Tuesday, August 28, 2001

Corporate Outing Time

My company actually is having a corporate outing. In the internet economy, these are few and far between these days. And my neighbor was shocked when I told him we were having one. "I thought you guys were going bankrupt! That's the impression I got from the news stories on you guys!" So the media has been as unfriendly to us as the markets. What do you expect.

So yeah, we have enough money to do a nice corporate outing. Hopefully this time next year we will still have enough money to do a corporate outing.

Last year was funny. The marketing/outings group didn't put one together fast enough for the likings of our EVP, so he put one (actually, had his admin put one) together for just our department. It was a 1/2 day business meeting with a 1/2 day fun. Full day out of the office. It was nice, because I'd only been with the company for 2 months at that point, so I got to know some of my co-workers, and in the late afternoon they welcomed our spouses and kids. Seeing as we live about 2 miles from the site of the retreat center, my kids were there and swimming like maniacs.

The funny thing about the whole corporate outing thing is this place has four pools. No one I know is going swimming. It's been the hot topic of discussion. "I'm not wearing a bathing suit around all those guys!" "No way, I don't want anyone to see what I look like in a swim suit!" So these huge olympic plus sized pools will be pretty much unused for the day. It makes me giggle. Last year I swam, I was the only one. Only because Geoff is a mental case in the water and has no fear, so I wanted to be nearby. And nearby meant in water.

The beautiful thing about the corporate outing is there is free food, lots of free beer (my friend Mark is over tapping the keg right now...) and perhaps a little volleyball if I feel like playing. Otherwise, I'm hanging in the pavillion, shooting the shit with some pals, and hanging out.

I'm sort of in the mindset that this is a waste of time though. There isn't any business aspect to this, which sort of bums me out, believe it or not. Most of you who know me well know that I don't pass up free anything OR an excuse to not work. But seeing as my next door neighbor's impression of my company is we're sliding down the shitter, I know most of the employees here are feeling kind of down and experiencing existential conflict over what their future holds. Some sort of short, helpful, encouraging blurb/speech/pep-talk from our CEO or our President would be .... encouraging. But I guess that's not part of the deal.

So I'll gladly go and drink free beer. Hang with friends. Not work. And wonder if we'll be doing this at this very time next year.

On another note, just HAVING one is a sign that we consider ourselves still going forward and still alive. Vibrant. With Future. So I'll take that as my "pep-talk." I guess.


Doug is taking Sunil to Boston today to hang out, seeing as he is kid free and Sunil is going back home tomorrow... so how is Doug kid free? Geoff is in school he started up yesterday, and surprise surprise, Jessica's first day of school is today. I thought it was Thursday. But she was at a friend's house yesterday and the talk was of ... first day, which Jessica was told was today. So she came home and informed us.

I was shocked. I called the school to confirm and as sure as eggs is eggs, her friend was right.

Damn. How am I charged with the responsibility of raising children??? I'm a fucking clueless distracted moron. There should be laws against shit like this! Me, being a parent. HA!

And anyway, I hate that school starts BEFORE Labor Day. That sucks! I so very hate that. It should be outlawed, that way I'd always know when school starts.

So last night Jessie and I ran around looking for the last couple pieces of school supplies that she needed (we were going to do that this afternoon after the corporate outing) and we shopped a little for clothes, and went home late. She got to bed after 10pm, so we had a talk about waking up with a smile on face as a reward for me letting her stay up late and take care of her needs. She's a good doobie. She got up, showered, ate breakfast, dressed and even had time for me to paint her nails. Which we normally don't do.


This past Saturday, we went to Boston to the Museum of Science. It was a lot of fun. We let Jessica go off and do whatever she wanted. For the first time really. Alone. She spent a great deal of time building virtual fish in a computer driven fishtank.

We had dinner at the Cheesecake Factory in Cambridge. It was mobbed. Sunil managed to get separated from Doug in the mall while we were waiting for our table, and about 70 minutes after we got to the mall (with the 20 minute wait for the table) he refound us.

He was kind of pissed, we were pissed, both parties understandably. We couldn't figure out how Sunil couldn't just come find us; Sunil asked at the front counter if we'd been seated and was told no.

Rather than distrust the blonde retard at the front counter and come walk through to see where we were, he went back out and walked around. Finally he found us. So we were there for over 2 hours, while we first ate, and then he got to eat...It was a bizarre night.


My friend Carrie came over on Sunday, I have a picture of her to post. She's darling. We went and looked at my neighbor's house, which is up for sale. They're asking $339,000... which boggles my mind.

Well, I ought to get some things tied up in the next 10 minutes so I can be ready to go. I have my sister's digital camera (yeah, I'll mail it back soon!) and will take some pics of the activities and my friends, with their permission of course, and post them here. I am pissed though at my computer situation. Here's the deal:

  • I have a PC at home, the DVD drive is broken and I have to take it to the Gateway Store to have it fixed. It's been broken since... March. Uh, Okay. I suck and should be less lazy. But I haven't gotten it fixed yet. So I can't install the software to download the pictures from the camera... so...
  • I brought the camera into work, installed the software and went to unload the pictures. Then I remembered my operating system (Windows NT) doesn't support USB, which is the camera's interface. Super shit!
  • I just found a co-worker who is running 98. She doesn't have a USB port on her PC.

So I'm going to case out the PC where my intern sat this past summer. I believe it is running 98 because he can password protect his system, I know the password, and I just have to pray there's a USB port on that piece of shit. Then, I'm golden.

More after the outing!

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