10 Do's and Don'ts for Company Parties

Company parties are a strange animal that happens with companies great and small.  They are strange bits of society that live within the beating heart of the corporate body.  Once people work together long enough it seems the owner will designate some kind of party to show they aren't all work but are in fact some play, thereby alleviating Jack of the burden of being a dull boy.  I wanted to post this when we were a good enough distance away from holiday parties that my thoughts might be considered for the next party.  If you are in charge of putting together the company party, or are going to attend one here are some observations...

- Work talk?  Are you kidding?? - Don't Talk shop - If you are going to the company party, it should be a rule that anyone talking about work should be deemed unfit for the party and thrown out on his or her brown nose.  If you are among the curmudgeons that think that parties are a waste of time and not to be indulged in, I've got news for you Oscar...People actually are more productive with fun breaks like that.  If you are going to have a party, have a party.  That includes upper management palling around together talking semi business in hushed tones.  Gives people the creeps.

- Sit at the Presidents Table - He's more afraid of you than you are of him.  Company parties should be the great equalizer between the royalty and the subjects.  If your company CEO will deign to sit with his subjects, then this is a really good time to get noticed by the boss.  This of course is NOT the time to play your rendition of Beethoven's Sonata for Armpit.  Then again, it can't hurt.  He is not going to pay much more attention to you than to make polite chitchat and give you the dumb animal look.  If you don't know what that is, just remember that phrase then next time you are talking to your dog, then quickly look in the mirror.  THERE, that's the look.  yeah, he's totally giving you that look.

- Bring your kids?!?  Are you INSANE? - Don't bring kids Don't invite kids.  I understand that in many cases finding a sitter is hard etc.  But do not bring your kids.  If you are organizing a party remember, every outing into the wild with children is just a fresh slice of Hell for the parents.  They have lost all hope of enjoying themselves, and only hope to survive.  You want them to show up?  Well, maybe you should have a different sitting service that will provide fun and games in a safe environment for the kids.  This of course includes the CEO's kids.  With all due respect sir, we don't want to see your little jewel give her rendition of the Hallelujah chorus for the tenor tuba.

- Start Drinkin - DON'T get sloshed.  Better yet, stay away from the sauce.  Drinking is for doing around people that don't mind you with your guard down.  People that don't know you that well, don't WANT to know you that well.  Save the drinking for home or the bar.  If you are a company that still offers an open bar, well that's surprising first and second, check to see if your insurance will cover that.

- Best foot forward - No arguing with your spouse.  Spouse, no sitting and moping or shooting eye daggers at your other half.  Since you are all there together, it's time to act like a team.  Yes I'm sure he/she doesn't deserve it, but you will reap the benefits of looking like a cohesive unit in front of other people.  This gives your employed spouse an aura of stability no matter what you really know about them.  This is assuming that spouses are invited.  If they aren't, then bully for you.  Company parties suck anyway.

- Hey wait, is this the 3rd degree? - If someone is telling an amusing anecdote about work or about home, don't call them on the facts.  If you know some detail about their story couldn't possibly be correct, then you need to just keep your know-it-all trap shut.  Let them tell their story.  Asking for all of the corroborating evidence as to the voracity of someones otherwise lighthearted story is a real buzzkill.

- Worlds Colliding!  -  Ultimately you shouldn't invite spouses to a company party.  It's not that we don't like spouses, but they just don't know much about what is going on at work and all of the conversation will be about strange things that happen at work.  With spouses, conversation is reduced to 'I've heard a lot about you'  and 'Is he/she always like this at home too?'.  Ugh.

- Time to PARTY! - Don't make your employees take ANOTHER piece of their time and give it to you.  do it during work. If you are organizing a company party, make it on company time.  I know this really sounds revolutionary, but there is no reason to make people take MORE time out of their busy schedule so you can tell them how well the company has done or how much you appreciate them.  It's much better to appreciate them on YOUR time.

