Monday, May 22, 2006
LAF's Night Out
Thursday night was the first company outing I’ve had at LAF, and I must say that it was a pretty good time. The ride home sucked, but the rest of the evening was great.
I work in a group of about 30-40 people, 25 of which went out last night. First of all, I was highly impressed by that turnout. At some of my prior jobs, if you got half the people to show up, you were lucky. Of course, it didn’t hurt that (a) the plans involved dinner and a comedy show in Chicago and (b) most of the people who work here are in their 20s or 30s and live in the city. For some reason, I feel very old at this place since I live way out in the suburbs, am married and have a kid. It makes me feel all “grown up.” I guess there’s a first for everything. The sad part? It’s only going to get worse from here on out.
Anyway, the plan was to go to dinner and then watch a comedy show at The Second City, which is in the Old Town section of Chicago. For dinner, we hit a Mongolian BBQ in Old Town. In case you don't know what a Mongolian BBQ is, it's an all-you-can-eat asian food place where you put together all the ingredients. It's actually way more confusing than I like my meals to be. First you choose your rice or noodle type. Then you stand in line at a "salad bar" type of thing choosing your toppings. This is one of the more ridiculous concepts I've ever heard of. I just kept throwing things on there. All I knew is that I wanted to avoid broccoli. In that respect, I succeeded. But did I actually create something tasty? Not so much. And this is why I'm not a chef at a Chinese restaurant
The funny part about the event was that I was in the first group of people to arrive. We all sat down and the waitress asked what we'd like to drink. We all looked around like a bunch of boobs and waited for somebody to say the magic words: "I'll have a beer." But nobody did. So we all ordered sodas or waters. One of the next arrivals to the BBQ was on the planning committee. And when she ordered a beer, it was suddenly party time (excellent). Our table suddenly became a Kennedy Family Reunion. "Beer here!" "I'll have one too." "Got any scotch?"
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but my old buddy from M&S, Rick, is my new "buddy" here at LAF. You see, at LAF they assign you a "buddy" to help you through the transition process. They tell you all the cool things, like where you can score some wicked cool ballpoint pens and legal pads! Anyway, Rick, who's only been at LAF for about 4 months, was sitting next to me at dinner. A couple of times, I thought about changing seats. Rick made some rather inappropriate comments that just made me cringe. (Now, if you know me, I'm usually the one making the cringe-worthy comments. So imagine how bad they must have been for me to cringe.) Most of the comments were about dating or women or minorities. If he said those things to me and friends, it would have been fine. But it's not the type of stuff you say to co-workers.
Of course, Rick seemed like FDR next to a man I'd like to call Belgium. I don't know much about Belgium. He's European. He's a jackass. That's about all I need to know. During dinner, he gave the waitress an unusually hard time about their beer selection. Apparently, he wanted a Belgian beer. And he was on the verge of yelling because Blue Moon and Fat Tire are American Belgian beers. Not only did he want a Belgian-styled beer, he wanted one directly from Belgium. Apparently, this guy thought we were in Europe somewhere. Honestly, we're at an ASIAN restaurant in CHICAGO. And he wants an imported Belgian beer? And that's just one of the moronic things he did. I don't have time to list the others.
Anyway, after dinner, we headed to the Second City for more drinks. Oh, and some comedy. The performers were pretty good. But there's a good reason you won't be seeing these guys on Saturday Night Live anytime soon. And that's saying something because SNL has been sucking pretty hard for awhile now.
I had to leave the event early because I was taking the train home. I left at 9:00, hoping to catch the 9:38 train at the Clybourne stop. I left at intermission, about 15 minutes earlier than I had planned, so I decided to walk the 2 miles. I had nothing better to do. So, I headed down North Avenue to the Clybourne station. (I should say that I've never been to the Clybourne station, but I'd driven by it numerous times when I lived in the city.) On my way, I hit Clybourne, which is a diagonal street. I love diagonal streets. They save you SO much time. Except, of course, when the diagonal in question doesn't take you where you want to go.
You see, the Clybourne stop doesn't actually intersect with Clybourne. I knew this, but I clearly wasn't thinking. It might have had something to do with all the free booze. But I ended up walking about half a mile too far down Clybourne before I realized I'd screwed up. Realizing my error (and my tight timeframe), I started jogging back in the right direction. Yes, you read that right. I started jogging. I'm way overweight and haven't worked out in months. So I'm jogging in my workclothes (and shoes). Only good things can come of this.
I eventually got back on track and ended up jogging about a mile to the train stop. I ran up the stairs only to see the train pulling out of the station. The next train? It comes an hour later. (By the way, that diagonal was a great short cut, making me jog an unnecessary mile and making me miss my train. I love diagonals!) So I was stuck at the (outdoor) Clybourne station with nothing to do but rub my blisters and rue my idiocy. But other than that, it was a GREAT night.
