Company parties

Last night was my company holiday party. I've always found large gatherings of people that don't know each other at social functions to be somewhat awkward, especially when your company is organized in an extremely heirarchical way.

First of all, all the senior people stood around together. All the young people stuck together. All the support staff stuck together. And all the minorities stuck together. None of this is surprising, I suppose.

What was really interesting/funny was the dance floor. Imagine a bunch of stuffy old white men, mixed in with old, large, white women, young straight-out-of-college kids, and minorities (mostly black and hispanic). It's the epitome of "diversity", at least on a surface level (and then only by ethnicity).

Imagine everyone standing around the dance floor while the DJ desperately spins the latest grooves ("Celebration", Kool & The Gang, "Billie Jean", Michael Jackson), all kinda wanting to dance, but nobody brave enough to step onto the floor. As the night went on, and the alcohol kept flowing (it was an open bar), you could see the dance floor shrinking, but still nobody taking the bold step of going to the middle. It was almost like watching a bacteria colony growing around penicillin (you know what I'm talking about, Andy and Ann).

I had to leave in the middle, but I'm sure that as the night progressed and the alcohol took its effect, that you would have witnessed the most eclectic group of people grooving to the latest 70's and 80's hits.