Heh. "In the name of the holiday spirit which was put down on me, I now unleash THE VORTEX!!"

The Boobs are Slipping! The Boobs are Slipping!!!!!!

I don't like the entitlement aspect of it, either. Like the agency has some responsibility to invite your friends and family. Friends and family were invited when there were 10 people here. Now there are 30. That's a lot of damn people to feed and entertain and let's not forget - WE'RE A NON PROFIT!! Either shut up and enjoy it for what it is or just shut up.

That sucks, Aimee. Can you have some fun *while* teaching them a lesson by asking your boss for permission to nominate who should be on next year's holiday party planning committee? I've found that snippy people that bitch about these types of things at least see the other side of the issue when forced to plan within certain guidelines.

I could, but they wouldn't do it. I swear, I saw much less of this bullshit when working for a huge corporation. It astounds me.

We do get bonuses, too. Nothing much - about $100 cash the Friday before the holiday break, and people bitch about that. People, in general, will just bitch about anything. I hate people.

Our company party was this past Saturday. A what-passes-for-fancy dinner at a "family oriented, Broadway style" show venue. Our HR director's nephew's band provided the music. But that's OK, because "They've played on Dancing with the Stars!". They promised an "edgy" show for Utah County. "Show tunes. But nothing from Grease." They got through the two big songs from Wicked before Hubby and I had to bail because it was so loud we were both getting migraines. Apparently if I'd lasted through an hour of loud, "edgy" show tunes I'd have gotten a $200 gift certificate to someplace.

Not worth Hubby's migraine.

I don't enjoy company functions, but there is no excuse for rudeness, especially towards those whose job includes organizing said functions.

That sounds fun, Aims...if I worked there I would find something...maybe just "FairyTale of New York" or "Blue Christmas" but, you know...

Hey, Aims - solicit from us! Would they even know? And you should totally put Oscar the Grouch's "I Hate Christmas" on there for the rude people.

And you should totally put Oscar the Grouch's "I Hate Christmas" on there for the rude people.

I've also got Dennis Leary's "Merry Fucking Christmas."

So our fight for decent seats on our flight to Israel has shifted up a gear, as they've refused to do better than sitting us in the fifteenth row back, with about twenty further rows to get to the toilet*. It's truly inspiring stuff. We're on the phone to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (official body that gives advice and takes cases re actual or potential discrimination), and yes, the airline is breach of the law. We've already been telling them this, in the six phone calls we've had with them, but they've been telling us there's nothing they can do about it. They might consider changing the seat 24 hrs before. They might not. You can just imagine the problems with that 'solution'.

*Even more amusingly than usual, we not only can't have suitable seats, but we can't even use the nearest and most suitable toilet, because that's for 'priority' passengers who've paid $40 extra to be put on a special 'waiting list'. Oh, also, also, they won't let us talk direct to Israel about this, as they began handling the case from the UK. Un-fucking-believable (yet not particularly unexpected).

Anyway, if they continue to refuse to give us seats I can actually get to, we're a) going to request the aisle wheelchair to get to the toilet every fifteen minutes during the flight, and b) sue the pants off them when we get home.

Aims, sorry to hear about the grinches at your work Christmas 'do'. I always loved those, when I was working in schools. At my favourite job, we used to go to a restaurant twice a year, once at Christmas and once at the beginning of the summer, and get very sloshed on wine and talk about how much we loved each other. But I had a ridiculously positive group of colleagues at that school. Not so much at the other places I taught.