Work Holiday Party

Just got back from hubby's work holiday party.  Remember how much I whined and complained about how hubby's company is, ummm, industrial?  The people are kind of eh, there's always some gambling theme, and it always seems to emanate the classiness of a monster truck rally? 

Well, I was proven wrong tonight.  Having low expectations can sometimes indeed be a good thing.  When you are proven wrong, you can appreciate the pleasant experience even more.  On the other hand, if things don't pan out, you can say, "I told ya so."  Either way, it's kind of a good thing.  But if you have high expectations and it turns out crappy, you just end up with disappointment.  Moral of the story: have low expectations. 

The dinner cruise was awesome.  It was all indoors, and the boat was huge.  There was an outside deck, but it was freezing outside, so I only lasted about 3 minutes.  What I absolutely loved was that there was plenty of space.  There were two large floors to the boat.  Half of us were on one floor, half on the other.  Food was on both floors.  We chose the floor with the smaller dance floor (i.e., the non-party floor). 

We sat with S's department.  Accounting and finance.  Aaaaaah, give me 50 year old menopausal women any day over 30 year old toothless men who live on McDonald's and play Xbox when they aren't working.  Yes, I know it seems to contradict my typical mantra that men are better company than women.  But these men are in their own extra special category: ignorance with some apathy and add in poor personal hygiene.  Yep yep yep, I'll take the 50 year old woman.

The tables were set up that they were tables of 2 or 4.  There was  SPACE to move around, it wasn't those horrible circle tables set up for 8-10.  It was more intimate.  We sat with S's boss and his wife, who are wonderful.  Good conversation, we're all fairly educated, we have things in common, was great.  The accounting ladies and their dates were at nearby tables.  Again, they're all great. 

Food: great!  They had people bring around plates of appetizers.  There was a dinner buffet with prime rib, chicken, salmon, tortellini, salad, fruit, rice.  Probably what I didn't like the most was that they brought people around to offer tiny desserts.  Teeny tiny desserts.  You weren't sure if there was ever someone else coming up with a different tray, so you felt like you had to take one of the desserts.  I generally prefer buffets.  I like to know what all is out there and then making my choices.  Oh, and if you took a teeny tiny dessert and really liked it, the person with that tray would never make another round.  So you ended up with 5 little teeny tiny dessert samples.  Seriously, people, put all of the desserts on a table, put out some plates, and let us take what we want, just like you did with the main courses. 

What I loved the most was that there was very little "entertainment."  We just talked and ate.  I'm a simple girl, I'm fine with that.  I don't need crazy stunts to amuse me.  On the first floor, they did do some entertainment which us on the second floor could view via video if we wanted to.  Like blowing cards across tables, putting cookies on your forehead and trying to move it to your mouth without touching it, you know...prefunk activities to the monster truck rally. 

The scenery was great.  We could see downtown Seattle from the water.  Since the Seahawks won tonight, there was all sorts of festivities going on and city patriotic displays.  The view was spectacular. 

Adding to the positive karma of the day was that we didn't get trapped in any snow (which was predicted to happen tonight), we found a parking spot right next to the pier (we didn't have to trek through all of downtown on foot in the freezing cold), we only paid 75 cents for parking, we didn't have to wait an hour to get onto the boat like we thought we would have to, and we easily got out of downtown. 

It was a classy party.  Hooray for a nice night!