Honestly, I can't grumble too much because he works with pretty sane people & hey, we get a free meal! I'm always cheerful about someone else making dinner.
BUT, large groups & impersonal chit chat are really not my forte. It's not that I'm shy and not that I don't talk (some of you know I can talk all the legs off a donkey, not just the hind one), it's that I find it a strain to keep the internal censor script running, and if there's ever a time to not shoot my mouth off, it's at dh's work party. My diplomacy chip has never worked very well and I become so terrified that all of a sudden I'll launch into a rant about something (fundamentalism! Harper! that dog 'trainer'/idiot on tv!) to completely the wrong person, that I end up clenching my teeth in a grotesque smile, nodding, and saying nothing.
The other issue is that I actually need to figure out something to wear to this shindig (5 course dinner at fancy restaurant with live music and dancing). So each year I wander around in a mall and discover that it's damned impossible to find what I'm looking for, mostly because what I'm looking for is something that I could wear to the party AND wear to walk dogs the rest of the year.
The social committee this year helpfully listed a dress code: business casual/festive.
WTH does that mean? I'm envisioning ties with santa claus, or a brooch with a reindeer nose that lights up. Or maybe this?
Honestly, it's a meaningless set of instructions. We all know what the guys will wear - some version of what they wear every other day to work. It's the women who sometimes have a poor grasp of suitable office attire, and sometimes seem to forget that a Christmas work party, regardless of where the event is taking place, is a work function. Saying business casual/festive is not clear enough for the folks who think an office party is just like going clubbing with your girlfriends.
If I was in charge of the social committee, I'd write: "don't dress like you're going to walk the streets after the dinner to make some extra cash."
See the diplomacy chip problem?
As for me, I got a new pair of jeans. Dress jeans I'll call them in December. In January they'll become just jeans. I'll pull out my vintage Fluevog heels from the back of the closet & throw some slightly dressier top on & call it done.
What I really wanted was a WikiLeaks t-shirt (maybe in sequins and glitter for evening wear?)...... I would have been unsuitably dressed & unsuitably opinionated all in one fell swoop! Sadly, not to be found in stores; yet.
2 comments:
OMG we are so alike! That's why I have no choice but to work in the profession I do. I don't have to dress in appropriate attire - they just hand me the uniform and order me to wear it. And I can go off on all sorts of political/cultural/socioeconomic rants and it's above most of my co-workers and below most of my "clients"! That said, good luck with the party and don't grind your teeth for too long. Very bad for you!
Thanks for the laugh:)
You know that no matter what the dress code says, there will always be someone that appears to be unable to read, and probably has behaviour to go along with it.
Let us know how it goes:)
Thankfully I never had those to deal with. Years ago I was at a work Christmas party for the family, held in a warehouse, where someone on an out of control forklift was the highlight (or more like lowlight) of the evening.
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