- Pot luck = Bad luck - There should be more laws about this.  There aren't.  I'm sure the only law that makes sense at this point is Darwin's.  There is no reason to invite everyone to bring some covered dish of something.  If things are strained at the office, there is no telling what's in that crock pot.

- Talent show Oh no. - Yes people have talents.  Most of the time when you think of talent, you are thinking of Singing or Playing an instrument (80% piano, 15% violin, 5% something horrible).  Talent shows with people you know are similar to just asking them to take off their clothes for everyone to look at.  Don't do this.









So It looks like I've poo poo'ed all possible company party ideas right?  Wrong.  This is the one true company party.  The catered lunch.  Possible white elephants purchased by company issued gift certificates in advance by all attending the party.  Everyone gets to have fun and eat and go home with something goofy they will probably remember.  You don't have to worry about doing something wrong and you will likely get the rest of the day off.  Sure this is done during Christmas normally, but who said it has to happen then?  Maybe you have a Christmas in July party and don't have ANY party for the holidays thereby giving your employees their time that is probably already spoken for.

Top 10 things you forget on Vacation

Vacation! Who doesn't love a good vacation? Well if you don't. If you're one of those workaholic-take your laptop to the beach so you can check your emails-drives around till the blackberry is in range sorts, this blog post is not for you. I believe that it's very important to be actively engaged in your work. But it is at least as important to be actively engaged in your relaxation. If you can't do this, then something is not right. I don't care if you love your work. That's no excuse. Life is like a good meal. there are several courses and between courses you must cleanse your palette in order to appreciate the next course. Vacation is like this. You must properly remove yourself from your prior life so you may return to it with renewed vigor. Well, enough about that. you workaholics know who you are and right now you are justifying your lack of life and about to go back to your email to see if someone needs you (because you are SO indispensable)

So I am, as we speak, on vacation. Or more to the point I'm at a pre-vacation staging position. Without going into detail. Lets just say that there is a point at which you are no longer at home, but not quite on vacation. You are in the hotel or condo or tent but you haven't done anything that differentiates you from your regular life yet. You are in vacation limbo. It is at this point that you slowly let go of your regular life and prepare to buy a 8 dollar churro. It is also at this point that you take stock of all the things your forgot. No matter how well you prepare for a vacation you forget stuff. It's as constant as the sun's morning rise. You can make your checklists all you want. It's the execution that's the problem. So here it is. 10 things you forget on Vacation. This will also include things you forget WHILE on vacation that because I need 10 things.

10. Locked the Door - You spend your life working to put things into a house that you've bought and when you go on Vacation, you leave those things. Some would say that being able to spend some time with those things would equal a vacation as well, but that's a different story. You are in the middle of doing things that you would never do and in the rush to 'get out of Dodge' you forget, or you forget IF you locked the door. You don't make this realization until you are a long enough distance away that it is a lot of trouble to go back and check. They say that if you do this on a regular basis, that it's the beginning of some kind of mental illness. Well warm up the straight jacket.








9. Tickets - A wise vacationer NEVER pays rack rate for anything. Thanks to this handy invention of Al Gores, we can all get great deals to myriad attractions and events. Well if you are going somewhere important you usually have many tickets to keep track of. Along with this category is passports/special identification. If you end up going to Southern California, you are going to have to remember that we haven't anexed Tijuana yet. Personally the only reason I would go there is to buy good vanilla. When it comes to tickets, the thing you wonder if you remembered is not the main event ticket, but rather the tickets to one of the supporting events. Like the shuttle ticket to or from the airport. or maybe the parking passes, or something else that isn't enough to ruin your vacation, but it IS enough to put a dent in your self image.

8. Socks - I say socks, but it really is any sundry clothing item that you take for granted being there. somtimes it's socks, sometimes it's underwear (only one section if you wear 2 pieces of underwear), sometimes it's the relaxing shoes (sandals etc.). Usually you only forget this stuff once. after that you are cured. But after that. You'll bring extras. Better safe than sorry.












