Well, I didn't win the TV. I was at the table with the guy who did win the TV so I got spritzed with his happiness as it were. He and his wife were quite lucky the whole night. They each had won a prize before he got the flat screen.
I did win a gift certificate to a local Italian restaurant! I think I will either save it for my birthday in a couple of months, or I'll use it one day when I'm craving pasta and low on cash.
There were all sorts of ways to win the prizes. Most were random drawings, like my g.c. "game." We did have a couple of trivia contests. The theme this year was advertising. Our table did okay, but we didn't win. The table full of people who cheated by looking up things on-line with their phones won! Bastards.
There was one game of physical skill. A putting game was being given away and everyone got to take 5 putts. I kept hitting the ball too hard, practically banking it in. I attempted by best Bill Murray ( "a Cinderella story..."). Apparently, my best Bill Murray isn't that great because no one got the Caddyshack reference. Or, horrors of horrors, perhaps the people nearby hadn't seen Caddyshack! I will have to fix that and soon.
I also tried being clever with my name tag. I wrote my actual name on it, but followed with the phrase "or MR. TIBBS!" Nothing. Zip. Only a few people asked why I wrote that and when I said "They call me MR. TIBBS!" I still got nothing. Sigh. I'm not sure that option #2 of "Ishmael" would have gone over much better.
I was hoping to sit next to my friend who recommended me for this job, but her table filled up almost immediately. I wandered around for a bit and thankfully the wife of one of my sales reps took pity on me and invited me to join them. I ended up eating with my two reps, their wives and the guy who hired me and his wife. Dinner was great; my prime rib virtually melted in my mouth.
Overall, it was a nice night. The food was great. I probably should have mingled more, but I'm not very good at that. I won a prize. One sort of downer happened after dinner. After the service awards were handed out, our boss introduced all the new people. Before he started going down the list, he said "I always forget someone when I do this..."
I think you can guess what happened.
My name was near the staple on the second of two sheets and was hidden. Or that's what his story was. The sort of ironic bit was I was sitting at his table eating with him. He'd been in the general vicinity of my person for the last hour. He was going through the names alphabetically so I knew right away that I was the one he was skipping. When he finished up, the rest of the table got his attention and pointed out he'd forgotten me. There was a quick OH CRAP sort of moment. The one benefit of the moment was it didn't get pointed out that I was there alone.
When he was reading names off, he'd follow up by saying what department the person was in and add that they were there with their husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend. So, while the people I don't see everyday may not know where I work exactly ('cuz he skipped that part), they also don't know I was a loser and came by myself.
Keep your fingers crossed that we have decent enough weather that I can finish my shopping. I've never been this far behind before. Hope the rest of you are having better luck. Later kids.
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