I'm so glad, I'm so glad...

I'm so glad I don't have to go to any company holiday party, especially after I just read an advice column on how you should view said party as a networking opportunity. According to the column I read, you should find out everyone of interest - C-level execs, key clients - who's going to be there. Then you want to figure out how you can "connect" with each and every one of them. This means plotting out - and rehearsing -  what you're going to say to your marks. Don't be long winded, be pithy and trenchant. After the obligatory social nicety - what are you doing for the holidays? - ask your rehearsed question about the business. Or your rehearsed questions about their career. Don't forget to give them your personal, 15 second elevator pitch.  Follow up on social media.

All I can say is, if I were at the holiday party with anyone who took this advice, I'd be hitting the egg nog pretty heavily. Not that I would be on anyone's Christmas stalking list. ("Old geezer. Not a C-level. Nobody. Could damage your career to be seen acknowledging her existence.")

I also can imagine that many of those being stalked at the company party actually might want to be having a relaxing time at the party, time free from a bunch of toadying networkers.

It must be terrible being Warren Buffet. ("Oh, sage of Omaha, do you still like railroads? What about NetJet? Do you mind if I 'friend' you?)

So, I'm so glad I don't have to go to any company holiday party.

I'm so glad that I don't live in North Korea.

Forget that, beyond kim chee, I don't speak a word of Korean.

Forget that I'm not wild about cold, hunger, and drab gray clothing.

Forget that I like to read something other than biographies of the glorious leader.

Forget that I don't want to live any place where this describes typical TV news fare:

...a story about Kim Jong-Il touring a pickle plant ran for 30 mind-numbing minutes. It is perhaps not so much news as Pyongyang's version of George Orwell's 1984.

"Comrade Kim is determined to supply good food products to the people", says the reporter.

"Kim says a supply of nutritious pickles to the people of the North is essential." (Source: ABC/Australia News.)

Forget that living in a total-totalitarian society, glorifying the glorious leader, spending the entire year eagerly anticipating the ribbon dance I would do with 100,000 other ribbon dancers on the glorious leader's birthday, would not be my cup of green tea.

Nope, forget all that.

Now the glorious leadership has - to stave off any free-market impulses that might be emerging out of the cold, hunger, and drab gray - have revalued the currency.  And have wiped out most of the savings of their dirt poor population. Not that there was all that much to buy in North Korea, other than those nutritious pickles.

Still, to have your savings wiped out.

I'm so glad I don't live in North Korea.

Sure, there are a lot of other things I'm glad about. But these are the top two for today.