More than any company I’ve ever worked at, this advertising company is very concerned about image, and rightly so. This therefore spills over onto their parties as well – the more lavish and extravagant, the better. And I am there to gladly accept.
This week had a downhill slide of productivity starting Wednesday evening.
Since our staff meeting in November was in the Forma Centro, International Photo Gallery in Milan, complete with buffet and drinks, I knew the company Holiday party had to be good. By the way, the Martin Schoeller show is interesting with very close-up pictures of different celebrities. My favorite was Joseph Fiennes. *purrr*
Our Christmas party (yes, the P.C. concept hasn’t really hit here) was even better. Starting with the title, “Bloody Merry Christmas,” it was an indication of the debauchery to come. It was held at Divina, in the Ticinese area of Milan.
This is probably my favorite thing about that night. Before you click on this link, it may offend some. But I thought it was a very interesting mosaic and it’s mainly on the ceiling so you don’t notice it right away. The rest of the body isn’t shown in the picture. I guess the photographer was only interested in certain “parts.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t give my full participation in drunken debauchery since I had to take the train home and had to leave relatively early. But, I will use one of my coworkers as a barometer – he says “che figura” (what a fool-spectacle) several times a day about himself. I figured he would fill me in on the worst-case scenario. Two quick highlights he blogged about that night (in Italian, I will summarize).
Two words: Open bar.
- Episode 1: He asks a colleague how old she is, and upon her response “the Martini answers for me” and says, Oh, you look older. She fakes throwing her drink at him. He fakes it, too. Except his glass is full. And his fake, was more like a bunt. It spills all over the woman. Two insults at once.
- Episode 2: The next day, he arrives at work. A colleague asks him, “Is this your cell phone that was at the bottom of the toilet?” Ouch.
I’m sure this is a pretty good indication of the rest of the office. I was 30 minutes late, and still the first one in.
But luckily, I made up for missing out, today. It was kind of a company party take 2, but more casual – baguettes, salami, cheese, and WINE. And then spumante for a toast. (By the way, drinking at lunch while working is not viewed as it is in America. It’s no big deal) We had those tiny plastic cups. 1/2 a glass later, my head was already spinning. Stuffed two small pieces of baguette and (che puzza!) some goat cheese that stayed with everyone’s breath the rest of the day.
I put on some Christmas music, and all the exertion heated up my cheeks. Or maybe, it was the wine. And everything got really funny after that. The phallic-symbol piece of pandoro my colleague cut, the spumante corks being shot at and hitting people, everything. The cheeks were flaming.
Then we played a Christmas gift game, which everyone thought they knew. Except they didn’t know about the stealing, which I showed them.
Afterward, we all returned to our desks, and I angled myself and my monitor so that I wasn’t seen. I had to answer an urgent email in Italian. The rest of my body was impeding my progress, though. My eyes were having the most trouble.
It wasn’t that they couldn’t focus, they just made a conscious decision not to. Just absorbing the colors of the pretty, pretty screen were enough to make them happy. Finally they focused in on my two meager lines of text, including about six errors. A little teeny voice said, maybe I should ask someone to look at this before I send it, and a football team answered, that looks good to us! Just send it already, you control freak.
I hit Send. Done.
I have to stop worrying about getting everything so “perfect” and just let it out. Strangely, my revelations when I’ve been drinking seem to be epiphanies. At least, at the time. Like now.
I looked at the top of the water bottle in front of me with what seemed a wide angle lens and it looked like a great place to rest my chin. Just for a moment…or two. In fact, that’s what I’ll do now. No worries if the angle that my head is at makes it virtually impossible to see the screen. No one will notice. That’s ok, I’m a good typer. I’lla juset look at the eky s. It’sll be fine. why doN’ti do this more often^? So relaixing.
In fact, I could close my eyes for a bit. Just a little bit. If i ptuh my heat here no oen can see me. THuehs is geting harder.
“Coffee?” My colleague shouted directly at me, or maybe he didn’t, and I opened my bleary eyes with a well-executed jump.
“Sounds great!”
Happy Holidays…I’ll try to keep up the blogging, if you keep up the reading.
This is your brother Jay. The mosaic was my favorite part of the story, good thing I wasn’t at the party because I would have stole a bottle of red wine and urinated on someones car…..