Useless Conversation

[Mrbloodworth]

Put the image in the PUBLIC folder. Right click >  get public URL. Post URL in [img] tags in thread. Profit.

[Signe]

Oh, the female mind.  What must it be like?  A Dali painting?

I think you are being optimistic there. A man can almost begin to understand a Dali painting.

You know we're sitting right here!!! 

[Ironwood]

If only.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Department is in full holiday mode for the pot luck lunch today. So yummie.  I went with turkey meatballs in honey BBQ sauce for my contribution.  I even dragged the crock-pot into the office for this.  Already had breakfast cookies.  Next I'll need a hoist to haul me to the gym to account for all this holiday eating.  Next party is on Monday lunch.

I'll have to post the pics I took of my crappy whiteboard decorations so others can laugh.

[Engels]

You're one of THOSE people who brings in an entire crock pot or baking pan into work while I stand around looking like a cheap bastard with my plastic cookie carton from Safeway. The thing is, if I step up my game and say, bring in a beef brisket which I slaved over for 5 hours, you're going to bring in a roast rack of lamb with haricot vert in a white wine reduction.

[WayAbvPar]

Even worse- you slave over something, bring it in, and watch your coworkers ignore it and swarm over the tasteless offerings from the supermarket. At least my office has a built in excuse- we have tons of naturalized or green carded folks working here, and not all of them are terribly comfortable trying unfamiliar items. Also makes our potlucks pretty awesome when they cook 

[cmlancas]

Even worse- you slave over something, bring it in, and watch your coworkers ignore it and swarm over the tasteless offerings from the supermarket. At least my office has a built in excuse- we have tons of naturalized or green carded folks working here, and not all of them are terribly comfortable trying unfamiliar items. Also makes our potlucks pretty awesome when they cook 

Our potlucks tend to be dominated by baked goods with a splash of Publix fried chicken or sub sandwiches.  The chicken and subs are just that good and take zero effort.

I'd kill for someone who could make a smokin' curry though.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Engels - someone actually brought in beef brisket at our last pot luck.  Since we have a large contingent of Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lanka/etc. folks, pot lucks are awesome for testing new things.  There's always someone who brings in supermarket cookies and puts them next to the homemade ones.  This is the first time I've brought in my crockpot though, usually I make a desert - pretzel jello.  I just don't want to be known as that person who always brings in the same thing every time.  And with ~100 people to feed, none of the food's going to waste, that's for sure.

[Viin]

Pretzel jello? 

[JWIV]

It's like we haven't even been married almost 10 years.

I know you were up all night with the kids, and working all morning on writing revised job descriptions because your boss can't be bothered and I just told you my car needs to go into the shop for yet another problem, but why are you being so not nice?

 

[RhyssaFireheart]

Pretzel jello? 

It's not as bad as it sounds.

Bottom layer is 4c crushed pretzels, 1c sugar, 3/4c melted butter mixed and baked for 15 mins.   13x9 baking pan.

Middle layer is 8pz cream cheese, 8oz whipped topping (whatever the "normal" size tub is) and another 1c sugar, mixed and spread on cooled bottom layer.

You can put strawberries or other fruit (I guess) on top of the the middle layer if you like at this point.

Top layer is 2 8oz packages of strawberry (whatever flavor) jello, poured on top of middle layer.  Husband says to make using just the hot water part of the jello recipe, I made using hot and cold water.  Let set up a bit to cool down, then pour onto layers.

Refrigerate until set.  Cut and serve.  It's really rather tasty and not at all healthy.  But tasty.

[Merusk]

I thought that might be what it was, Rhyssa.  Had someone at a previous job who made it often and I concur, it's fantastic.

Sweet + Salty at the same time.

[Numtini]

Even worse- you slave over something, bring it in, and watch your coworkers ignore it and swarm over the tasteless offerings from the supermarket.

That's pretty much what goes on here. I tend to not sign up for them, thankfully they're optional. I realized a while back that I was choking down their overprocessed semi-homemade food to be polite, and only one person was willing to touch anything I made.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Well, had the usual problem of too many food choices, most homemade (and good).  The gift exchange was fun even though only 9 people took part.  It's the "steal" version where you can choose to either steal someone elses gift or pick a new one.  I went first and got my cool ring toss game stolen (and it was stolen from that person! HA!) and ended up with a bag of Starbucks Christmas coffee and a mug.  Not bad, although I "auctioned" off the coffee to one of the other participants since I don't drink the stuff, so I got a nice mug out of it, which I'm fine with.

Good thing I'm not on the committee which means I can be a slob and let others clean up.

[Sky]

We do secret santa and I cheat every year. This year I took my previous supervisor's wife name (we've known the family for decades) and I got her a Pink Floyd bass play-along book/cd and she'll get a free lesson with me. I don't think she owns a bass right now, but she's been talking about it for years and she's a huge Floyd fan, so I hope she enjoys the boot to the posterior.

[Strazos]

I hate performance reviews too, and I think they do jack-all. You'll get a promotion if you can be recognized as deserving one, no one is going back to read your performance reviews to see what is in there! Nothing you can put in a performance review will increase your likelihood of promotion *or* bonus. It is completely based on how your boss (and your boss' boss) feel about you.

Thus: waste. of. time.

Our promotions (and even our ability to not tick-out of the service) are based entirely on our performance review documents, which are reviewed centrally by assembled boards maybe twice a year.

