Government office parties are like staff meetings with cake, and not the good cake with sinfully delightful filling and fluffy light frosting. It is more like the quarter sheet of white cake with the lard frosting that sticks to the roof of your mouth like a small oil slick.
Birthday cards are routed in the same folders as Status Reports and Office Memos, generally using the same route slip. I write the same obligatory blurb on every card, a chirpy "Happy B-Day". It would save time if we were to photo copy our hearfelt wishes from one card and just reuse them at all later events.
Christmas parties happen at lunch time because no one would show up for a Christmas Dinner. We don't like each other that much. We meet at lunch to avoid invoking the wrath of the tax paying public. We wouldn't want them to have actual proof of government waste. Besides, we wouldn't want to lower their opinion of us, would we?
*****
I always send the office a postcard when I am on vacation. It usually doesn't say much but the subtext is clear, "BWAHAHAHAHAHA, you are working and I am not!" Unfortunately, they generally don't arrive until a week or two after I return, which spoils the effect considerably.
Posted by sychotic1
at 3:42 PM PDT
