In the line-up of Christmas activities at the office: the Christmas song rewriting contest.  One of my favorite entries:

“Working in the 1815 Wonderland”

Water tinkles, are you listening?
On the desk, puddles glistening.
A beautiful sight,
Though not watertight,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

Gone away is the good smell,
Here to stay is a new smell.
Popcorn in the makin’,
Or is it burnin’ bacon?
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

In the hallway we can do some bowling,
And pretend this is the P.B.A.
She’ll say: did you break it?
We’ll say: No man,
But you can fix that pin,
Try the duct tape.

Later on, we’ll perspire,
As we roast like a fire,
Fans turned to “high,”
Minus twenty outside,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

In the basement we can play some foosball,
And pretend that we are 9 or 10.
We’ll have lots of fun, we happy foosers,
Until they need the space and move us again.

Working late, get a bad scare,
A stranger’s camping out in your chair.
An adventure a day, the [our company name] way,
Working in the 1815 Wonderland.

Today and yesterday have been party days here at work.  I’ve never been paid so much to eat and chit-chat in my life - I could really get used to this.  =)

Yesterday, we all left the downtown office at 10:30 to drive out to the west side for our 11:00-3:00 department Christmas party.  We knew it was gonna be a riot as soon as we got this invitation:

It was hilarious!  Coworkers and bosses ran around in the most outrageous outfits - they were characters in a murder mystery.  Here are photos from the event:

http://www1.mymeded.com/content/clarian/docs/1207_holiday_party/

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Today, the instructors (downstairs) had a “progressive Christmas party.”  =)  That means we got to walk from suite to suite, touring their decorated offices and eat ourselves silly.  It was wonderful.  AND I got paid to do it.

*sigh*  I love my job.

I’m back and it’s yucky out - cold and wet and gray.  Hawai’i seems like a million miles away.  I’ve been nursing a chai and whining to my officemate - P’s great at commiserating.

Speaking of P, she was involved in another atrocious-working-conditions fiasco while I was gone.  One of the guys on my team (JR from earlier posts) had to evacuate his office.  It’s directly below the bathroom upstairs.  The toilet overflowed - onto his desk!  They keep saying it was just the tank, but no one believes that.  P was in his office in a flash and ended up cleaning everything, top to bottom, with Clorox.  Yuck!

I talked to our office manager before I left - I let him know how I [we] felt.  He was sympathetic, but basically said, “There’s nothing I can do.”  I suggested that he talk to someone who could do something.  Doubt he’ll do anything, but at least I’ve done more than just whine.  =)  I’m thinking that since the petition thing worked so well for the HoHos, maybe we should give that a shot.

I’m in Hawai’i, hanging out with my parents and BOTH of my sisters (yay!).  I won’t be posting a lot, but I will be posting photos.  Check out my flickr page (or the photos to the right on this page) if you’re interested.  I’ll be back in Indiana next week.