Tag Archives: christmas

Socialization…

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PartyThe concept of a Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Office Party is a lesson in contradictions. First, fill the room full of people that you really only know passingly well. Add a DJ who can’t play any good music for fear of offending someone. Add a healthy dose of forced conviviality and Christmas joy. And finally open the bar in the middle of the afternoon. It amazes me year after year that office Christmas parties don’t result in drunken shouting matches between people who generally don’t want to be in the same room with one another when it can be avoided. It’s one of the biggest reasons I know mankind can do anything that we collectively set our minds to.

As office parties go, I have to admit that this year’s was pretty well laid on. I’m never going to be super happy in a large crowded room, but the food was plentiful, the adult beverages were cold, and no one tried dragging me onto the dance floor. Under the circumstances, that’s pretty much how I define success. Now if anyone needs me I’ll be hiding out in the basement trying to recover from an afternoon of actual socialization.

Moment of Clarity…

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There are few moments in the year more disappointing than when you come back to work after new years and discover that for all the talk about new starts, peace, love, and good feelings, absolutely nothing has changed. Your work is piled just where you left it. The things that bothered you in the old year will be the things that bother you in the new one. None of the problems has been solved while you were away ignoring them.

Maybe vacations work for some people, but if you’re supposed to come back reenergized and more effective, I don’t think they work for me. Whatever restive effect my time off had on me has bled away within 20 or 30 minutes of getting to my desk and plowing through a week’s worth of email. So yeah, for me, it’s back to the grind just the same as if I’d never left at all.

All things considered, I’d have rather stayed home this morning. Then again, I also like getting paid, so here I am.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Better than average…

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Now that the sappy sentimentality of Christmas is behind us and the drunken orgy of New Years still lies ahead, it’s the time of year when we look back at what made the year memorable… Yeah, I’m coming up blank on that, too. Fact is 2011 was pretty much identical to 2010 and there’s every indication that it will be substantively similar to 2012. I’m not making a judgment call about that so much as I’m just letting it lay there as a statement of fact.

2011 had something in the neighborhood of 104 weekend days, 10 paid holidays, 19 vacation days, and about 6 sick days. That leaves about 226 work days. That’s 62% of the available days in the year spent sitting in a cube, playing with PowerPoint, trying to wordsmith every outgoing email to reflect a bold, can-do attitude, and generally trying to convince ourselves that what we’re doing really makes a difference to more than the 2 or 3 people on our left and right who actually know what we’re working on. A handful of those days were really, really good. Another handful were really, really bad. The vast majority were just somewhere between the two.

I have no reason to think it won’t be the same in 2012. The only difference is 2012 has a head start on the number of good days because I’m not going to spend a third of it trying to escape from the hellish clutches of the Uberboss. The long painful job search and transition process is over. I’m settled in to the new job and back in the part of the country I never should have left in the first place. All in all, maybe that’s not such a bad kickoff to the new year. If I can manage more average days than bad ones and find myself home every night in the right part of the world, I guess I’d have to say I’m pretty happy with good enough.

Here’s to the new year. Best of luck at keeping things better than average.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Wishing…

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From the editorial staff at jeffreytharp.com, a merry Christmas and totally excellent new year. Enjoy the time off and visits with friends and family. After the 2011 we’ve had, lord knows we’ve all earned it. Let’s see if we can prove the Myan calendar wrong, shall we?

A Christmas Miracle…

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For every Christmas since I was old enough to buy my own presents for people I’ve been the guy who went on a mad dash on Christmas eve picking up gifts and dumping them in the lazy man’s wrapping paper – the oversized gift bag. I’ve improved a little over time since most things can now be delivered right to my door (thanks for that, Amazon). This year, though, is a high water mark. With a week to go before Christmas, I survived my final assault on the shops, actually wrapped everything with Christmas paper, and essentially have nothing left to do with five entire days left between me and the holiday.

That probably doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to those of you who start their shopping in August, but for me it’s huge. It means that this year all I have to do on Christmas Eve is show up – which shouldn’t be too hard since I’ll get up early enough to be ahead of all the other lunatics trying to get from Point A to Point B. It also leaves me with an unusual amount of free time this week. It’s unusual, but I’m sure I’ll manage to find some random activity to occupy my attention… because, really, at this point anything is better than more shopping.

