Off-Site Meetings and Crawl Spaces

Unlike last year, Halloween in the office this year was a bust. Well, I take that back; not a complete bust. The two and a half day off-site meetings this week made it difficult to pull everything together. Even worse, they made us check in our Blackberries and iPhones to keep us from being distracted. That, of course, made it even more difficult to plan anything.

Day one was complete drag. Not because I was bored to death but because I was having anxiety attacks from parting with my geek devices. (No email, Facebook, or Twitter = Social Media Suicide.)

Day two's off-site was at a new fancy pants location - The Ritz. As soon as we all filed into the meeting room everyone had that "WHAT THE FUCK" look on their faces. We couldn't help but wonder how the company could spring for digs like this for a fucking off-site meeting with all the recent talks of budget cuts. We got over that real quick when they served us fancy meals with fancy drinks. The day was wrapping up and we were told we were all going to load into buses and be taken to yet another location for dinner. Destination unknown but a "surprise."

The buses came around and the first group filed in. HOLY SHIT! These were straight party buses complete with two 40" plasmas, laser lights, bumping sounds and a stripper pole! (The night just got better!) The immediate response from the meeting-goers was "fuck yeah!" (I included.) We all took a spin around the pole. (I made $5-cheap bastards.)

We arrive at our dinner destination...Hell's Kitchen! Not exactly, but just about. Everyone was a chef that night wearing aprons and chef hats. I, of course, turned my apron into a mini-dress, as expected. They broke us up into teams and assigned us to our kitchen stations: Salad, Dessert, Chicken and Flank Steak, Pizza, Grilled Veggies, and the Alcohol Pit! While the kitchen looked intimidating, being assigned to the salad station wasn't so bad. I quickly completed my task so I could move on the the bartending pit. Giving me full access to top shelf and premium spirits probably wasn't such a great idea. I was bombed! After kitchen duty and getting all liquored up, we were in for yet another treat! A Halloween maze!

We all loaded into the party buses again and I have to say the stripper pole was put to good use! Again, we were broken into groups and I gave my Halloween Maze disclaimer: "If you're a dude, press up against my ass. If you're a chick, I may dyke out momentarily. Point - STAY CLOSE! I also grab." Those instructions were closely adhered to when we went through a crawl space. Our group may have held up the line just a bit, but being smashed between two other girls was encouraged.

The night came to an end. I still had enough in me to make it to Tequila Thursday just in time for last call.

The entire department strolled in at about 10am the following morning. To liven things up a bit, I had my team dress up as jackasses to align with the donkey pinata and inflatable jackass hanging in my office. I gave them each a set of jackass ears, jackass tails and jackass teeth. We will forever be known as "The Jackass Crew" going forward. So not what I had planned for Halloween in the office, but given the amount of time we had to plan, we came through.

Comments

[andy065]

at least no one asked for a donkey show....

[Jason X]

Can we have a donkey show?

[Matt]

Jason: I don't think that is legal in the state of California. You will have to make a run down to Tijuana to check that out.

[Tech Babe]

andy065 & JasonX & Matt: No donkey show, but when I hung upside down I raised more than a few eyebrows. (Fuck, I think HR was watching)