RSSDec 10
It is not a question of how well each process works, the question is how well they all work together.
Lloyd Dobens and Clare Crawford
Corporate Christmas Party
Dec 10
Top of my head, Work 4 Comments
All of the onshore assignees were invited to the Corporate Christmas party which was held in a museum. The theme of the party was “Classic Christmas” with instructions that the theme is open for interpretation. We asked around and the consensus is that the acceptable outfit for “Classic Christmas” is anything except jeans. The pinoy contingent decided that suit and tie is the safe bet for men. Only Brian and Alvin will come without a suit because Alvin was not able to bring one, and buying one here in Denmark is not practical. Brian had no plans of attending since he will be going on a long vacation to Italy but he was “encouraged” by Girlie to attend.
For Filipinos not belong to the ‘elite’ class and upper management, suits are seen as not natural. Why would it be when our climate is very humid? Suits are made for environments that would be naturally cooler. Try wearing it in the Philippines when you have to walk in the street. That is almost like a death wish by heat stroke. That is the reason why the Barong is the formal wear of choice for Filipinos. 🙂
Finding caucasians in suits seem normal, but seeing your Filipino co-team members in suits? Classic! (pun intended)
Ok, so I don’t look good in a suit. Or in anything at all. But fortunately we have model-hopefuls
I think we were the only ones snapping pictures in the place but the Europeans around us have already tolerated these “snapper-happy” asians. Some even joined the fun by crashing the clicker sessions:
This post is becoming a photoblog so I will just redirect those still interested into the Picasa album where the rest of the picture selection resides.
The party was pretty average in terms of European corporate events. This kind of parties are really venues for networking more than anything else since it allows people from different operating groups to mingle and talk shop as well as anything and everything under the sun. I went with the “early” group with Francis, Harold and Jordan. Even with the early group, we ended up being part of the last batch to arrive. Arrival is announced with blaring trumpeters, something like what would you expect medieval paging systems would work when somebody arrives in a castle gathering. Cute.
We saw a Danish colleague so we followed him to the second floor where all attendees were mingling around and networking. We saw a few more colleagues and we were informed that we should have picked an ornament at the door since that will determine where we would sit. Random seating. Networking. It figures.
I was seated in the same table as our Host Senior Executive, Bent Dalager. Alvin, Tina, Brian and Girlie joined us later since the table with the Pinoy assignees are what we called the “late” table. I was seated in front of Nina, a previous assignee to our project. As the hosts were speaking in Danish, Bent was trying to translate to us whenever possible. I was told that we would be served a classical Danish course complete with burned hay (if I understood Bent correctly). The food service was not that good and I was disappointed when the burnt hay did not make an appearance.
Most of the program was in Danish. There was a standup comedian but we were left clueless on what he was saying. Bent just said that the comedian had a slow start but the end was fairly funny. He also translated a joke about a man coming in with a pig. An old joke but we had to laugh because apparently it is not as old for the Danes. 🙂
Then there was a corporate game wherein each table has to guess a certain high executive based on clues. Again this was in Danish so to break the ice, I made Tina and Alvin play the finger number game (the one followed by two then by three and so on). I ended up extending the game with Nina and Bent. I was really tempted to skip pointing to them the answer even if I was already giving it to them in spades. That is the trick of the game, hiding the answer in plain sight. 😀 While Bent’s attention was captivated by the finger number pattern game, Girlie and the others were hatching a “Black Magic” mind reading trick that went off perfectly, twice. 🙂
After the program proper, the party shifted to disco and open bar mode. A partly drunk Dane joined us in our table initially to share our beer and then went on a discussion with me regarding outsourcing work and religion. The first one is a little bit cumbersome since he is particularly against outsourcing and I am part of the team at the receiving end of outsourcing deals. The second one was more tolerable since he is also partial to non-standard beliefs. This was the point wherein I noticed Girlie left me to fend off this crazy Dane. 🙂
After a few more drinks, I decided to lay low since dancing is really not my cup of tea as most of outdoor social events. I settled to doing what I do best in these situations: I observe and guard. The last one is unnecessary but you will never know when you need to bail a friend out of a potentially sticky situation. At around 1AM, I decided that the party was already tapering off and all of our team was in the dance floor so it is safe to rest. Since I still have a webcall at around 8AM, I took the keys from Francis and decided to sleep in the car. An hour later the group decided to go home. Francis and Harold functioned as a door-to-door service and that concluded the corporate christmas party. 🙂
ciao!