It is well known that Bubba has a low bullshit tolerance level. The other day, he went to his company’s belated end of year/Xmas event. A late lunch, followed by two hours of talks and presentations, followed by a cava toast at the company’s new offices. Total time devoted to this, from the moment he got into a colleagues stinky car until he finally said goodbye to his colleague when he got off the train at his home: 8 hours. Bubba would rather be working this time. Doing bug fix maintenance work maybe, or unpaid overtime, rather than be at this event. In fact, he would rather work on New Years eve, reading 4 year old technical emails and filing them into the appropriate folder, rather than attend an event like this, ever again.
When he was being served his n-th glass of wine, he felt tremendously jealous of the waiter, and wished he was doing that job, rather than being a guest, a customer, a participant. He toyed with the Hollywood idea of bashing him over the head, tying him up and wearing the uniform, to become the server rather than the served. How ironic that not so long ago he used to be one of the servers, though not so ironic that even then he knew that he would rather be doing what he was doing, rather than “enjoying” the party. The false, forced jollity, the sudden staged bursts of clapping at the bosses tables, the brown nosing and arse licking… it just isn’t his style (it’s well known that Bubba has a very low bullshit tolerance level). Neither of the two excuses that he most often hears from people who attend these events apply in his case: “there’s a free bar” (Bubba can get pissed on less than 5€), “it beats working” (Bubba: “no it doesn’t”, please see above).
He smiled to himself (luckily he’s still got himself at such an event) when he remembered this from Seinfeld: “To the average person if you have to be at a funeral you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy”.
For the next event, he would want to resort to this old trick: once the date of the event is announced, find whatever bands are playing on the day and say that unfortunately he can’t make the event because he’s got tickets to see this, his favorite band. The problem is that these company events here in Spain seem to happen during working hours, so… maybe the only solutions are either book a holiday or invent a death in the family. Any other suggestions, please leave a comment and we’ll make sure Bubba receives it.
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