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company party: corporate style
Friday, December 17 1999
New toys: I came home from work to find my new Panasonic PV-DV910 digital video camera and Pyro firewire interface board waiting for me in plain brown boxes in front of my door, in a place where any unscrupulous door-to-door solicitor could have scooped them up and taken them. While I wanted to play with my toys right away, my schedule was a little too hectic just then. Sophie needed to go for a walk, and then Kim would be coming home and we'd have to get ready for yet another company party, this one for my workplace.
Today was the last day at my workplace for my colleague Don. He was a little ambivalent about whether or not to come to tonight's Christmas party. By inviting himself over to my place first he felt more emboldened to go.
Don came over shortly before 9:00pm while Kim and I were in the middle of one of our more low-key fights. I wasn't paying enough attention to her, she said. I think the problem was that my mind was distracted: by my new video camera, by the upcoming party, by a huge ugly carbuncle that had sprung up overnight in a very visible spot on the back of my neck. I've been getting those a lot for the past couple months, but they only appear on the back of my neck, in a linear patch an inch below my hairline. I think I've outgrown obnoxious pimples on my face.
Today Don had had an "exit interview" with the company VP of IT. There he was given the opportunity to voice his "issues," the things that had kept him from remaining a part of the "team." His biggest beef, he said, was not about things the company had "provided," but instead that the company had provided things at all. He wished he'd been left more alone. I know but at the same time I still don't precisely know what he meant by that, seeing as how he'd left the company pretty much because he'd found himself ignored.
Hmm. That's actually interesting. I remember when I first started working there I'd also found that people were ignoring me. But I'd quickly come up with a few things that people couldn't ignore. Love them or leave them, everyone in engineering has used tools that I've built. As talented as he is, I can't say I've ever used one of Eric's tools. And nothing Don built ever affected me.
It's odd, but just because I'm a peon at the company where I work doesn't mean I'm completely out of the loop. As he hung out at my place tonight, I gave Don an exit interview, and he filled me in on all the juicy gossip he'd accumulated during his time there. It turns out that he'd been casually conversant with a bunch of connected people, and he knew a lot of interesting things which helped to re-open my eyes, still bleary from visions of hard-earned glory. There were stories about all kinds of fucked-up things, including the sordid tale of one manager using the new management system to unjustly line another's pockets. "I don't think this company will succeed if it continues to be run like this," he added. Don viewed the cliquish junta as the company's Achilles heel. In his opinion, the junta's exclusionary middle school games would poison the environment and result in the hiring of a bunch of unhelpful people. "They're rolling in the dough now, but I wonder how long it can last," he added.
Well, that was pretty deep, but not outside the realm of what I've been believing all along. But I need a reality check now and then to keep from, I don't know, planning ahead for life as a millionaire. While I've been routinely dismissing everything huffed and puffed by the Grand Pooh Bah, regarding it uniformly as hyperbole, now I find myself actually exceeding the salary he'd told me I'd be making under this management system. My success gives that much more credibility to his rash proclamations that we'll all be rich. I need someone like Don to come along and fill me in on the possible caveats.
Don drove Kim and me downtown to the company party in his convertible. It was held on a floor still waiting to be remodeled for our occupancy. These company parties are far bigger than they used to be. Last year our party was held in a restaurant and I knew everyone's name. This year I knew about 20% of the names and we were partying on a vast unfinished floor of a downtown office building, catered to by professional bartenders and DJs.
Kim and I stuck together for the most part, interacting with familiar people as we found them. We slipped out to a smoking area with some of my pot smoking colleagues on at least two occasions for some "creeper weed" (as it was billed). [REDACTED]
Kim wanted to leave on at least one occasion and was rebuffed by circumstances. We ended up leaving with Al, my colleague from Ocean Beach. I was too fucked up to remember what happened next. Kim tells me that she and I had sex, but I couldn't remember it come Saturday morning.
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