The spirit…

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Tis the season to be meh. Honestly, if it weren’t for the calendar in Outlook and the sparkly Rudolph blinking happily on the neighbor’s lawn, I wouldn’t have any real idea it’s less than two weeks until Christmas. I have exactly one present purchased, which means this Saturday is probably going to involve the painful ordeal of going to a mall of some sort. On the flip side, I’m ridiculously excited about being off for 9 straight days and spending a big chunk of those banging around Allegany County. I’m insanely happy that this Christmas isn’t going to involve a 16 hour drive to get anywhere. So yeah, while Christmas spirit and holiday joy isn’t exactly twinkling inside me, but I’ve been doing this long enough now to be damned appreciative for the perks that come with it. After the last five years of Tennessee exile, I’ve come to think of Cecil County unblinkingly as home… But getting to spend some time at the real thing is definitely going to make the holiday for me.

Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Gathering…

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It’s that time of the year when those social butterflies of the office start soliciting donations, selling tickets, and generally making it impossible to forget that the Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Gathering. You and I know it as the Office Christmas Party. Now if you’re like me, you’d rather drive a blunted screwdriver into your eye than go to one of these functions, but since it’s being held during the day it’s slightly better than actually staying at your desk, but only because there’s a good chance that you’ll get home a hour or two earlier than you would on a normal Friday. Personally, if I could stay at my desk and get a few things done while everyone else wandered off to be festive, I’d be perfectly happy with the alone time.

Sadly, the Christmas party is yet another score keeping activity, so I’ll be there with a gratuitous smile plastered on my face. I’ll overpay for lunch and do my best to duck out at the first available opportunity. Even in the face of peer pressure, I won’t be participating in the gag gift exchanges or endless number of parlor games that the diehards are going to want to play. If you really want me to get into the Christmas spirit, give me a bottle of bourbon and a roaring fire… or at a bare minimum make this a non-official function and open the bar. At least with booze flowing there’s a chance that something interesting might happen. As it is, it will be the same tired work people talking about the same tired work issues. Hard to believe anyone wouldn’t be in a festive mood for that.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Yeah, I know it’s a day early this week, but after not griping and complaining last week, I was feeling a little edgy. As always, in no particular order, here’s what annoys Jeff this week:

Christmas Carols. There, I said it. I don’t like them. I’ll grudgingly accept them in the week or two before Christmas, but at any time before that, they make me want to punt kittens. Singing them in October? Well, those people are just a special kind of crazy.

Salad. Since January, I’ve been eating salad almost exclusively for lunch, and you know what? I hate salad. There aren’t enough dressings, croutons, cheese, or varieties of chopped meat available to make them appetizing anymore. Sure, real food will probably end up putting me on the fast track to an early death, but that sounds infinitely better than the slow lingering death I’m suffering from boredom and general lack of tastiness.

The five day work week. Who’s the unmitigated jackass that decided 5:2 was a good work to non-work ratio? Don’t take that the wrong way, because I’m still deliriously happy to be bringing home a paycheck and to be doing it in Maryland, but all things considered there are plenty of other things I’d like to spend some time doing.

Proselytizers. I get it, you found Jesus, or Vishnu, or Buddha, or, Zoroaster and you’re really excited about that. Good on you. As a rule, other random people aren’t nearly as interested as you think they are in your discovery. Believe me when I say I have my own notions about what’s what in the hereafter and let’s leave it at that, shall we? That would be fantastic.

Road dogs…

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Traveling with two dogs create all sorts of new and interesting challenges but no regrets. First among them is having no real time to sit down and blog properly. It will have to suffice to say that the pups have been doing famously and are taking all the new scenery well in stride. Even my mother, who is no fan of dogs has warmed up a bit to having them around. Our holiday is coming to an end with the drive back to Tennessee on Saturday but it has been leave well spent and one of the most enjoyable Christmases I’ve had in recent memory. I hope everyone has had as good a christmas as I have. I’ll be back on a more regular writing schedule in a few days when I’m back to work and into the routine.