Glad things are on track in your company world.
Our office had its holiday party a couple of weeks ago, and it was nice again. (I'm still surprised, after dreading the experience at former companies.) It feels like one of those "quick, swap out 'Christmas' for 'Holiday'" type parties, but it somehow works, despite the diversity of religions and cultures of my coworkers. I suspect the concentration on spouses and family, gift giving, and company achievements and a lack of Christmas type trees makes it work. Well, that and all the silly icebreaker type stuff that's so useful for meeting everyone's spouses and keeping the event moving along.
My company has a Christmas holiday, but it isn't until January, because it's a lot cheaper to book a venue in January when everyone isn't having Christmas parties.
Maybe your company is just run by people who use the Orthodox calendar.
I think you're supposed to say "spouses".
3: Yeah, ours has crept earlier and earlier. We were the second week of November this year--which, at least, doesn't interfere with holiday travel or last minute Christmas running around.
My work's Christmas party is this Friday. I guess we are getting in fairly early.
It's not even Advent until Sunday.
We have transparently Christmas-themed parties that are called "holiday parties" and that happen in the couple of weeks before Christmas.
Same here. No one seems bothered about it.
#asajew, I prefer when people call it "Christmas Break" over "Holiday Break" because A. it rarely if ever includes any days of Hanukkah and B. Hanukkah's not an important Jewish holiday anyway, so we may as well call it what it is.
I don't really understand who would be bothered by it. All of the people I know who are religious and non-Christian are happy to celebrate it.
You can always tell when it is Hanukkah because of the people who drive around the neighborhood with a giant, electric menorah on the roof of their car.
I figure "holiday" includes New Years for the secular, right?
This year, we get off from Festivus Eve through New Years Day. They call it Winter Recess, which fits.
15: I think you haven't lived anyplace with unpleasant levels of Christian social dominance. My impression of the UK is that actually religious Christianity is pretty rare and not terribly pushy, so all the holiday trappings feel secular. Here, being a non-Christian can be a genuinely socially disfavored status, so being told that you're expected to enjoy Christian holiday fun can feel a little more meaningfully negative.
A. it rarely if ever includes any days of Hanukkah and B. Hanukkah's not an important Jewish holiday anyway, so we may as well call it what it is.
Does it include New Years? Because that's a pretty important holiday.
Anyway, it used to be that in America you'd hear Christians preaching about not commercializing Christmas and pointing out that Santa and all were secular. Sometime when I wasn't paying attention, that all flipped and now apparently what's written on the Starbuck's cups is of religious importance.
I don't really understand who would be bothered by it
Jehova's Witnesses.
Yes, that's the only people who objected when I was growing up. My mom was a teacher in a public school and complained about it.
Also, like Pittsburgh, they have a terminal 'h' that people keep trying to drop.
By wanting Christmas to be both socially dominant and in some sense religious, a certain kind of Christian wants to have their cake and eat it too. Pick at most one.
I think that's putting is kindly. I think that white nationalism ate part of Christianity.
|| If there's a God, he, she, or it will strike m down for this, but how about that Steve Daines? |>
29: Indeed, I am being too kind. It's a pathetic attempt at cultural dominance. Fucking snowflakes and their identity politics.
30: I'm, unfairly, imagining you as the dude from the looking-at-another-woman memes.
I think my wife would tell you that that is totally fair.
||
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Xw7qKZxUA8
This is very nice, and, for the guitar nerdery inclined, lovely use of harmonics ...
>
28
By wanting Christmas to be both socially dominant and in some sense religious, a certain kind of Christian wants to have their cake and eat it too. Pick at most one.
There's only a logical or ethical conflict if you aren't that kind of Christian. They think their religion should be socially dominant. To stretch the metaphor, they want to have their cake and someone else's too. Or maybe I should say they want to eat their cake and force us to eat it too. I like metaphors.
I have metaphors. You have analogies, which are banned.
Honestly, it's at least a little amusing that a guy with a Jewish daughter is yelling about stores that say "Happy Holidays" to impress voters who are very often antisemitic.