I work in a group of about 30-40 people, 25 of which went out last night. First of all, I was highly impressed by that turnout. At some of my prior jobs, if you got half the people to show up, you were lucky. Of course, it didn’t hurt that (a) the plans involved dinner and a comedy show in Chicago and (b) most of the people who work here are in their 20s or 30s and live in the city. For some reason, I feel very old at this place since I live way out in the suburbs, am married and have a kid. It makes me feel all “grown up.” I guess there’s a first for everything. The sad part? It’s only going to get worse from here on out.
Anyway, the plan was to go to dinner and then watch a comedy show at The Second City, which is in the Old Town section of Chicago. For dinner, we hit a Mongolian BBQ in Old Town. In case you don't know what a Mongolian BBQ is, it's an all-you-can-eat asian food place where you put together all the ingredients. It's actually way more confusing than I like my meals to be. First you choose your rice or noodle type. Then you stand in line at a "salad bar" type of thing choosing your toppings. This is one of the more ridiculous concepts I've ever heard of. I just kept throwing things on there. All I knew is that I wanted to avoid broccoli. In that respect, I succeeded. But did I actually create something tasty? Not so much. And this is why I'm not a chef at a Chinese restaurant
The funny part about the event was that I was in the first group of people to arrive. We all sat down and the waitress asked what we'd like to drink. We all looked around like a bunch of boobs and waited for somebody to say the magic words: "I'll have a beer." But nobody did. So we all ordered sodas or waters. One of the next arrivals to the BBQ was on the planning committee. And when she ordered a beer, it was suddenly party time (excellent). Our table suddenly became a Kennedy Family Reunion. "Beer here!" "I'll have one too." "Got any scotch?"
I don't know if I mentioned it before, but my old buddy from M&S, Rick, is my new "buddy" here at LAF. You see, at LAF they assign you a "buddy" to help you through the transition process. They tell you all the cool things, like where you can score some wicked cool ballpoint pens and legal pads! Anyway, Rick, who's only been at LAF for about 4 months, was sitting next to me at dinner. A couple of times, I thought about changing seats. Rick made some rather inappropriate comments that just made me cringe. (Now, if you know me, I'm usually the one making the cringe-worthy comments. So imagine how bad they must have been for me to cringe.) Most of the comments were about dating or women or minorities. If he said those things to me and friends, it would have been fine. But it's not the type of stuff you say to co-workers.
Of course, Rick seemed like FDR next to a man I'd like to call Belgium. I don't know much about Belgium. He's European. He's a jackass. That's about all I need to know. During dinner, he gave the waitress an unusually hard time about their beer selection. Apparently, he wanted a Belgian beer. And he was on the verge of yelling because Blue Moon and Fat Tire are American Belgian beers. Not only did he want a Belgian-styled beer, he wanted one directly from Belgium. Apparently, this guy thought we were in Europe somewhere. Honestly, we're at an ASIAN restaurant in CHICAGO. And he wants an imported Belgian beer? And that's just one of the moronic things he did. I don't have time to list the others.
Anyway, after dinner, we headed to the Second City for more drinks. Oh, and some comedy. The performers were pretty good. But there's a good reason you won't be seeing these guys on Saturday Night Live anytime soon. And that's saying something because SNL has been sucking pretty hard for awhile now.
I had to leave the event early because I was taking the train home. I left at 9:00, hoping to catch the 9:38 train at the Clybourne stop. I left at intermission, about 15 minutes earlier than I had planned, so I decided to walk the 2 miles. I had nothing better to do. So, I headed down North Avenue to the Clybourne station. (I should say that I've never been to the Clybourne station, but I'd driven by it numerous times when I lived in the city.) On my way, I hit Clybourne, which is a diagonal street. I love diagonal streets. They save you SO much time. Except, of course, when the diagonal in question doesn't take you where you want to go.
You see, the Clybourne stop doesn't actually intersect with Clybourne. I knew this, but I clearly wasn't thinking. It might have had something to do with all the free booze. But I ended up walking about half a mile too far down Clybourne before I realized I'd screwed up. Realizing my error (and my tight timeframe), I started jogging back in the right direction. Yes, you read that right. I started jogging. I'm way overweight and haven't worked out in months. So I'm jogging in my workclothes (and shoes). Only good things can come of this.
I eventually got back on track and ended up jogging about a mile to the train stop. I ran up the stairs only to see the train pulling out of the station. The next train? It comes an hour later. (By the way, that diagonal was a great short cut, making me jog an unnecessary mile and making me miss my train. I love diagonals!) So I was stuck at the (outdoor) Clybourne station with nothing to do but rub my blisters and rue my idiocy. But other than that, it was a GREAT night.
