I Still Suck At Hanging Out With Coworkers

tonight, my coworkers and i went out after work. my new boss (anthony) wanted to get the entire team together and hang out. the last time the team went out, one of the members (sean) was in china. so tonight, the entire team was present. apparently, anthony likes to have outings to bring the team together and boost morale and all that.

i'd say it's a good method to build teamwork because booze and food are involved. unfortunately, i still suck at hanging out with coworkers. we ended up going to the elephant and castle pub and restaurant (like last time).

it's funny because i have been to plenty of company outings during my six year tenure at work... and each time i have always dreaded going out with coworkers. and again, it's not that i dislike my coworkers. i like my coworkers. i think it's more of the fact that these company outings are like "forced" get togethers.

needless to say, the food was delicious at the restaurant. (i had grilled salmon... and naturally a few pints of guinness.) i'll have to admit, it was actually a good time. maybe i shouldn't dread these company outings so much because i have had a pretty good time the last times out. then again, it could be the beer talking. but yeah, we hung out, told stories, laughed. it was fun.

anyway, i got to ride the subway train home with anthony afterwards (he lives in braintree which happens to be the destination of the same train i take home.) as he would normally have walked from the station to his house, i offered him a ride because it was quite late... and dark out. so lucky for anthony, he got to meet my parents while i picked up the car.

incidentally, my parents were quite impressed that he knew chinese better than i did. (he's a "white devil" with "yellow fever" as he is married to a chinese woman. plus, he has lived in hong kong.) so needless to say, i got to spend some quality time with the new boss. it was actually quite nice. i got to learn more about my new boss. he seems like he really cares about the team... it's a nice feeling... hopefully, he'll stick around because i sure would like him to... but we'll see.

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.