barry burton

the Office Party

This is bit late but I have been christmas shopping, so I trust everyone will find my time to have been well spent. :) Last Friday was our office christmas party. We had a pizza lunch and played White Elephant gift exchange, which I suppose is not actually played, but we had one nonetheless. Incidentally, Round Table Pizza is the name of the common pizza chain here. Skinny crust is their name for thin crust, and I think that is the only kind of crust they will sell you. It seems that carbs are too scary for thick crust. I digress.

For the gift exchange, I bought a totally sweet copy of the Bottle Rocket DVD. The Wilson brothers at their finest, who could not love this as gift? I wrapped it up in the brown craft paper I use for eBay, inside a somewhat larger box. Evidently the wrapping was interesting, because the first person unwrapped my gift. Unfortunately, he chose to give the DVD a funny look and then put it on a table at the front of the room. The next person actually stole Bottle Rocket from the first person, who was quite happy to see it go. We then went some 30 rounds of White Elephant with no further steals of the movie. All this to say that one person in my office has good taste in movies, and I hate everyone else. :)

I’m not sure if this goes for all of Silicon Valley, though I suspect that it does, but assuredly in my office, nerf items were by far the most popular. Various nerf bow and arrows and guns were stolen almost every round. As for me, I opted to steal a $15 Starbucks gift card. It was stolen from me once, but I was smart enough to steal the nerf bow and arrow, which was of course stolen promptly the next round, at which point I re-stole the gift card.

Friday night, the California Café hosted our dinner party. I actually was able to dress up for once, which was fun. More shocking, most of my coworkers dressed up as well. They are for the most part a very casual bunch. I think every office party has at least one person who imbibes a bit too much alcohol and finally makes the party interesting for remainder of those in attendance. Perhaps thats why it is better to have the party out of the office. I saw that Canon actually put out a warning that photocopiers should secured away from holiday party activities. Apparently its quite common for people to copy their rear-ends during office parties and said activity frequently breaks the glass — so frequently that during the holidays, there simply are not enough technicians to repair all the broken machines.

Currently the date is nearing the end of December, and highs are back around 70℉ with lows only dipping to the 55℉ range. Very Disappointing. It has been foggy almost every day lately, however, so that almost makes up for the balmy temperatures. But not quite. One day I will see a white Christmas. And the white will be on the ground and not just in the air.