Difficult, but interesting. The majority of the day was spent terminating three employees. I hated to do it, especially since they are all males of color, but one admitting theft of over $1500 in goods; one had no measurable output in the 10 months I've been there, and was often MIA, and was observed handling drugs for clients for whom he had no formal responsibility; he had also borrowed money from clients, and the final one had borrowed money from clients. At the end of the day, I believe at least one of their superiors had a personal interest in seeing them leave our employ, but that is superfluous to the fact that each of these people gave us a reaon to terminate their employment.
Afterwards, I went to the holiday party from my former employer. It was in the sixth floor ballroom of the Marriot Marquis. It was as lavishly decorated as always. The serving stations had miniature caesar salads in shot classes, little wedge salads on square miniature saucers, the omnipresent sushi bars, some sort of jumbo shrimp concoction, crab claws, stations for carving beef, turkey, and pork; a cheese bar, some kinda spoon with quince compote and cheese, bacon-wrapped dates, an antipasta bar (a real antipasta bar, with sliced prosciutto, salami, marinated peppers and I don't know what else). There was also a station serving lobster ravioli, mac and cheese, and chilean sea bass. There were ceviche shots -- scallops in some sort of lime and cilantro mixture, served in shot glasses. The dessert bar was just as luscious. There were lychee spoons topped with pistachio, a blood orange brulee, chocolate spoons, citrus spoons, chocolate caramel shots, chocolate and vanilla boston cream pie cones, chocolate truffle pops, a sorbet station, a passionfruit something in a merengue cup, something kinda peachy; and I don't remember what else. I could only eat a few items at a time, but there was lots of protein for me to get in, and the portions were small. I interspersed eating with lots of dancing. Oh, and there was an open bar. Even though I don't drink, it's always fun to watch people who do, though I have to say that people seem to hold their liquor a lot better than at office parties in earlier years.
Note: I was so happy that I wore my tuxedo shirt with the red bow tie and cummerbund and the gold vest. When I walked into the Marriott, the coat check people had on white (not tuxedo) shirts with gold vests. I think their vests were the same shade, but mine was glossy and theirs were matte. Since mine was too big and theirs were generally ill-fitting, I looked like one of the coat check people. Even though my bow tie and cummerbund were red instead of black, with the black suit on, I could easily have passed for a waitstaff person.
So it probably wasn't the best choice in clothing, but I liked it.
And for a few hours, it was great to see everyone, and it got my mind off the day.
It appears to me that our place of work is not a place that is a professional social services organization -- it's a sort of workfare place where people look for ways to get money from the government while doing as little as possible. That's the pervasive organizational culture, and it absolutely has to change. It's like people are so stupid they think that because this is an organization it can create money to which they are automatically entitled. I honestly want to believe tht the root issue isn't people being dishonest so much as it is people just being stupid.
OH, well. We'll see where this goes.
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