Then again, this is a career position with a set pay scale, with rules about how quickly you can be promoted and how fast you HAVE to be promoted before being let go. And since we're discussing pay anyway...:http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/134927.pdf (and no, I'm not going to say where on the scale I currently sit  )

[Engels]

These office potlucks you guys have sound great. At the last one I had, some dork cut up a bunch of slim jims and threw them into a bowl of mac and cheese. 

[Paelos]

These office potlucks you guys have sound great. At the last one I had, some dork cut up a bunch of slim jims and threw them into a bowl of mac and cheese. 

Wow.

Since I'm at a mostly Jewish firm, we just pick the local seafood joint and have a party there.

[Viin]

Our promotions (and even our ability to not tick-out of the service) are based entirely on our performance review documents, which are reviewed centrally by assembled boards maybe twice a year.

Yeah, government and military reviews/promotion boards are a whole different can of worms. Not without its own problems, but certainly more thorough than the barely concealed dont-waste-my-time-with-this-crap from management that corporate reviews tend to get.

[Samwise]

We do a really massive potluck for Thanksgiving each year.  The company provides the turkey (deep-fried, it's the only way to do it if you don't have an oven and/or want fast results), the employees provide everything else, including appetizers and cocktails so we can mill around being social while the turkey is being processed.  I'm lazy and usually just bring a bottle of wine so I don't need to deal with the logistics and leftovers involved with bringing food, but we have a lot of really good cooks who go all out.  I'm generally useless for the rest of the day after that one.

[Merusk]

These office potlucks you guys have sound great. At the last one I had, some dork cut up a bunch of slim jims and threw them into a bowl of mac and cheese. 

Wow.

Since I'm at a mostly Jewish firm, we just pick the local seafood joint and have a party there.

Wow.  Well, I guess cliches come from somewhere, eh?

We throw a catered firm-wide party where we give gifts to everyone's kids under the age of 16.  That's tomorrow and I'm on the activities committee so I just got done decorating the place. Woo!

We also have studio-wide parties where we take off half a day and do a potluck then an activity. This year is bowling. I've decided to work instead.

Words don't suffice for my condolences, Engels.  I can't even fathom what sort of a mind would conceive of bringing that in as a legit dish at a white collar workplace.  My wife's call-center job, sure.

[Paelos]

Seafood joint is one of the few places where the Kosher people can eat something decent.

I suggested BBQ but was shot down. 

[Merusk]

No, I get that, I live in Cincinnati after all. There's a strong Jewish population here I ran into in College and hung out with.  We shared a love of Cream Soda and good Root Beers.

Offering-up BBQ is amusing.

[Ingmar]

Go



or go home.

I'm sad the kosher restaurant near us closed, but it is hard to keep a restaurant open on Castro when you're closed during dinner hours on both Friday and Saturday. Place was great though.

[Xanthippe]

Trying to uninstall McAfee is a nightmare. What the hell is wrong with people. I swore 2 decades ago to never install it on another machine. Trying to uninstall it on an old laptop is 100x worse than it was 2 decades ago.

That is all.

[Numtini]

Trying to uninstall McAfee is a nightmare.

Belize had the same problem.

[Yegolev]

There was a well-promoted pot-luck at my prior-employer now-client, which I determined is what is left of the annual holiday party.  Sad times, mostly because KO stock is doing well but they feel like they have to be stingy dicks.  Being a corporate stooge isn't what it used to be... which reminds me I was going to peruse the Google jobs site again.

Holiday parties seem to be mostly a mid- to small-sized company thing.  I did attend a retirement party for some people on my account, and that was great.  Coming from a stodgy company like Coca-Cola to a place like HPES (nee EDS) is interesting, because I'm indoctrinated to not hug people at work and to not appear drunk in front of leadership.

The "episode" is now explained, and it's totally my fault for not knowing something that I was never told for years.  Whatever!

[Engels]

Words don't suffice for my condolences, Engels.  I can't even fathom what sort of a mind would conceive of bringing that in as a legit dish at a white collar workplace.  My wife's call-center job, sure.

Ironically, it was a call-center Job at Amazon in the 90s  

[RhyssaFireheart]

Well, there you go!

Still not particularly interested in food this morning.  Didn't have dinner last night because pot-luck lunch was so good.  Didn't overeat, but sampling a little bit of (almost) everything can fill you up.

Boss "caught" me lying this morning.  He asked how I was and I said "fine."  He said I was lying so I admitted he was right, my head was killing me and I'd overslept, so was feeling ugh.  LOL! 

[Yegolev]

You're such a bad girl.

[schild]

A real Jewish firm would have it at a Chinese restaurant.

[Merusk]

Words don't suffice for my condolences, Engels.  I can't even fathom what sort of a mind would conceive of bringing that in as a legit dish at a white collar workplace.  My wife's call-center job, sure.

Ironically, it was a call-center Job at Amazon in the 90s  

Well now it all makes sense!

[Trippy]

A real Jewish firm would have it at a Chinese restaurant.

On Christmas Day.

[cmlancas]

A real Jewish firm would have it at a Chinese restaurant.

On Christmas Day.

Unless it fell on Saturday.

[Yegolev]

So much racism.

Something funny is listening to jews talk about what Real Jews are like.  It's like listening to people from <southern_state> complain about people from <southern_state>.