I’m not a big fan of corporate functions to begin with.
If alcohol is involved, bad things can – and will – happen. At one such event I was at, an admin got blasted and went on the attack. After the head guy. The head guy – I’ll call him JZ - was something of an absentee landlord. JZ worked in Philadelphia, we were in Cambridge. He blew in occasionally, generally to convey bad news and/or to conduct a layoff.
At one of his guest appearances, JZ held an all hands meeting. He was starting to speak when one of our more outspoken of our techies raised his hand.
“Sir, could you please identify yourself.”
JZ said, “I’m JZ.”
The techie nodded his head, thanked JZ and said “I thought so.”
Anyway, there was no love lost between JZ and the employees at our little outpost, yet no one, other than that one admin, thought it would be a good idea to get drunk and angrily up in JZ’s grill.
Somehow I was swept into the incident.
The admin was screaming in JZ’s face about how he didn’t even know her name. She pointed at me – I was standing nearby – and yelled, “I bet you know who she is.” I was, after all, the most senior woman in our neck in the woods. Which didn’t make me very senior at all.
JZ looked blankly over at me and said, “I have no idea who she is.”
Meanwhile, someone was dragging the drunken admin away…(Do I need to mention that, in the next layoff, she was a goner.)
Another corporate function that had a bit of a sticky situation didn’t involve alcohol. (Well it did involve alcohol, but alcohol had nothing to do with the embarrassment.)
We were having our annual user group and planned an interesting dinner event for our clients.
This time, we were at the DeCordova Museum, a small, ultra-cool (we should have known) institution outside of Boston.
What drew us there was that they had an interesting exhibit: an 18-hole mini-golf course with each course designed by an artist. Sounded like fun, and something that our clients, who’d come in from all over, would enjoy.
We didn’t look that closely at what the different holes were about, only to find out that a number of them made some pretty strong political and social statements.
The one I recall the most vividly was about spousal abuse. When you hit the ball, you heard screaming, punching, and moaning.
Not that anyone’s in favor of spousal abuse, but this – and a few others – didn’t exactly make for a light evening.
So, corporate events…
Even when folks aren’t drunk, things can go wrong.
Best not to get too tricky.
Tricky or not, I was never wild about having to show up at corporate social functions – whether those hosted by whatever company I was working for, or by a customer or partner. Obligatory fun? A couple of hours of awkwardness? No, thanks.
But at least I never had to participate in anything like the recent event Hermès held in New York’s meatpacking district. (That should have been the first clue that things might get a bit too cute for words. Hermès scarves in the abattoir? Nice one!)
Anyway, here’s the concept:
…actors would pose as waiters, greeters, and chefs, and mingle with the guests, with the goal of making them feel mildly harassed. [Actor Jesse] Kovarsky recalled that, at the audition, he “sat on a piano and then poured someone’s drink into a trash can and then fed them something out of their hat.” He got the job. (Source: New Yorker)
Like most rational, sensible people, I despise clowns and mimes, especially when they get anywhere near me. And this sounds way too much like clowns to the left of me, mimes to the right. And here I am, stuck in the middle trying to untie my Hermès scarf and strangle myself with it.
Anyway, Hermès wanted to show the world its “crazy and fun side,” because nothing says “crazy and fun” like a $500 scarf with saddle and stirrups on it.
But Hermès decided that it wanted to be “slightly irreverent, slightly topsy-turvy.”
Here’s how Hermès communications exec Charlotte David described how things were going to go down:
“At the cloakroom, when you leave, you’re going to give back your ticket to get your coat, but they are not going to give you your coat! They are going to give you a pair of skis.”
“Or a bag of oranges!” a co-worker added.
Okay, Hermès is a French brand, and maybe all this topsy-turvy was homage to Dadaism.
Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Being handed a pair of skis and balk at it, you’re a no fun, unhip party pooper. Accept it and you’re trapped in an Instagram-ready moment. Lucky you!
I’m guessing the cloakroom attendants are pretty savvy about reading body language and figuring out who to f with.
At yet another horrible corporate dinner I went to, we gathered at the Medieval Manor for a hi-larious night of eating greasy food with our fingers and being bullied and insulted by some a-hole playing the king.
One of the things the king did was yell at people getting up from the table to go to the bathroom, bullying them back to their seats. Well, I needed to go, and managed to catch the king’s eye. He was a fast study. I believe I was the only person he didn’t say anything to.
(I also fondly remember this event for the fellow in sales operations who got slammed and was walking around, waving a loaf of French bread between his legs. Ho-ho!)
Believe me, if I’d been at the swell Hermès party, I would have been grabbing my coat the minute I saw the first “waiter” grab a drink out of someone’s hand and toss it in the trash.
Here’s what I would have missed:
- Waiters balancing drinks trays on their heads.
- A “photographer” pointing a camera at someone, only to have an “origami horse pop out of the lens”.
- People standing behind you in an elevator making bird noises.
- A woman who had her dinner plate snatched away from her. She wanted the lobster tail, and managed to snatch it back.
- Someone wandering around pretending to read a novel by Marguerite Duras. (Likely not the first time that someone has pretended to read French lit.)
The actors who participated in the event:
…were given instructions, like, ‘Make the guests feel welcome but also uncomfortable.’ At the back of the hall, curtains opened to reveal a circus troupe dressed as chefs, including a guy juggling whisks.
Circus troupe! I just knew it! If you really want to host a terrible party, send in the clowns!
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