Skip to main content

Life Recapped: The Office Party

There are a lot of things that I’ve wanted to write about since my last post, but things got in the way. When I say “things”, mean overwhelmingly “work” – because that’s what takes up my most of my time. Still, I’ll try to recap as best I can.

The Office Party:

Officially, I was part of the party planning committee for our office shindig. However, after our first (and only) meeting, wherein the majority of all of my suggestions were immediately shot down, I ceased giving a shit and let the other two committee members do whatever they wanted. Among other things, O.C.* (she of diarrhea- informing fame) dismissed my idea for making the party holiday neutral (to accommodate the 80% of our non-German, non-Christian employees) by saying “If they don’t celebrate Christmas, then they shouldn’t come.” Then as a party activity, she wanted to sing German Christmas carols. Then she declared that the ONLY valid Christmas colors are red and gold. And on and on with her petty OCD shit. The only contribution of mine that survived was my idea that people bring some kind of traditional dish from their homeland/region – but with the condition that O.C. had to approve of the dish “because you never know if it’s gross”. She complained about having to replace the pork in the recipe because of our Muslim colleagues. Oh and I got to make the music playlist. That's it.

Needless to say, by the time the party rolled around, I was not very much in the holiday spirit. Though the food and beer were quite delicious, I would have about two hours earlier if I weren’t officially part of the stupid planning committee and didn’t have to stay until the end to help clean up. Ugh. Awful.

*= O.C. stands for Office C**t, it’s mean but I don’t care.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Best Taco Bell in Germany

 Last weekend, I crossed off a major item on my bucket list. I went to Taco Bell in Germany. "But Raven, shouldn't you aspire to better, healthier things that have a measurable positive impact on society?" I know that's what you're thinking, but I don't really give a crap... because you are not the boss of me.  I wanted Taco Bell, because it's probably the one thing from back at home that I crave the most. Say what you want about it (again, I don't give a crap), but get at me when you've spent years away from your homeland and are unable to acquire whatever nasty-ass comfort food is available wherever you're from. For me, my nasty-ass comfort food of choice is Taco Bell...with Sonic a close second. However, you can't even find Sonic all over the U.S. and I don't find myself craving burgers and hot dogs all the time (plus, those urges are a lot easier to satisfy than a craving for Mexican or Tex-mex).

The One Who Got Away (Part 6): PLOT TWIST

Quick Translation: This confirms that German citizenship will not be opposed, if within two years it can be verified that the aforementioned person no longer possesses citizenship for Trinidad and Tobago e   and/or has fulfilled the requirements for the loss of this citizenship and that nothing has happened in the meantime, which would forbid naturalization.  I almost forgot what it felt like to receive a industrial size dose of 100% homegrown German bureaucratic pedantry. Luckily, the German authorities will never leave you too long without a fix. You can count on that. As you can see from the picture above (and from my previous posts), Trinidad and Tobago e  had only been mentioned once in passing up until now, when I finalized my application and paid the fee. Mr. S: Your mother was naturalized in the U.S. after you were born? Me: Yes, but she never applied for Trinidadian citizenship for me, which would have had to have been done by my 18th birthday.  Mr. S: Ok. (Ac

The One Who Got Away (Part 5)

Pro tip: Don't estimate the amount of time it will take to review your citizenship application based on the amount of time it took to get the results of your citizenship test. So far, this has been the area of the German-side of the process that ran a little closer to my bureaucratic expectations, namely, if an official expresses a length of time -- e.g. 3-6 months -- things will start moving closer to the six month mark than the three month mark. Getting down to the wire, I was (and still am) slightly concerned that this would drag on and I would have to renew my U.S. passport first, since it's getting kinda close to the point where it's only valid for six months. This would have cost me 1.) more money 2.) plus a trip to a consulate that actually does shit for U.S. citizens 3.) money and time off work for a trip to Bremen, Berlin, or Frankfurt. As luck would have it, I finally received notification that the Germans are letting me in! The full term is that they are