7. Utilities - This is on the same order as locked the door, but it's the different utilities that you have in the house. Did you remember to turn off the lights (except that special one that scares away burglars.) Did you remember to turn off the oven? (because you cooked yourself a large country style breakfast before you rushed off to the airport). The other thing that falls under this category is the mail. did you forget to turn off the mail delivery? or have a friend check it for you? So many things to remember and if you did them early enough in your exodus, you may think you forgot them.





6. Your sense of economic well being - This is what you forget when you are actually ON vacation. If you are going to enjoy yourself, you are going to have to turn off your inner miser. You know, that guy that tells you not to buy things like a drink at lunch or dessert at dinner because you are not being prudent. Well I've heard it said first by a local radio personality and continued by countless voices, 'Moderation in all things, including moderation.' Give yourself a little leeway. If you are more liberal in your spending in your regular life, maybe you should go the other way on vacation and turn into a cheap skate, but I think it works better the other way around.







5. What you do for a living - If you have taken a vacation properly. when you come back to work, you are not really certain that you have any idea what you are doing. Perhaps you have been faking it the whole time? It should take you a good couple of days to get back into the swing of your regular work a day rut.













4. Money - I think most of us live on credit cards. I know I do. Don't get me wrong. I don't use them for credit, I pay the balance every month. If everyone were like me, the credit card companies would have to really stick it to the retailers. But there are cases when you really do need cash. My dad was a BIG proponent of cash. so much so that he was often the target of people that would endevor to relieve him of it. But he used to say 'Mark, there are some deals that can only be made in cash' If you watch cops, you realize that this is true. But there are other more legal goods and services that are also done in cash. few people accept tips in credit card form unless you are adding it to the meal ticket. You need to carry a healthy stack o ones for tips, and tolls. Cash also tends to be a faster transaction, and on Vacation there are many times when speed is of the essence.

3. That one bag - You've got it all, you've prepacked a few weeks in advance and your bags stare at you with all the anticipation of a dog waiting for you to give the word so he can snap up that biscut you put on his nose. If you do that far enough in advance, you will invariably miss one bag. Or better yet you didn't miss a bag at all...or did you...you appear to have everything, but it seems like there was a bag that had OTHER things in it and you really needed it to ... oh no, never mind, it's here. Or was it that one after all...grrr.




2. Toiletries - This is different than the one bag because any one of your nightly routine tools can go missing and it instantly becomes more important than all the rest. Toothbrush, floss, comb, brush, shampoo, conditioner (my hippy hair really needs it). Just to name a few. If you forget one. it reminds you every night and you end up going to the local woolworths that you were banned from for fighting in order to pick up that one item that you lack. You will pay through the nose for it and it won't quite be the right one because they don't have the one you use.





1. Power - In our personal gadget lives we must have easy and ready access to power. some of our devices like cameras and personal music players require regular charging and if you don't have the cord that you forgot, that device will become a loadstone within 2 days. Other devices need batteries. The batteries you bought in bulk at home, but now you are willing to pay through the nose for in order to make sure you have.









Well, i'm sorry if it isn't up to snuff, but I'm on vacation! leave me be!

(not really, thanks for reading, tell your friends)

Top 10 Holidays that don't exist.

You've heard it from me before. Valentines Day is a non Holiday. Well, it's not the only one. There are tons. Columbus Day, Arbor Day, Mothers Day, St Patricks Day. Any holiday that doesn't give me a day off with pay is not a holiday, it's just a day with a name.

So these are Holidays that aren't officially on any calendar and yet get celebrated. Believe me, If I got a day off for Valentines day, I would be all over it. Ahh the heady feeling as you buy overpriced chocolates and roses. mmmmm...the sweet anticipation of obligatory affection. Wait a minute, I already went on way too long about that.

What ARE holidays however, are those 'personal' days that you get from your company. Every company is different, but on average, your sick/personal days are the ones you get every year that you will be paid for if you use them, but they evaporate at the end of the year if you don't. Of course you usually have to have some kind of excuse to take those days, or you don't have a lot of work on the hook. So you need a day off, but you don't have an illness, what do you do? The following are a list of holidays that are less known but could be more celebrated than real holidays.