Unlike, say, Dubai, here in Arrakis you don't see Christmas decorations in public malls and the like so it was nice to see a huge Christmas tree at the branch campus of a US institution here near where I work.
The morale in my office is so low that nobody bothered to do anything for Halloween or T'giving and I expect it will be the same for Xmas. In past years we've had a tree -- to which I object, but at least it showed a little spirit -- and some Halloween decorations and costumes. Have I mentioned* that I HATE MY OFFICE? But in keeping with the OP's positive theme, I've only got 6 months to go!
*Probably not to most people given the infrequency of my commenting these days.
In December 2016, they put up wreaths all around this floor for decoration. In January, somebody remarked that it was time for the wreaths to come down. So, the person who put up the wreaths was six months from retirement and took that as a challenge. Instead of putting away the Christmas decorations, she pulled off the bows and put hearts on them for Valentines. Then shamrocks, then eggs, then American flags. Then she retired, but somebody else came along and did fall things, Halloween things, and turkeys. Now the bows are back.
Also, we have a lot of women in leadership and there's a pretty low tolerance for visible sexism. Odds are that somewhere among 300+ staff across the country there must be some harassment but I haven't heard of anything.
It helps that the staff have a collective bargaining agreement, so people can go to their steward before officially reporting something and can file a grievance backed up by the union instead of a solitary complaint to some HR manager.
Have I mentioned* that I HATE MY OFFICE? But in keeping with the OP's positive theme, I've only got 6 months to go!
Where are you going, Sir Kraab???
Taking my pension as a lump sum which I will spend on hookers and blow carefully invest. If the funding comes through I'll work a few days a week on an economic justice education project that I already do some work for now. (It's more confusing than it's probably worth explaining.)
If it doesn't come through, I'll clean bathrooms at Burger King and eat ramen noodles seven days a week if I have to.
I hate how much I hate my job. For years, I absolutely loved it and my co-workers. We did good work that we knew was valuable, had fun, and generally got along without much elbow rubbing. I didn't anticipate being a middle-aged cliche literally counting the days (161) until I can get out of hear.
tl;dr I'm in a different office.
I moved from D.C. to Austin to be near my family in 2004. Initially I thought I would have to quit my job with the union, but the president of the union offered to let me be an "experiment" in working long distance so that they didn't lose me. (See -- people who value me and my skills!)
I did that for 5 or so years and then the new union president decided that no one was allowed to work long distance. My boss in D.C. managed to keep delaying it as long as he could, but eventually it kicked in.
He was able to get the district office we have here to hire me, which isn't really like moving to a regional office in a company. Our leadership is elected by the locals and they serve at the locals' pleasure, not HQ's.
There's a whole lot more but that's how I got into this mess that's run by an elected VP who cares much more about looking important than doing anything useful and whose second-in-command is a insecure narcissist with power.
That sucks. You couldn't move back?
I could have but I didn't want to leave my siblings and especially their kids. On balance I think it's been worth it. I miss my D.C. co-workers and my friends and public transportation but there were plenty of downsides. (One of those was a stupid on again/off again relationship with an emotionally tortured man that I likely would have been sucked into for a few more years.)
Most important, I would never have met M/tch and thus never found Unfogged! I suppose it's just possible that I would have stumbled across it through someone like Scott Mc/Clem/e to SEK or Dan/ny Po/stel to Spackerman or through the uncanny number of friends Ari and I have in common.
being a middle-aged cliche
Conversations about medical stuff with old friends are now normal for me. I make old guy noises when moving around after exercise.
Separately, is there anything that you can recommend to read about Jimmy Hoffa?
A Masterclass in Hiding and Living Past 100 by James Hoffa (Penguin Random House, 2015).
If the funding comes through I'll work a few days a week on an economic justice education project that I already do some work for now
Good luck. Hope it comes through.
I still can't get over them not calling the new company "Random Penguin."
50.last: Sorry, no, haven't read anything.