Ugh, Sophia, no fun.

-t, could be ugh, could be actual fun. I always get nervous when presented with those "opportunities" myself. Fingers crossed.

Our Company Fun Opportunity, ie, Summer Picnic, is the end of this month. I shall not partake, even though I've had executives pout at me for it.

We started doing our "summer picnic" onsite, as a lunch bbq on a workday. Because you can't require people to partake of the "fun" on their own time so attendance was less than awesome. This way, near 100% participation, less cost to the company, and people like that they get a lightly long lunch (plus free food). We have games, but don't require people to play them.

We just had a celebratory happy hour this afternoon -- 3:30-5, plenty of food, a few brief remarks. Delightful!

We had the first thing like this last year. It's all day (or maybe half to 3/4 of a day?), everyone is paid as if they were working, lunch is provided, and the team-building activities were actually pretty fun. It's a different committee running things and a new Managing Director, so we'll just have to see how well this one goes. It's got a carnival theme, so, that could mean a lot of things.

The Summer Picnic was specifically designated to be "family friendly", ie, bring the kids along. The Christmas party used to be a fancy do with a nice meal and dress-up clothes, but the company couldn't find a venue big enough/cheap enough for everyone, and other people were pouting about their families feeling left out. The Christmas party is now either booking a family-friendly entertainer in a concert-type venue with free access to the venue's concession stands or buying out an appropriate film showing with the same type of concessions. I'm not hanging out with hordes of children for free, and I enjoyed having a moderately classy occassion to go to. But it's hard to have a large "leave the kids at home" event in Utah.

I went to the dentist this morning, and having a twice-a-year relationship with someone sure is weird. My hygienist is two weeks from going on maternity leave, and I didn't know she was pregnant the last time I saw her! And she'll be back to work by the next time I go in!

Also I just said to a coworker that I feel like I'm dressed like a soccer mom today, and she said "or a teacher!" So that's for all you teachers. For the record: purple Lands End t-shirt, beige linen skirt, Rockport sandals.

Yeah, that's a perfectly fine educational technologist outfit, too, Jesse. Swap out the beige skirt for black, and I wore that last week.

No spoilers, but the attention to detail in Stranger Things is amazing. The scene with the Gap in the mall? Period-correct price tags!? Wow.

Here's more on the Stranger Things mall: [link]