Lame holiday parties

[omg-teh-funnay.livejournal.com]

I work as a manager for a technology contractor, and my client is a fairly large bank,

So I just got an email forwarded to me by my manager from our group admin. It's an invitation to the company holiday shindig. It's to be held in a spare conference room, on Thursday, from 3-4, and we're supposed to being our own cookies. It's a "BYOC" party. Yaaay!

One of my guys tells me that they did the same thing last year - cookie party in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. BUT, the kicker is that the client offered to take all of my company's people on a dinner cruise, no strings attached - they were already offering said cruise to their own employees. Management responded that that wasn't really needed, that they had the holidays for us all taken care of - and then the management team went on the cruise. And oh! Look! The client was handing out free iPods to random attendees.

Our team had to bring HOMEMADE cookies, and our managers got a fancy dinner and free iPods. And we're getting the honor of bringing our own cookies again this year

It's no Hot Cocoa Sampler Box (who gets THAT joke?) that I got a few years back that contained a human skull filled with human excrement, but I think that's insulting. The company doesn't owe us a party or a bonus or anything like that. However, I think that if you're going to go through the motions of setting up a party, make it something that doesn't suck. As Mrs teh_funnay said, it's better to do nothing that to have something so low class that really enforces the fact that they don't give a rat's ass about anybody

How many companies still have Christmas/holiday events? Is this normal?

(x-posted to my journal)

OMG I AM NOT IN SALES

[ebtb.livejournal.com]

You called tech support, not sales, dumbass! I will not compare our software to our competitors'. I won't quote prices. I refuse to answer "what if..." scenarios. If we do not provide a certain software solution you need, I cannot make recommendations. I will not list the product features. We have a website with all the info and more - fucking go there. Download the trial and see for yourself, asshat.

(no subject)

[vertelemming.livejournal.com]

IT Frustration #3627: Being asked to set up a network for a new group of students, being given "free reign" over the design and configuration of this network, and then having to spend an hour halfway through the process sitting down with Management and going, "Yes, this is the best way to do things, no, it won't touch this other network, yes, I know what I'm doing, no, it really won't touch that other network, yes, I need this network configuration change approved, for the third and bloody final time, no!"

Bah. Why do I let myself get talked into these things again?