10. Son of Hippocrates Day - Ferris Bueller's Day off. What a great movie. I loved it every time I saw it. It made a great study of calling sick into school. Not only did it give you a blueprint on the proper way of playing sick, it told you in no uncertain terms that these days were not to be WASTED. Well that was school, now you are at work. You look out of your window as the playful warm breeze wafts into your bedroom and realize that God simply does not want you to go lock yourself up in a cubicle today he want's you to enjoy the day...but how do you get there? you aren't really sick... your kids! nobody suspects or can verify wether or not your offspring are ill. It's the perfect ploy! You blame the kids and burn the day! Freedom at last. Used with infrequency, it is a nearly endless font of free day passes. Of course if your children are actually sick you use this day as well. The LAST thing anyone needs is their kids at home alone without supervision. Unless of course you enjoy seeing your Ice cream melted on the kitchen counter and several rather odd Pay-Per-View choices.

9. Frank Lloyd Wrightsmass - Any Home improvement will spur the use of a personal day. They are coming in to install cable/satellite. They always give you that 'we will be in some time after 8, but before 4:30 but not around noon, and only if we feel like it'. So you gotta burn a day doing it. Sprinklers, Gas Main, painting the house, we will take a day to do this. Here's the funny thing, if it's something like getting a new service, people aren't nearly as sympathetic on the day off thing as they are with say...a pipe bursting! The structural integrity of your house is at stake! Termites! Hole in the roof! All are good excuses and will warrant that precious personal day.

8. Feast of Moses...The Lawgiver - We civic minded people know that laws are there to protect us and our health. Were it not for laws we would descend into a morass of moral and physical wretchedness that could only be rivaled by illicit dancing. You Protestants know what I'm talking about. If, at some point, you run afowl of the local constabulary, you will be required to appear at court not sooner than 5 days and no later than 15 days from this day. I'm not sure why this is, but I think it's so you can have time to reflect and think about the shambles your life has become since your decision to lead a life of crime. 7 miles over indeed! You'll need a day to get to your local county seat in order to straighten out your situation and make your record white as driven snow once again. The other reason is Jury Duty. Some companies will actually give you separate and extra days if you are called for jury duty. so the hope is that you burn a day getting chosen and then on the day you are there, they dismiss the case. you are off the hook and you get a free day! EXCELLENT!

7. Weekend Eve - Who doesn't like the real holidays? Especially Thanks Giving. A lovely day between Halloween and Christmas that is a great family get together/fight holiday. Great except for that Friday that is. I gotta go BACK to work?! Who decided that Thursday was a good holiday day? Enter Weekend Eve. That Friday between the day off and the weekend. Nearly everyone takes this day, but Weekend Eve can be used any time you want to extend that holiday one more day. Thank you pagans for inventing weekend eve. Thank you. Because of you, I can stuff my fool face so full of turkey that I probably won't wake up until Sunday afternoon.










6. Florence Flatus Day - We've all had the problem where we were sick, but not sick enough to not go to work. But still, something just wasn't right. Was it that multi-grain 3 bean burrito with a side-car of liquid fiber? or was it that piece of leftover in the fridge that you really couldn't quite put your finger on. Whatever it was, the result is the same. More constant gas than the Alaska pipeline. They will be naming a candle fragrance after you...cranberry coverup. You want to go into work, but you know that you are in for a day of avoiding your co-workers and doing the one cheek sneak to the bathroom. You can go to work, but the truth is, once your office chair has reached it's saturation point, everyone in the office is in mortal peril. You should be given an extra day off, just for sparing your co-workers your particular scent.






