My life as an episode of The Office

Imagine this: You are called into your boss's office along with three other relatively new employees and are told that you will be the judging committee for displays put up by each department in the company. The other employees: two Indian transfers from the India branch of the company and the new janitor, who started two days prior. You are told that you are to choose one winner and three runners up based on creativity, effectiveness of the display, and involvement of the employees within the department. You are also told that one of you will have to speak at the company picnic the next day and announce the winners.

You then realize that it will be you who is speaking at the picnic because two of the other committee members have Indian accents and won't be understood by everyone and the other committee member hasn't been there for a full week yet. You on the other hand have only been there for six weeks but somehow are still considered temporary. You are now hating your job and possibly your life in general. This is only the beginning though. You know that you are inevitably going to piss some people off. There can only be one winner, and there are a lot of displays that are good. And you know that everyone likes to blame the messenger. Lucky you.

This was my life last Wednesday. As much as I tried to pawn off the speaking part onto the other group members, I was still stuck with the task of announcing at the picnic at the end of the day. So after our group came up with our winner and runners up, I got to dwell on the fact that I had to speak in front of 100 people. Did I mention that I hate public speaking?

Anyway, after tossing and turning all night long, I get to work the next day and have to make certificates for the winners we chose as well as certificates for another set of awards being handed out that day. I guess I should probably begin by explaining the whole company picnic process in a little more detail, since this isn't your everyday picnic. This is when I would call in the NBC crew to start filming. The picnic takes place during an extended lunch hour during a regular work day. A few departments sponsor the picnic, choose a theme, and put the thing together. The theme of this picnic was "Country-Western".

To make this an authentic picnic, one of the conference rooms was converted into a tavern scene where "Old Time Photos" could be taken. This room was complete with a hay bale, props such as a wagon wheel, a bottle of beer (empty of course) and a bottle of Jack Daniels (also empty of course), and clothing so you could dress up for the photo. The patio outside was also decorated with hay bales to sit on, western decorations, country music playing, and a real horse. Yes, someone had a friend bring in a horse.

The horse was the main attraction of the day and the owner actually gave grown adults pony rides in the parking lot. How many people can say that they got to ride a horse at the office? Well, my hand is raised. I digress though. Before the festivities could begin, speeches had to be made. The president of the company was supposed to speak, but he didn't want to. He backed out that morning and everyone was running around freaking out. Then, the first speaker who had actually agreed to speak was nowhere to be found. He wandered outside about 15 minutes later (intentional, I think). The other set of awards were handed out and people talked about what they did to earn them and then the big moment for me came.

My supervisor introduced me and I had to grab the mike and go for it. I have never really used a microphone before and I'm not very comfortable with them, so I was nervous. It also didn't help that there was feedback for the first few speakers and they had been fiddling with the volume a bunch of times. Regardless, I had the mike and all eyes were on me. I was so freaked out that I can't even tell you what I said in front of everyone. I rushed through it so fast in order to get it over with. People said I did a good job, but I know I sounded like an idiot. I didn't stumble or trip over my words or anything, so I guess I should be happy about that. At least everyone at the company knows me now.

After that, I could finally breathe again, but my stomach was still not quite right. You see, I actually make myself physically ill worrying about public speaking. I did that to myself in college once too when I was supposed to present in front of a political science class. In that case though, I never had to give the presentation though because the professor got sick and it was the last day of class. I was kinda hoping something like that would happen for the picnic too so I could get out of it, but no such luck.

The fun had only begun at that point because I managed to piss off the IT department and the Finance department with my awards. Apparently IT thought their display was hot shit and deserved to win. They had set up a TV monitor and put together a slide show of clips. The department refused their prize (a basket of candy) and the certificate and promptly turned off their TV. The one guy in the department also threw a temper tantrum and refused to speak to anyone in HR the rest of the day. I still catch him giving me dirty looks too when I see him. The Finance department was more diplomatic about their loss, but also looked at the winner's display, found a typo and brought it to everyone's attention. Seriously people? It's a recognition activity, not the Olympics. I think most people missed the memo about how this was supposed to be fun. So now I feel like I'm being judged by Finance and I am unable to call IT for anything in fear of retaliation from sore losers.

To top it off at the end of the picnic, my supervisor who is in charge of interviewing people for jobs, is called downstairs. An employee referred his friend for a temporary position we have opening up. We weren't going to call this lady back, but she was there that day. You want to know who it was? The lady who brought the horse!! My supervisor had to interview her because she had just brought us a freaking horse for our company picnic. The moral of the story: If you want a job, bring them a horse for their company picnic and they can't ignore you.

All in all, it was the most ridiculous day I think I've had in a long time. When I tried telling my friends about my day, I could hardly believe it myself. The working world is so bizarre sometimes.