The holiday is for drunkening.

[feren]

A few months ago I was spending an incredible number of hours each day at $EMPLOYER working to ensure that we got migrated from $OLD_MANAGED_SECURITY_PROVIDER to $NEW_MANAGED_SECURITY_PROVIDER without incident. There were, of course, incidents -- but ultimately we got the work done and I've been pretty satisfied with their service since the transition.

Today the account rep and the regional sales manager for $NEW_MANAGED_SECURITY_PROVIDER stopped off at my office to give me a bottle of Tanqueray No. TEN gin as a Christmas present and "thank you" for letting them take on our account's business. This is pretty standard fare in the world of higher-end (read: expensive as fuck) vendor-customer relationships, where the sales budget gives back approximately 1/10,000th of a percent of the earnings from that customer by giving a moderately flashy or expensive gift to each of the various managers, directors and staffers who are involved in the daily handling of the account. But it sort of made me pause because earlier this week my coworker Marlok (who doesn't have a LiveJournal and really should fix that at some point) surprised me with a Christmas gift that consisted of a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and a limited-edition holiday martini glass. I've been collecting these little Bombay creations as the years go past and I hadn't picked up the gift pack for this year, so I was suitably impressed with the choice and the gift as a whole. But with Bombay and Tanqueray as holiday gifts from friends and vendors I cannot help but sense a theme beginning to develop here.

Let it be known that I, for one, welcome my liver-destroying alcoholism-enabling holiday gifts!

Oh every hour

Comments

[sylverfox.livejournal.com]

BTW, awesome icon.

My grandfather used to get several bottles of good booze for Christmas from clients as well as his boss for Christmas. (He worked with a furrier for 40 years.) What's funny is, he only drank Old Fitzgerald 86 Proof Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey. (Yes, the entire name is necessary.) So, he'd just set out the rest of the booze at whatever family gatherings we had over the holidays or he'd pass the bottles along to someone else in the family. No wonder my family is a bunch of drunks. :)

[wolfbrotherjoe.livejournal.com]

What a great new icon you have there. :) As it becomes one of the few icons where I approve of it being an animated icon.

[ottr.livejournal.com]

Alcohol was quite nearly the very theme of this year's $employer holiday celebrations. Last year it was jovial and cheeky, with a handful of folks 'stealing' the boozey gifts during the Chinese Gift Giving event. This year, roughly 90% of the gifts were booze, and people were actively plotting on how to steal this gift from so-and-so, so that it itself would get stolen, and then they could in fact steal the real gift. Booze.

I'm predicting that next year's holiday party will involve nothing but booze which will be readily traded and passed around the room. Except one of the older woman will break the fun and bring a candle as a gift. Some fucker always brings a candle.

Ahem.

But really, you should be glad you still get vendor gifts. Apparently our CEO made a new rule that states that we cannot receive any gift from any client or vendor outside of a pen or coffee mug, should we be so lucky. Apparently rather than ignore the fact that he was receiving free trips to the islands and winter retreats, he just made a new policy to make it look like he was following the rules while screwing the rest of us over.

[schloss-adler.livejournal.com]

#1. I got a steaming hot cup of JACK SQUAT this year...

#2. When I worked for a $REAL_EMPLOYER, I experienced the nearly endless joy of vendors... (Well, considering one *pilot* project I did had a budget of 26.5 million dollars, I think some fucking prime-rib + really good merlot lunches are in order).

#3. gin, Gin, gIn, giN, GIn, GiN, gIN, GIN

#4. I'm about to re-assess my life, as I just referred to $Previous_Employer as a $REAL_EMPLOYER. "You do not want to sell me any death sticks." "I do not want to sell you any death sticks."

#5. Merry Christmas, and all that.

[hightensile.livejournal.com]

Through a series of unfortunate events, I wound up attending christmas parties for both my $old_employer and my $new_employer, both of which had some sort of open bar arrangement.

I found this especially interesting as $old_employer's party was essentially during work hours.

So yeah, I think work and alcohol just go hand in hand or they do now moreso than in recent years.

For my part, I do worry about your liver (one of your many organs that is a cause for concern) and you'll never get alcohol from me as a present. Ah well, fuck me then. ;)

Heppy holidays since it doesn't look like I'll be seeing you before January :)

--kit