Ho Ho Ho

Until Monday, I was the curmudgeon of Christmas present, grimacing at the post-1960 Christmas songs on the radio, bah-humbuging the mall shoppers, and dreading the office party, which is in any event an innocuous affair with no booze, mediocre food and subdued merriment. Grapeshot is a closet grinch.

Then out of the blue someone who hasn’t even been terribly friendly lately, came into my office and gave me a nice and very thoughtful “retirement” present. Completely unexpected. I was so touched, and on the way home I found myself humming and singing along on the radio to some of THAT MUSIC. Admiring the lights. Letting scads of cars coming out of the shopping center into my lane. I made a special effort to get to my writing group so we would have a quorum.

The next day dawned on my “retirement” party. I’ve been here 8+ years and everyone who reads this blog knows I’m not a big fan or corporate America, but my co-workers in this corporation are great people. They work hard and they are team players, nice and even funny. And I was again touched by their generosity and their presence at my party. We reminisced and some of the best and funniest memories are things that were pretty horrible at the time. Year 2000 comes to mind. Doing a (hostile) system conversion in Atlanta does, too. Somehow, that turned into a great winter and the people I worked with made it so.

The holiday party was same-old, same-old, but knowing it was the last one made it special. My special meatloaf disappeared. The recipe was from Cook's Illustrated and it was a pain in the butt to make and I burnt my fingers doing something stupid in the kitchen. I was still in such a good mood that I didn't complain, well, not too much, and soldiered on with the cooking.

The company holiday brunch today was nice. They didn’t run out of ham like last year. Why do I even remember those little insignificant woes? The company president thanked everyone. That doesn’t always happen. He thanked IT heartily. What a note to leave on! Zowie!

Folks who work in offices get shortchanged. A few years ago, when the book A Day in the Life of the USA (or many America, I can't remember) came out, THERE WAS NOT A SINGLE PHOTO OF ANYONE WORKING IN AN OFFICE. Who is sucking it up in the New York subway and bus strike? The people trying to get into (and out of ) Manhattan. The office workers, mostly.

I’ll really miss my colleagues. Be nice to the people you work with. Be nice to everyone. Just imagine, for an instant, what the world would be like it we were all nice to each other. What kind of a world would that be? A different one, that’s for sure. What would become of the novelists with no conflict? On second thought, never mind.

Grapeshot, who has Christmas spirit in abundance.