Not my idea of fun!

[pomtzu]

The company I worked for had a LOT of events thruout the year, in addition to the deep sea fishing trip. When I started working there, there were around 300 employees, and when the economy was better, reached around 500, before the layoffs caused by the crappy economy. So any events cost a bundle - yes - tax free probably, knowing how the owner was.
Semi formal Christmas party at the Sheraton Ballroom for employee and guest. Fantastic sit down dinner, drinks, a band, and door prizes that would knock your socks off - like t.v.'s, computers, jewelry, etc - and about 20 different ones - not just a couple. An employees only catered Christmas luncheon on the last day of work before the days off for the holiday. Other catered luncheons thruout the year as appreciation days - when the company went over their sales quota for a particular month. A catered BBQ lunch in the parking lot during the summer - just for the heck of it, and a family company picnic in the early Fall.
Then there were the National Sales meetings, where sales reps from all over the country came in once a year for meetings, etc. Those of us in the sales/customer service department got to partake of the fun part without being involved in the boring meetings. For a whole week, every night after work, it was party, party, party with the reps - anywhere from the casual seafood hangout, to the Sheraton or the country club, and all paid for by the company. The partying usually ended around 1 a.m. - but then we had to face the work day the following morning. Thank goodness these "meetings" only lasted for ONE week!
I guess it wasn't such a bad place to work afterall............

[caseysmom]

While I don't really enjoy baseball games much I would never have hurt a person's feelings like that, there must have been a more diplomatic way of not going.

[catnapper]

You all are misunderstanding me... my manager and I are best friends. He calls me his work wife and he is my work hudband. We are always honest eith each other and often blunt. But we never take offense to anythi g. A week ago he was going to give the tickets to one emplyee after this weekend as a prize for top sales. Now he realizes 4 out of 5 of is never wanted anything to do with rhe tickets he tried to make us all go.... just to see our reaction.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Edit Saturday morning~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Ok, editing this so it makes more sense -- I'm in desperate need of a nail trim and just can't bring myself to clip the nails that have never looked better In the meantime, my typing ability stinks and typos are high. It doesn't help that I was heading out the door when I repsonded the first time and in a rush to dash off a quick mini explanation. I was very upset at how badly everyone misunderstood what was intended as a cute post.

First off, my manager and I are awesome together. Customers often ask us if we are indeed husband and wife. My husband laughs when I tell him. We have long daily conversations about our home life and just about everything that runs through our minds. We have had long conversations about the kids. We're both step parents. I have 3 kids who I "inherited" as teenagers, he has one step son he "inherited" as a toddler. He knows what makes me feel guilty and what I get mad about. He knows all about them in highscool and how I went to their games and never got noticed I was there. They ignored me and never thanked me for being there but they hung all over other parents. I only got noticed when I started reading books to ignore the other parents' grumbling and trash talking about the kids! Then they noticed me and complained I embrassed them by not watching. I said I was there to support them and when they were on the feild or in the pool I was watching, I read otherwise. I didn't want to embarass them so I started taking pictures of the game to keep me from hearing the other parents gripes (I REALLY wanted to give them a few choice words) and I still got blasted from the kids for embarasssing them -- and they never liked any of the photos the photos because I never got "close enough" I told them and my husband that forever more I would never step foot on another sport=field of any kind because I hated sports, and hated being outside, and I was hurt by trying to support them while being in a place I truly felt out of place. I only went to support them and it went unappreciated and it HURT. I meant it when I said I would never go to any sporting events --- ever. I never showed up to any of Cameron's soccer this past spring and explained to him that grandmom doesn't do sports and he can do lots of other things that I will see him do. He said, "ok grandmom, can we make something then?" and I got out the art supplies My manager knows the whole back story and knows how I feel. When he offered the tickets as prize for this weekend's sale, I told him I would simply give the ticket to my husband or one of the kids. I actually won a 4-pack of tickets from work that had people fighting over them... as in NOBODY wanted them. We evern called 2 other stores to see if any employees wanted them. Nope. So my husband, Cameron, and two others are going.

We also have looooong conversations about food. And at the end we both admit we could NEVER really be married to each other based on food alone. He has food issues --- he can not eat anything with seeds for health reasons (diverticulitis) and I have food issues -- nothing aged or fermented because they give me migrained (yes folks, no alcohol for me!) We both have emotional eating issues that stem from our physical ones. He will never eat pie. No appple pie -- insanity!!!! He knows how I feel about ball park food. Even before I had my weight loss, I thought it was awful. After? I would be drooling over funnel cake all night and eventually give in. I DO make my husband bring me home cotton candy after each game (I stayed home while he's gone to on average of 2 games a month this summer)

Looong back story short, my manager KNOWS how I feel about sports. When he told me it was group outing, I was shocked. Becuase 1) he knows mosy of us in our store have no interest. 2) The owner NEVER closes the store. Well, this outing is not actually happening. He lied and told us about the outing to see our reactions (mostly mine.) He was sure someone would bust him immmediately, especially after throwing out the big-lie of another store getting tickets to Hershey Park. We just all got jealous we had to go to a ball game while the others got ot go to a amusement park. He couldn't take it anymore and told us yesterday it was all a joke. And hte free tickets were still available to anyone who wanted them. They're still sitting on the counter because nobody wants them.

I myself was really hurt at the mean things people said about me! I just happen to have a strong relationship with my manager (I AM his assistant manager after all) and we have a relationship where we say anything with complete honesty... it never occured to me to speicify my relationship with him. ESPECIALLY since this was intended to be cutesy thread. I thought it would be fun and people would laugh and post about how they don't like sports too. It fell flat. My bad. I won't attempt cute for al ong time.

[robinh]

I used to work for a guy that was soooo sports minded that he couldn't understand how anyone wasn't. His idea of office team building outings were to go to sports events - baseball games, arena football games, miniature golf, etc. you get the idea. I am not a sports fan - it is torture for me. I also don't enjoy the outdoors, if there is a bug within a mile it will bite me and I don't get mosquito bites, I get mosqito lumps. He finally got the idea when I got sick after one of the outings and excused me from them. I tried to go along but it was such a relief.

[pomtzu]

Catnapper - maybe I missed something, but I really didn't see anything mean that was said about you. Maybe I have a different interpretation of "mean" than you do tho.........