New year reception

A couple of days ago I received an invitation to the new year reception of my former employer of - believe it or not - thirty seven years.

Fat chance they will see me there.

Even when I was professionally active still, I saved a free day from the previous year which I then used on the day of the reception. I hate these occasions in all circumstances, but most of all in a professional context. There you can be certain that the wishes are insincere at best, totally false at worst - "let him drop dead the bastard", "I hope he misses that promotion" or something to that effect. Nice words in front, a hidden knife at the back. Theatre at its very worst.

And the invitation is getting more and more insincere too : clearly, they continue doing it because they do not know how to stop it. They send the invitation at the last possible moment so that the lowest number of retired people can free themselves to attend ; they no longer invite us to lunch with the active personnel (and after ten years, how many of those do we still know ?), and we do not even rate a bite with the retirees.

We just rate the boring "academic" shindig plus a drink, maybe two. For a sleep inducing speech and a drink we are expected to drive halfway through the country in snow, ice, rain or cold.

We no longer exist for the company for 364 days and 22 hours a year. And that is absolutely fine with me. Bygones are bygones. Why make an exception for the remaining couple of hours ?

Peace to all of them, but let it end there.