January 20, 2006

Should the situation ever arise, remind me then...

... to never get drunk when I still have to give a speech, or to never get up and give an impromptu speech after I got drunk. It tends to lead to embarrassing situations...

Today's new year's lunch from work was (again) an obvious example.
It was a lunch, ffs, but some people were pretty wasted by 4pm.
Especially embarassing when some colleagues constantly interrupted the department head during his speech. And when one scientist, who doesn't even directly work for us, got up and spent ten minutes telling us over and over again how much he appreciated our work and support for the science community, and how he regarded himself to be a brilliant scientist, whatever others might say.
Uhuh, and this was obviously the way to prove that. Right...

The speeches were weird, as always. The group of people at the top is a pretty tight in-crowd and they are constantly half-joking, half-insulting the people in that group and everyone else. These occassions are always fascinating as an anthropological study though. The group dynamic can be pretty surreal...
The catchphrase of today, though, was: "Well, actually, this is secret so I can't tell you. But I'll tell you anyway."

And one of the few jobs I would want to stay for is the secretarial position for exactly the man saying that. Everyone else was scaring me and making me completely nervous when I had to replace his secretary (a.k.a. my boss) last week. But he's actually the best manager I've had to work for so far!

[The discrepancy between his image and reality became clearer later last week, when he started panicking about me being away for one day and how he would have to put up with any of the other, much more experienced, secretaries. Quite funny. He just seems to be picky about the people he works with. But all you need to do is do your work well. And I've already discovered that some people could use plenty of improvements in their way of working!]

But well, what am I talking about.
We all know I couldn't bear to be stuck in a secretarial job ... Although it would make life a lot easier!

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