Ok so I got a little behind on writing about the holidays. Now here it is the day before New Years Eve and I have sat down to compose a few, whilst I procrastinate on my after the holidays tasks (I.E. Cleaning and reorganizing).
Last year (2009) the recession hit our office very hard, as it did many companies. We had to let go of 3 people, which for a company that only has 10 employees that is a lot: 30%. We had picked back up by October but the recession had his the morale in the office hard. So our account manager (the owner's wife) decided to start a tradition in the office of actually celebrating the holiday's with various tasks that we were required to complete during the day. This year was no different. On Halloween we had pumpkin carving, bingo and pizza delivered. Christmas was a feat. We had to decorate our desks/offices, paint Christmas trees, and make "Gingerbread houses". The Gingerbread houses were not real however due to last years technical difficulties. You see we had a lot of business the week of Christmas and the phone rang a lot. So while we were gluing on our house piece with royal icing (which takes time to dry) we had to jump and answer the phones which cause us all anxiety for the structure of our houses. So this year we had the easier, foam version of the gingerbread houses. We also had foam garland, which I took the liberty of bringing home and adding that Christmassy touch of glitter to. The main part of my decorations was my cubical. As many of you know I am an Interior Designer so we have a vast amount of commercial fabrics in various colors just lying around our office. I took various shades of red and green and push-pinned them to my cubical in a quilt pattern. It really made mine look like the holidays without the use of lights....which were also used in our office.
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| Lights and Coffee Filter Snowflakes (Lesley and Uli's Office) |
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| Handmade Sign w/ Foam Letters and a wood sample! |
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| Painted Tree! |
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| Quilted Cubical |
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| Cubical w/ foam garland |
Wednesday before Christmas we went out to lunch and did a White Elephant. For 5 days before that Los Angeles was getting dumped on by a record amount of rain. We hadn't seen the sun in days. While we were loading up into the clown car (I like to call it that because our entire office fits into one SUV) the sun peaked out of the clouds and we thought that the storm was over. Fil, one of the AutoCad guys asked me if he should bring his umbrella. I replied to him....no I think its over. Boy was I wrong!!!!!! While eating our lunch at The Yard House (I had the best 4 cheese grilled cheese and tomato bisque ever) my boss Nathan points to the windows and said maybe we won't leave yet. We all turned around and saw the sheets of rain coming down outside. When we were leaving the restaurant we had to run to the escalator, which was of course out of order! To which I stated "How can an escalator be out of order? It is just stairs now!" We got completely drenched and were having a fun time running through the puddles. We got into the car in the parking garage and by the time we drove out the dime sized hail started to come down hot and heavy. This continued through the 3 mile drive back to the office, we all bolted out of the car and as soon as the last person hit the inside of the door the rain and hail completely stopped! Figures! This happened 3 more times over the course of the afternoon. My vinyl boots did not do much to keep my feet warm or dry, so I whipped out my new fuzzy socks that my boss put in my stocking. :-) It was a silly and fun afternoon. We proceeded to do our White Elephant and eat chocolate cheesecake. It was a true WE with a Hello Kitty water cooler, anchovies, A snuggie and various other gifts. I walked away with the Snuggie! YES! Now I can be warm and have my hands free!
I have to say that I am grateful to work in an office that's more like a family. We have fun with what we do and enjoy being around each other.
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