So... The office Christmas Party.
Not much to say this year. The venue was one well used by the company over the years, and through various changes of ownership (ours more than theirs, I'd imagine). It's a small, dingy hole in the ground (literally - all there is at street level is a door with a bouncer). The first time I went there was a sit-down meal for just my department (and one hanger-on with his assistant) which was OK. The food was sparse, but well-arranged. The second time was a fancy dress thing with a Movies theme, and at which I wore a rather groovy rubber t-shirt (which later gave rise to all sorts of rumours... more on that later) as part of a Matrix-inspired costume. The third time I went there, after which I vowed I'd never go again, was the leaving do for the girl who was PA to the MD at the time. I'd agreed to wear another rubber t-shirt to that and, If I remember correctly, that's probably the last time I ever wore one. It's also the last time I went to that particular bar-with-restaurant/club pretensions.
Until last week, that is.
Thursday - a very silly night for a company Christmas bash - saw everyone getting Jolly in preparation for a hard night's drinking. It saddens me that so many people these days equate 'a good night out' with getting completely rat-arsed/stoned... it also rather disgusts me, and makes me very glad I don't go clubbing anymore. Only one good thing ever happened to me while out clubbing, and that was all too brief.
But I digress.
For one reason or another, I - along with several others - was late getting out of the office and down to the bar. In fact, some of my colleagues had time to come back to the office to tell everyone who was still working that I'd got the biggest cheer of the evening when the Secret Santa gifts (ye Gods, yes, we had another of them!) were handed out, and then get back to the venue for even more drinking before I got out of the office.
But escape I did and, somewhat reluctantly, decended into one of the dingiest pits the area has to offer. It was quite obvious that almost everyone was completely ratted already, which really helped to make me feel comfortable, but I didn't plan on staying long. My original intention was to stay only as long as it took to pick up my Secret Santa gift (yes, mercenary, I know), but I ended up staying for a couple of drinks and - God forbid - chatting with a few people.
The most grating part of it was being hauled off by one of the senior management, with whom I'd had a bit of a dust-up at last year's Christmas do, because he'd been a complete arse. This year, he was all smiles, and jolly talk, shaking my hand and telling me how wonderful I am, and how things just wouldn't go as smoothly without me... He even hugged me. And I tried not to feel dirty. That's going to be making people laugh for a long time to come, I just know it.
My Secret Santa revealed herself (I've always had trouble with that bit - 'secret' surely implies that one's identity should be kept secret, but many Secret Santas delight in revealing themselves), and explained that my gift - a block which is a clock, thermometer, timer and alarm, depending on which way up it stands - was "a multi-function gadget for a multi-function guy", and that her girlfriend had recently got one as a gift for a friend. It really is a neat little thing, and now I need never wonder how cold my bedroom actually is when I get up in the morning. I just pick up the alarm clock, put it on its side (or upside down, or whatever) and it'll tell me.
Lots of fairly pointless chat happened. Loads of salespeople who probably have no idea what I actually do were telling me how great I am, and sounding very much as though they were working from a prepared script on the merits of my department. I did my level best to avoid saying anything confrontational. One of the recent additions to the department asked me if I always have "that look on your face... like 'is this all my life is?'" I'd guess the look on my face at the time was closer to being "I can't believe I'm back in this dive... when can I get out of here?" or "good grief... they've done nothing with the decor in this place... it's exactly the same!", but hey. She doesn't know me very well, so who can blame her for such a simple mistake.
I was very thankful - if a little tetchy - by the time I did leave, but any escape would have been a good escape, and that was the end of the bad part of my evening. My last task was to let one of my colleagues back into the office so he could retrieve his Secret Santa gift (a large collection of weird and wonderful records) to take back to the party and do a bit of DJ-ing. On the way in and out, he revealed another of the strange rumours that has circulated about me in recent times. Spread by a girl with whom I was almost never on good terms, this one is fairly entertaining, and almost contains an element of truth.
It is said that, some years ago, at a leaving do, I got into a conversation with a colleague (not the one who spread the rumour, so that should have started people doubting its veracity straight away... if only they had brains) in which I revealed that I was into the fetish scene (I am not), and owned a rubber catsuit (I do not. I own two rubber t-shirts which now appear to be perishing in a cupboard). Shortly thereafter, it was alleged that I left the party, only to return some time later wearing the rubber catsuit... only I'd forgotten the talc.
That's the funny part. That's the part that was supposed to be utterly humiliating to me, and what got people laughing and whispering and spreading their own rumours behind my back. Thing is, most people who'd never owned any rubber clothing themselves wouldn't know that you coat yourself and the inside of the garments with talcum powder before donning them. You see where this is going?
The girl who spread this rumour was stupid on so many levels. It wouldn't surprise me that the 'forgetting the talc' angle came from her own experience, considering she would cheerfully relate tales of going to an ATM to get money, and then forgetting to take the money when she was finished.
But anyway.
Friday was a fairly quiet day at the office, despite another deadline, because so few people turned up. Predictable, huh? All of my department turned up, though one had been rushed to hospital at the party due to an allergic reaction. Only one - a new recruit - was so hung over she couldn't work and was sent home. The boss told her "I won't shout at you today... but I will shout at you on Monday." One complete sales team was there (it was their deadline day, after all), with a couple of others in and out during the day, and maybe three of the Editorial team.
Not much else to say about Friday. My boss had a dust-up with one of the salesmen over his inappropriate conversation with a member of Production. When he tried to escalate it by calling the MD, he ended up getting his knuckles rapped. The magazine completed quite late because Editorial were a bit slow... That's unlikely to happen next month, though. For many reasons.
