I Suck At Hanging Out With Coworkers

i suck at hanging out with coworkers. i generally follow the golden rule of not mixing business with pleasure, which in my case is rather easy to do because there is no pleasure with where i work.

thus, i am hesitant to do many things with coworkers outside the work environment where there is a group or team setting. i usually dread such get togethers. that is why i never like going to my company's holiday party. i would rather get intoxicated so that the feeling of pain is numbed. (as it turns out, i have gotten very inebriated many times during company outtings for this very fact.)

that is not to say that i dislike my coworkers. one of my friends (carlos) is also one of my coworkers. things are different when you are having a good time with certain individuals who are your coworkers as opposed to being seemingly forced to hang out with a group of individuals who are your coworkers.

tonight, i thought, was one of those nights. to my surprise, i actually had a good time. this past monday, my new boss started at the company. in an effort to get to know everyone on the team, he wanted to go out for some drinks and dinner tonight. naturally, i immediately felt dread when first asked because it was going to be one of those "forced" get togethers.

anyway, we ended up the elephant and castle pub and restaurant which is just a short walk from my company after work. on the walk over, i got to learn about my boss's life, his family, etc. while we were at the restaurant, we talked about everything from sports to other people at work. he genuinely seemed like a nice guy. of course, this may have been the booze talking. (just kidding. i didn't drink that much... only two pints of ireland's finest: guinness.)

i shortly left after my second drink to meet up with karen. i actually think karen was relieved to find me standing and sober as opposed to staggering and attempting to dance and sing because she knows how i get during company outtings. needless to say, it was surprisingly nice and i had a good time.