you are going to have tons of people wanting to change their password.

        2FA is pretty great, though I think for PC logins it might be problematic if you can't guarantee an internet connection (which of course you can't.)

        2. 2FA does not require an internet connection. It's a random seed with some math operation performed repeatedly, such as every 60 seconds. This can easily be done offline if you have the seed and when it started. You do the math, tell the login system, and it checks if it agrees. Sometimes the current and previous numbers will be accepted to account for the final few seconds of overlap.

          And, obligatory.

          Edit: this assumes the second factor is something you have. The second factor could also be biometric. That also doesn't require an internet connection.

        1. It's great until you get locked out for some reason and have to tell IT what the existing password was... 🙂

          1. back in the 80's when one of us would forget to lock our computer, someone else would be sure to change the mainframe password to IMALOSER so they'd have to ask the administrator for it.

  14. Every year we do something different for a holiday party. This year it's a BYOB after hours get together. Should be fun!

  15. Sweet Jesus the new Hold Steady song is terrible. Ugh, it’s watered down separation Sunday at best, and just cashing in at the worst.

    1. Is it the one about crashing a car while driving drunk because yes that was pretty terrible

      1. It was something about how time passes and shit gets dredged up from the past, and it was awful.

      1. Maybe they traded $1 million total?

        *does some checking* No.

        The Twins made two trades on Wednesday that reduced their remaining international bonus pool space for 2017-18, but they still have $1.25MM available, Berardino notes.

            1. They signed Severino for a bigger deal than the other Braves prospects have signed thus far, including Maitan, who they offered more than what he signed for but he didn't like how many top SS prospects the Twins already had.

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