The 2011 work holiday party was at a restaurant literally a few hundred feet from our main buildings across a field.  Most people walked.  The party included workers from field offices and even housekeeping.  I wonder if the food tasted better knowing they’d not have to clean up for once.  The mingling rooms had well-stocked bars and a swarm of servers hustled things on us more aggressively than I’m used to:

Server: Would you like a bacon-wrapped scallop?
Me: No thank you.
Server: Why not?
Me: I don’t like scallops.
Server: These are good, and wrapped in bacon.
Me: No thank you.
Server: All your friends had one.  Are you saying they have bad taste?
Me: No *takes scallop*
Server: Good move.

I still don’t like scallops.  Either that or the taste of douchebag rubbed off on mine.

The crowd shifted like a flock of Arctic Terns identifying surface fish when the main dining room opened.  The line was long enough that it collapsed into a zigzag like we were waiting for a roller coaster.  The line for pasta and the line for seafood line merged despite going opposite directions confusing many vegetarians and forming a human traffic circle in which a few people got stuck.  Someone I passed on the way to the Philly wraps was still there when I returned later for fiesta tacos.  I wonder how long it took for them to realize they had right of way being on the inside of the circle.