On Saturday, I arranged to see Pan's Labyrinth with my old mate Paul. Even though I'd already seen it, it was a good opportunity to hang out with him, and pop into Forbidden Planet. Of course, things didn't go smoothly all the way. The Piccadilly line was out for maintenance this weekend, so we had to go in via the Central line. Not usually a bad option, and often far quicker than the Piccadilly... Sadly, on this occasion, someone had decided to jump under a train, meaning there were long delays into town. When we got to Shepherd's Bush, I suggested taking the bus to Piccadilly, which should have been a viable alternative. Unfortunately, the traffic was awful, there was a long wait for the bus, which then decided to stop halfway through the route. On the next bus, we hit terrible traffic in Oxford Street, and decided to walk the rest of the way.
If anyone has seen that advert where the two guys dress like salmon and run against a load of marathon runners, you'll know what Oxford Street was like. It's not much better at any time of year, but in the run-up to Christmas, it's berzerk.
We got to our destination, the cinema in Haymarket, with only a few minutes to spare - our original intention had been to do about 90 minutes of shopping before the film, but it had taken us almost two hours to get there. Tickets there are extortionate, so I decided to forgo refreshments. Paul and I took our seats and waited for the movie to begin.
Quite early on, I started feeling very dozy and, before Ofelia had even been given her first task by the faun, I'd fallen asleep, only waking up at the point where the faun berates Ofelia for not attempting the second task. The only reason I know I didn't snore is that Paul would have nudged me if I had.
I managed to stay awake for the remainder, and it's still a beautiful film the second time around.
As we left the cinema, it had already got dark, and the temperature was dropping. It was still fairly early, though, so we decided to pop off to Forbidden Planet to browse. It was quite gratifying to see that they'd rearranged their stock again, giving greater priority to Doctor Who merchandise and - even more gratifying - TransFormers. Rather than being stuck round the back, they were in the same block as Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek (and wrestling action figures, but the less said about that, the better). Almost their entire stock of TransFormers Classics was gone, only a single Hot Rod/Rodimus remained (coincidentally the one I almost didn't get at Memorabilia, as one guy was umming and ahhing about him and Starscream, then decided to get Starscream only). There were plenty of 3" Titaniums - awful things, the lot of them - and lots of Cybertron stuff, none of which I didn't already have the Japanese Galaxy Force equivalent of. They had a few Alternators, but nothing very inspiring. Paul picked up a couple of things, then we headed down the the basement for comics, books and DVDs. They had a special on for Studio Ghibli films, so I picked up Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart and Pom Poko for a tenner each, and then snagged the remaining three volumes of the incredibly long titled Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex 2nd Gig. Paul also picked up the collected version of the TransFormers: Infiltration series by IDW, as an extra Christmas present for me.
Since we were aiming to return via the Central line, we headed back to Tottenham Court Road, and popped into Orbital Comics along the way. It's another hole in the ground, but it's easily redeemed by being incredibly cool. A smaller stock of comics that FP, to be sure, but they make up for it with the amazing miscellany of toys and stuff in the back. Against my better judgement - and because it's a rather cool car - I picked up TransFormers Kiss Play Hot Rodimus (and Syao Syao), doing my level best to ignore the packaging.
All the while, in the background, a couple of guys were having a heated discussion about the Matrix trilogy, and how the sequels ruined the continuity set up by the first, and how they should have left it all well alone. It was interesting to hear someone with even more extreme views on the films than I have.
Just after I'd paid, one of the staff announced that they were about to close, so Paul and I departed.
Since it was getting late, and I was rather hungry, I suggested to Paul that we either knocked the day on the head and went home, or got some food and carried on shopping (going to one of the music megastores, for example). Paul didn't mind either way, but I figured most of my shopping could be done another time, so I voted for home. In retrospect, I think I should have voted for food, then home...
The Central line was still experiencing 'severe delays', so I suggested jumping off at Hangar Lane and getting the bus, which would drop us both closer to home than the train would. This turned out to be a really bad idea because the 'severe delays' just meant that there was a shuttle service from North Acton, at which point the route would have been plain sailing. I still thought picking up the bus was going to be the better option, though...
...And it wasn't. It really, really wasn't. We stood out in the cold by the Hangar Lane gyratory waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting... many buses passed, none were the right number. The only one that did come quickly was stopping at Alperton - a very helpful two or three stops down the route - and several buses which shouldn't even have been on that route passed by, all 'Not In Service'.
When the right bus finally arrived, it was already full - no surprise, considering we'd been waiting so long we could have taken the train and walked and still been home long before this bus came along - with a bunch of rowdy kids with rap aspirations occupying the back. They gave the bus an impromptu performance of some ad libbed rubbish (including references to people's mothers, threats of violence, etc) set to the four-note ringtone of a cellphone. When they were gone, I was glad to see the back of them.
By the time I got home, it was much colder, and I had the beginnings of a headache. Ben Affleck was on TV - starring in The Sum of All Fears - so I had my dinner and dodged off to my bedroom.
Today, there was the option of trudging around Richmond Park to take photos for the work website, but my friend and colleague had work to do, and I ended up dozing for most of the day.
We have several concerns at work... not least the snail's pace that one of our number works at. I ended up doing a good chunk of his work last week because he'd got to press day without even proofing any ads pages ("there are just so many!" he'd whined. There had been ten at most). While this is cretinous in the extreme, it's nothing in the face of this coming week... where he'll be producing a magazine with potentially three or four times as many ad pages, in exactly the same timeframe. I don't know what he was up to last week, but this week he'd better bloody do some work. Late is not an option. Nor is getting me to help out, as I'll have plenty to do for my own deadlines.
Roll on Christmas... I need to start feeling some goodwill toward all men...
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