5. Dead Spouse's Relative Day - no, no, no, I'm not talking about your mother in law actually dying. I'm talking about the believable excuse. The key to this excuse is the following 'Yeah, even though she was her great aunt, they were really close' Few people ever really talk about their spouses extended family. But If I did, that would be a WHOLE other blog. Just a sec, I gotta write that down...Anyway, nobody will question that you need a day off to assist your spouse in their grief. You only want to invoke this holiday if your company is not particularly compassionate. If they are, they will be sending flowers to a non existent funeral. Then the jigs up. This could be the kind of thing that gets you kicked off the party committee.
This day is also used when you have relatives that have invited you to their wedding and you are just close enough you are obligated to attend. That's when you hope you can get away with dropping by, eating some white sheet cake. Say congratulations to the older gentleman in the ill fitting suit and get out to enjoy the rest of the day.




4. Dudley Memorial Day - The weekend comes and you've got friends that are coming in from out of town. You know those friends. The ones that you stayed up all night playing the most intriguing drinking game you invented while watching Star Trek the Next Generation. Every time the Captain said 'ENGAGE' you took another shot, and a double shot whenever Worf said 'they have no honor' Ahhh those were the days. Well they are back in town and you will relive some old memories in a slightly older vessel. Come Sunday night you wish you had remembered the lessons learned in your youth. You are going to call in sick, but really, you'd rather not, but you will. The good news is, you will feel and sound more than sick enough to avoid a day of work. The bad news is, this illness you could have easily avoided by not drinking alcohol like some kind of cheeze eatin teenager.

3. St Chevy's Day - You've been planing this trip for the last 8 months. A cross country trip from wherever you live in Armpit USA to Wally World in sunny California, or Super Wally World in Orlando Florida. It will be a 10 day trip in all and you've invited your brother and his family along for the fun. It will be a trip that everyone will remember and likely hold grudges about for the rest of your life. When you get back from this 'holiday' you are an absolute idiot if you don't call in a sick day for the day after you get back. You have to have a day to recover from this kind of adventure. In the movies, people are indefatigable, in real life, you will be exhausted by around day 5 and probably dead by day 10.

2. The Festival of Lee Iacocca - The fresh plastic smell of a new car dashboard. The chemically protected smell of the upholstery. We all know that the bottle of 'new car smell' that you've been dousing your Dodge Dart in has never really smelled like a new car and the fact is you needed a new car when you realized that the ghost of what your dog ate still emanates from the heating vents where he left it. This will take a day, and in that day, you will feel rushed and taken advantage of in all the ways that matter. In the end you will have a new car that your dog will not get in for at least 2 months and probably your kids for 2 weeks. You will not personally eat food in this vehicle until the NEXT weekend. When you come back from the Lee Iacocca festival, you will show your co-workers the car you have started to make payments on. The temporary liscense plate marring an otherwise perfect visage of driving perfection. Yup you need at LEAST a day for this.

1. Oscar Appreciation Day - This doesn't count as an actual day off, this is when lunch goes long. More specifically lunch turns into a 2 hour movie. Those of you that are lucky enough to live close to a theater will know this holiday intimately. It is VERY easy to come up with 1-2 hour excuses that will cover up the fact that you want to see a movie that your spouse really would not be caught dead seeing, but that your like minded co-workers have been itching for an excuse to make a critical review. The great thing about a movie in the middle of work is it really breaks up the day nicely, it really flies by.









Thanks for reading! And special props for my consistent readers! Bill (thanks for the avatar!), Tracy (Scoops! you were there from near the start!), Dave H (DIO!!!!), Larissa (the swashbucklinest pirate ever landlocked), Shannon (I still don't understand slyrpycow), Mikey (remember that trip to Wally World? I wonder if dad took a day off afterwards...). If you are a consistent reader and I didn't mention you. THANKS! I appreciate it, I just don't know who you are. But I probably have a good Idea who you aren't.

top 10 ways we LOOK like we are working

Ok, let me start of by saying, if you are management, this is all just satire and YOUR employees don't do this at all. YOUR employees are practically perfect in every way. They take your assignments and work just a little bit over their daily time completely and in a single minded fashion complete the tasks you have given them. I think I can hear them whistle while they work as well.

