Surely everyone knows what parse the Parcel is!

Surely everyone knows what parse the Parcel is!

So today it was our office party and I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I have been to one or two office parties in the past ranging from one in an all expenses paid castle with an open bar (where I was close to falling asleep in a massive leather chair by the fire with a whiskey in my hand) to a casino night where a couple I and a couple of the people I was with ended up gate crashing a club and getting back home around 4:30am. (You know who you are… and it was a great night!)

This was my first American office party. It was to start at 4pm and everyone was invited. Unfortunately Zack wasn’t feeling too well and in the end Sarah and the kids didn’t join me. :0(

The food arrived in the morning and started getting dished out right from the start. There was loads of it. (So much in fact, we were eating it the next day… even after taking some home at the end of the day) We sat and stuffed our faces with and chatted. The odd thing was that because there are two offices, this was the first time that some of the people had actually met each other. Since I have been working here, there has been three new staff hired. I really felt like it was a getting to know you session. I must say this is probably the most some of us have chatted ever! Generally it is a very quiet environment where most people (myself included) focus on what they are doing and listen to their own music etc with head phones on.

Once we had all eaten, we all had a toast and moved the furniture into a big circle. Once we had cleared the way, presents of all shapes and sizes were brought into the middle of the room. I’m not kidding, there were loads. They were put there as part of the game.

There is a shaker with 4 dice in it. If you get a double number then you get to pick up a gift. If you open the gift then it can be snatched. If the next person rolls a double number then they can either pick a gift from the middle or snatch yours from you. You keep going until there are no gifts left. If there is anybody who hasn’t rolled a double, the people with 3 or more gifts have to put the ones they like least in the middle again. If there is not enough, people with 2 gifts have to put there’s in the middle. Once everyone has a gift, there is one last shake of the dice each where you can swap one of yours with someone else’s. Tactically, I think the best thing is if you are last, as that way you will always pick something you want. I did pretty well out of it, but felt it would be right to swap my back massager, with Steve, as he was in a car accident a few days ago and seem to be in quite a bit of pain still.

I really enjoyed it, but it seemed to come to end quite quickly. I know it started at 4pm, but by 8:30ish people were making a move to go home. I imagine this is because the average commute to work is around 50 minutes… and you can’t get too drunk. It was Dan’s turn to drive to work so I took advantage and had a few beers. (Thanks Dan if you are reading this).

When I first got here I was told that when you are invited out to… wherever, it is quite norm to have a start and finish time. Back in the UK, (from my experience) it was more a case of a start time and a “struggling to keep conscious, so better make a move” time.

It probably is a good thing, but I do enjoy the long haul drinking sessions, where you can take it easy and chill, rather race then burn out… not that I was… you understand.