Politicians are stupid

[altivo]

The first seven holiday seasons that I worked for the city, they gave everyone a turkey at Christmas. OK, that's a pretty cheap Christmas bonus at roughly $10 apiece, but it's something.

The eighth year, they gave us nothing. Unless you count a cheap Christmas card signed by the mayor (an old style smarmy politico type.)

The ninth year? An invitation to a city Christmas Party. For which we are expected to pay $20 per person and drive up into Wisconsin. It's even a "cash bar." No, thanks, Harvard. You can keep your turkeys AND your parties. I'm sure that the police and fire departments, who account for most of your payroll and whom you've been shorting on raises for a while now will be just delighted to pay for their own second rate Christmas dinner too.

Comments

[moonhare]

sing along... Take this bird and stuff it! uh, Johnny Paychick?

We have an xmas party at the library but the library pays for it. I don't go. It's pretty basic, and only staff, but it's a Yankee Swap thing and I hate that and I don't drink and they don't have soda... yeah, no fun for me.

[altivo]

Ooh, sorry to hear that. Our library parties have been pretty good. The (now retired) director used to take us all out to a nice restaurant for dinner and drinks, paid for out of some discretionary fund that was hers to use as she saw fit. It was always pleasant. About three years ago she switched to having it at her home, catered, so spouses or significant others could be invited. That has been good too. The last couple of times it was nowhere near Christmas because so many people were traveling or unavailable in December, so we've had it at Presidents' Day and 2009 it was in the summer.

Dunno what will happen (if anything) this year.

[moonhare]

They used to go out to a restaurant and have a nice meal with drinks, and exchange 'Secret Santa' type gifts, but at the time I had to stay home with the young'uns as this was the busiest time of year for retail for my wife. Then when I could go they started doing that swap thing (a very competitive and cut-throat group of ladies) and bringing in odd platters of finger-roll tuna and such.

Hope you have a nice one this year, if you have one.

Thinking of your original comments, we never get invited to the Town Proper's party because we aren't considered Town employees.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

I work for the state government and the department has the option of going to a christmas party but most branches have their own parties. Unfortunately a lot of the old class have now left and our parties aren't the social things they were.