Are they gone yet? ok. According to studies, the AVERAGE productive time out of an 8 hour day in an office is roughly 5 hours. (It's actually lower, but I'm rounding up). This means we spend 3 hours a day doing something that isn't work, but is easily mistaken for it. This is just in case you've missed on some methods of loafing.

10. Meeting gone wrong. This one might not even count, and yet it's not productive. First. Meetings as they are are usually a waste of time. They are typically 10% planning and 90% finger pointing. This depends on the corporate culture. At the end of the meeting, the conversation can turn to the weekends events, and the funny thing is, it can come from management. Usually we want to get out of there and talk to our friends about stuff. Since management doesn't have a lot of friends, they do it at the end of meetings.



9. 5 minute question - A great time waster. You have a work buddy that you would like to talk to, but you don't have a reason. well, you build up some kind of question to 'verify' of 'get your ducks in a row' and ask this buddy. the answer is 5 minutes, of course the BS afterwards takes about 35 minutes and is usually capped off by a reiteration of what was said in the first 5 minutes.







8. Good old Clip Board - It's an old movie axiom. If you look like you have a sense of purpose and you are walking quickly, nobody will know that you are not going to any meeting at all, but instead you are getting in 5 healthy laps around the office campus. It's even more effective if you have a grumpy look on your face.







7. 2 hour lunch - the key to this time waster is you can't do it often and you can't eat lunch at the same time every day. once in a while you need to work through lunch to show the boss what a dedicated employee you are. your average? 1.43 hours at lunch.










6. Bio-Break - This one is great but it takes timing and experience to use consistently. Just take a good book or magazine to the can. If you time it right, you can miss one of those yawner meetings. Word to the wise, if you fall asleep in the toilet, you will have dead legs and your snores will probably be recorded and put up on U-Tube.






5. Office Supplies / groceries - For the secretary. Secretary's work hard and you know that they are the organizational geniuses behind any good executive. As such, they can certainly go buy some office supplies and while they are at it, the weeks groceries. Of course they can't buy anything perishable unless home is between the store they go to and the office. hmmmm...








4. Solitaire - I put this one in a separate category because it's in a class all it's own. When windows first came on the business scene solitaire was there to make sure that anyone using that machine would be diverted from the buggy microsoft office software. Ahh the memories. Now a days, there are a LOT more diversions than solitaire and microsoft has put bigger numbers on their software.







3. Talk to the Boss - you walk in, you close the door. Boss, I really just wanted an informal how am I doing. This does so many things for you it's amazing 1. you look like a real 'go getter' and you are getting face time with the boss. 2. you are NOT working! 3. This meeting may actually give you some information that you need about your performance. You can only do this once a month or so, and you have to cough up new reasons to talk. If you are not possessed of the gift of gab this won't be one for you.








2. Time - Shaving time in your favor is a real good way to get your share of that 3 hours a day, and this one is Aces. you make sure you come in at about 8:40 then stay till 5:30. you look like you are staying late and yet you are shaving 10 minutes. You can adjust this play to your best benefit depending on when your boss gets in and leaves.










1. Internet "research" - This used to be a lot easier. Back before offices would completely spy on all of your internet activity you could look completely busy clicking and studying the SI Swimsuit issue online or paying your bills or looking up old high school flames, whatever. The moment someone slides by, you just bring up that REAL work window and no one is the wiser. In fact, there is an invention that is made for this, it's a foot pedal screen switcher. you plug it into your computer and when you see someone coming, you don't have to go to that embarrassing alt-tab, you just click your pedal with your feet and viola! you have the hard at work screen up in front of you. SWEET!

There you have it. I'm sure there are more, but those are the first best 10 that came into mind. As always, thanks for reading!

Yeah, I know it's not my strongest work, you can't hit a home run every time.

Top 10 Disappointing Realizations

You get born and you figure your life will follow pretty much a set path and everything is gonna be the way you see it. You actually really feel this way at about 12 and you are constantly surprised at the things that surprise you. So here we go.

