Today was the company Christmas party which followed some sort of high level meeting meaning many of the higher ups were in suits with stupid Christmas ties resulting in a look appropriate for what I’ll call “execu-caroling”.  My fellow technicians and I walked to the cafeteria and were buffeted with mediocre singing from a volunteer choir and one of their voices cut through the air like a knife.   He was a fellow with whom I worked many years ago who had fast-tracked through the company and many of us felt he lost his humanity along the way, it appears he also lost his singing ability.

The food itself was presentable and last year’s “Foods of the World” served by executives in a heated outdoor tent was replaced with chicken fingers and questionable seafood that was self-served inside our cafeteria.  A somber and half-cheerful speech was delivered by our executive and we tooled around after.  The party really got started when I started losing vision in my let eye and became very sweaty and lost some fine muscle control.  I’m pretty sure it was the shrimp but I hope this doesn’t portent a future tactic of using food-borne illness to winnow the weak from the company.  If so, I’m willing to go to Taco Bell for however long it takes to build up immunity.  Carpe chalupum.