Before leaving recently to join WordPress.com, I had worked for a long time at the same place. From the age of 16, the office Christmas party was something of a legend – definitely the biggest day in the calendar.
Unlike other places, there was a long tradition of employees going out at lunchtime, and taking the rest of the day off. This was apparently sparked back in the early days of the company where a Director attempted to get the staff back to work after food, and they had consumed so much alcohol that they drunkenly ran off instead… or so the myth goes.
I was indoctrinated into this at an early age, with my then-boss coming in at 10am with a 2L bottle of dubious looking Canadian whiskey. I wasn’t even meant to go on the lunch, but come 12 noon, I wasn’t in a fit state to do very much, and I was dragged off anyway, even despite my protestations that I would “stay and man the helpdesk!”
Things have calmed down a bit since those days, though they were certainly better than how my face suggests in this picture…
Luckily for me, there’s also a long-standing tradition that employees who have left throughout the year often turn up for the Christmas lunch, even though they’re no longer around. Infact, one such person was so ingrained into life there that he turned up for 3 consecutive years after resigning.
That’s the sort of loyalty that techy departments should breed.
I never really got places that offered a generic Christmas dinner for this type of thing, rather than something more similar to their usual fare.
Either way, the chocolate mousse thing was pretty good.
I’m a sucker for neon lights. Like a moth to a flame.
Christmas is always the best time for wide aperture lenses.
The less said about the rest of the night, the better, I think.
