Blog Week 4: Life is just one Christmas party after another ...But why can they be so tense?
Sunday 18 December 18.05
Friday's Christmas party was great fun. I spent the whole of yesterday recovering, which is always a good sign.
It is always interesting to view people at Christmas parties, to see people out of their natural work environments and with their partners.
For the meal I was sat on a table with some lawyers and support staff I had not spoken with before. We seemed to be mainly single and so I was wondering if the seating-planner had decided to put all the singles together and see what happened. Well the result was lots of drinking and laughter.
I noticed one or two envious stares from some of the other tables. Other people seemed to be on their best behaviour - not drinking too much and leaving at a reasonable hour.
I just remember the evening becoming more and more of a blur. Luckily, I do not think I was the only one behaving like that. Or was I?
Monday 19 December 19.08
Seems like Bill really enjoyed the Christmas party - he sent me an IM thanking me for my efforts in organising the Christmas party. I did not know what to say as I had no part in organising it. I figured it may be a test, so I IM-ed him back to say I was not an organiser. He then immediately IM-ed me back to say he had sent the message to me by mistake. How much of office life is made up of such pointless communication?
The photos from the Christmas party came round this morning. There is not one photo in which the people on our table do not look drunk.
I went shopping for my third Christmas party dress this lunchtime. We are having a joint party between my last and current office this Wednesday evening. As most people are looking forward to the holidays, my expectations for this party are quite low. Some people will have left already.
Tuesday 20 December 21.46
First email in my inbox was an email from Yoda asking me to see her asap.
So you can imagine my surprise when I entered her office to find Pierre sitting behind her desk. He told me that Yoda had suddenly left and he was now the office manager for both offices. My administrative status between the two offices and other remuneration issues would be sorted out by my return on 9 January. He mentioned there would be some other staff reorganisation changes, but it was nothing for me to 'worry about'. Oh and I did not need to worry about the 'wretched' intranet blogs anymore.
I came away thinking that is going to be an eventful year. Glad to see the last of the intranet blogs.
Wednesday 21 December 17.39
Short blog as am quickly home before heading off to tonight's joint party. An email came round the office today to say the proper merger has been postponed till the start of March. Pierre emailed me saying, following our conversation, everything was ok for me and things will be clearer in the New Year. Nice of him to do that.
Thursday 22 December 21.27
Last night's party was quite tense. I had better not say too much, but there seemed to be a feeling of 'them and us' between people in the different offices. I just walked suffering from an identity crisis as I do not know if I am 'us' or 'them'. The number of people was not that high - people had either left for the holidays already or were trying to get all their work done before the holidays. After a while I got a headache and left to come home early.
I am glad I have got a long holiday break coming up. I need it. Right now I just want to get out of Brussels.
