Carnivals and Car Parks

It's been about two weeks since my office Christmas party with The Bank. (Are we allowed to call it "Christmas party" anymore?) This year we had it at a Portuguese restaurant at a well-known, trendy casino complex in Johannesburg. Last year it was at a fancy steak-house in a newer, lesser known but no less trendy casino-complex. It just struck me today how these parties are worlds away from those I endured before I left Manufacturing.

The first year was the probably the worst. I was still in Durban, working at a soap and hygiene products factory. I had heard from my head office counterparts on the grad program that they would be attending a Rio Carnivale-themed party at the Durban ICC. At first I waited patiently for an invite. Then it dawned on me that the Wharf Rats (that's what factory people were "affectionately" nicknamed since the plant was at the harbour) were not en route to Rio. Fair enough. Maybe the factory team would have a kick-ass party of our own?

 

 A few days later the invite arrived in my inbox. The glamorous venue?  The factory car park. The dream theme? Mid-day humidity. I kid you not. I almost changed my flight to leave for Cape Town before the damn thing. The organisers tried to make it suave. A marquee, some draping, table decor. But come on! The car park? In Durban Summer heat no less! And in his speech, the factory manager put the cherry on top my slamming my team (factory planning) for nearly jeopardising his efficiencies (with our insistence that they stop producing stuff that was already overstocked!).

A year later and I had moved  and was looking forward to a better party at the Boksburg washing powder plant. I'd heard of the legendary, rocking year-end parties... Great venues, big budget, partners welcome, dinner, dancing, drinking!

As it turns out a new factory manager had relocated there just before I had. 

An accountant. 

I'm not saying she was to blame for it, but guess where we had our Christmas party that year? No, not a marquee in the car park. They wouldn't dream of that! No... 

But they would sadden my reality with a marquee in the big powder-covered field at the back of the plant. Known as the "North Yard", it was basically a storage area for waste bins, scrapped equipment and bags of powder waiting to be re-worked. Oh and it was adjacent to the effluent-overflow dam. Glam, glam, glam, yes? 

And I can only assume this new tradition served the budget targets so well that it stuck year after year with the only change being the ever deteriorating menu and decor. In fact the year before I left for the margarine plant next door we waited about forty-five minutes for our food, eventually queued up to collect our Nando's quarter chicken and Coke and ate at tables covered with newspaper. The pages on my table happened to be the Vacancies section. 

Subtle sign from the gods? I thought so. That was my last Christmas party with that team!