October 26, 2010
Lunch Menu
Where I work, the first Monday of every November is All-Staff Day. This usually means some sort of off-site, team-building, food-eating, fun-having, skills-sharpening, game-playing, leaving-early day. Lame, yeah, but it sure beats workin' for a livin'.
Now, since I am Lowly, Indentured, Irrelevent, Invisible Temp-Turned-Contract-Employee, I have never actually attended an All-Staff Day. Depending on who I was temping for at the time, I was either allowed to be at work answering phones and blogging on company time while everyone else was all-staffing, or I was given the day off. Fine. Whatever.
But this year, since Head Boss and PhD Boss are so hellbent on getting me brought on permanantly (which is never going to happen), I'm expected to attend. Ohhhhh, and it gets better.
Since we have absolutely no budget to be nice to the employees, our formerly-tolerable All-Staff Day has been reduced to prayer, communion, and "a simple lunch," after which... we get to return to work until our regular quitting time! No traditional early dismissal! To the shock of no one, the year that Wenchie is actually invited to a company outing, it's turned into a suck-fest of lame-tastic proportions.
Now. One of the guys on the all-staff planning committee is a guy who regularly hangs out with my tiny department. And even more lately, since the rest of his department was laid-off, and he is now king of a whole row of empty cubicles. Sucks to be him. He's a great guy, and he let us in on some of what went down in the planning committee meeting.
As you know, we are a religious organization. However, not all of the employees are of the denomination that we represent. In fact, probably half are are not. So, for the big, all-staff eucharist, the Big Cheese was adamant that the service be interfaith-friendly, embracing not only our fellow Christians, but our token Jew and our token Muslim as well.
Great, wonderful. Very kind of them to be sensitive to that. In fact, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what they've come up with. Empty Cubicle King Guy described it as "funky," which means it's sure to upset a few people, and that's always a good time in my book.
But the funny part is this.
After our Jew-and-Muslim-friendly, interfaith service, we are having pulled pork sammiches for lunch.
Pulled. Pork.
I almost peed myself. Yeah, it's quite an impressive think tank we have going on over here, folks. I'm so proud.
And when Padawan asked what Empty Cube King Guy reported as the vegetarian alternative to our pork lunch, I had to tell her -- nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.
I guess Padawan will be making new friends on Monday when she takes a Jew and a Muslim out to lunch.
Comments
D@mn, Wenchie, I gotta remember to swallow before reading your blog. I nearly choked on a piece of bacon when I got to the pulled pork part. Good thing Ramadan is over, or that lunch date would take place after sunset.
L'Chaim!
-Lori
Posted by: Lori at October 27, 2010 12:26 PM
OK, you and I could have planned a WAY better menu for the interfaith lunch!
Start it off with some Matzo Ball soup. Everyone likes that, right?
Followed by an entree of some spicy lamb or beef lulu kabobs, some potato pancakes with a nice green onion/sour cream dipping sauce on the side (which could be an entree for a "veg" in the crowd) and then finish it with.....a big fat piece of rich chocolate cake!
Posted by: Diane Schmidt at October 27, 2010 02:18 PM
Wait one second right now. Whatchoo talkin bout, Wenchie? Prayer?
Posted by: Stac at October 27, 2010 04:32 PM
Lori, Lori, Lori. Have you not learned by now? (And now I want some bacon.)
Stac, I work for a religious organization. I am SURROUNDED by prayer. In fact, someone is probably praying for my immortal soul right now.
Posted by: Wenchie at October 28, 2010 06:00 PM