10. The Circle of Life - This is a hard realization because you never know when you are going to have to make it. The problem is puppies and kitties are cute and lovable, you get them for your kids and before they are even out of the house Rex or Mittens is pushing up daisies. Now you have to tell them a story cut from whole cloth because you don't know whether or not you really know what you are talking about, but you really hope that you are convincing enough that your child doesn't feel THAT bad. Of course, the alternative is that you tell them that everyone dies sooner or later that that's the way it goes. Yuck, I don't like it and I already know it.

9. The movies and TV are not only fake, but most of the stuff they do can't be done. - I SO wanted the Jame Bond lotus that would turn into a submarine as well as a really fast car, and If I ever needed to, I could probaly hack into a high security computer in a matter of seconds and say 'I'm in!'. I later found out that not only did spys not drive flashy sports cars, but that they were usually non-descript non-exciting non James Bond guys like the Computer TA in my high school. *SIGH*













8. Nobody is naturally anything except for Idiot Savants - That's right, if you want to be good at anything, you have to work very hard at it. So much that when people say 'well, you're just naturally _____' you just want to hit them. Yeah, Naturally along with hundreds of hours of practice. But as a kid, I was certain that there was some talent I had that I would have but to simply discover it. Then I would be the toast of the town and on the Talk Shows and then chicks would dig me. I'm still lookin.










7. Your Mom and Dad are just regular people - This is sad twice one. Sad when you realize it about your parents, and sad when your kids realize it about you.

















6. You actually have to work for a living - This one sucks. As a kid, you know that money is worth something, but you really don't know what. Those fake jobs your folks give you are either way too well paid or not paid nearly enough. Besides, they give you what you need for NOTHING, and it's good stuff. The cereal with a cool prize, the good bread. When you realize that you have to work your butt off just to make 2 dollars over minimum and that it actually takes a shocking amount of money to keep yourself out of mom and dad's basement. It SUCKS. Yes, I know, there are some people out there that will never have to work a day in their lives. Look at Paris Hilton. That's another problem with this realization. You probably do have to work for a living, but someone out there never had to at all. great.

5. Your Mom and Dad actually had to do it to have you - Lets just not think about this one ok? This gets even worse if your parents want to start talking about it. I'm perfectly ok with being an immaculate conception.
















4. It's very likely that you won't like your job - The illustration that I attached to this pretty much tells the tale. The caption that goes under the girl is

remember guys somewhere some guy is sick and tired of putting up with her crap

except the hot girl is a Job. and no matter what your job is, no matter how perfect it is for you, eventually you will be bothered by it...A LOT. That's if you're lucky and you are with people you like. Many times, the job is actually not a hot supermodel, but a mangy rabid badger.







3. You're not young anymore. - It usually happens the first time a young man or woman calls you 'sir' or 'ma'am'. Ick. This one is horrible because it's like a bill you can't afford to pay. It keeps calling you and nagging you and telling you that tomorrow it will come again. Soon your joints are telling you, the mirror is telling you, the subscription cards to AARP are telling you.














2. Girls (or guys) see sex COMPLETELY differently - Yeah, this one is a real eye opener, especially for the guys. Girls pretty much figure it out because how their sexual identities are completely jammed down their throats by TV. Guys unfortunately see the same things on TV and believe it's true. You're lucky if it's true at any point during your relationship, even for 5 minutes. In terms of sex, I've always said that what a guy wants most in a girl is EXACTLY what a girl doesn't want in a guy. To be able to lie convincingly.


1. Santa - That Fat SOB isn't real?!? Here's the biggest disappointment in the big fat man. When you're a kid, you realize that you don't have any pressure against your folks because THEY are the Clause, and you gotta start towing the line. When you're an adult, you realize that here you are putting the sweat into the presents and the Fat man gets all the credit. Santa wins twice and in the end, you are just an elf.




Till next time!