Christmas Staff Party
28 Dec 2006 — On X’mas day itself, the celebrations continued with a staff party hosted by Carsten, the GM, and his family. Apparently it’s a tradition they’ve kept up for the five years they’ve been on the island. So after work at around 8pm, all supervisors and management were all gathered at their place, starting the night with some Pol Roger bubbly and strawberries. Nice. *Hick*
The place was set up real prettily — outdoors in the garden, lots of fairy lights and paper lanterns, live music, sumptuous food with an open grill, and even their own personal Christmas tree!
I must admit I was pretty wary initially, the whole idea of these parties where you are expected to mingle and make inane conversations, pretending you’re having the time of your life when you’d much rather be back in your own room in bed, chatting to your hubby. But since I had no choice but to be there (it’s one of those events where a no-show is a real boo-boo… sekali bonus kena cut), I might as well try to enjoy myself. So yes, had myself a couple of glasses of champagne, indulged once again in the feast before me, had one too many desserts, and partook in jolly light-hearted exchanges.
I must say though that other than being all dressed up, people-wise, everyone’s pretty much the same as on usual days. Nobody seemed to be too out-of-character. Perhaps it has to do with working and living on an island, as opposed to a grey office block right smack in the middle of a concrete jungle. Seems like people have a more laid-back attitude in general, not to say that they’re not industrious when needs be, but that no one’s too uptight and stuffy on the whole. Well then again, I’ve only been here 10 days, I’m sure I still have TONS to discover about the island and its inhabitants! *wink wink* You know, I REALLY feel like a Survivor contestant, what was that? Outlast and outplay?
But no, today, spurred on by a rather touching speech by the GM, everyone present seemed more like family. And one thing that rather impressed me was that we each got individually wrapped presents.
Not just that, but they each had specific name tags. And after dinner, Carsten actually read and gave out presents to each and everyone present. I don’t know, is this supposed to be quite common? Am I just deprived or haven’t been working for very nice people? Anyway, the whole time I was like, please don’t leave me out, please don’t leave me out, so imagine how relieved I was to hear my name read. On this occasion, I didn’t need a shovel. You’d never know with these things…
All in all, yep, Christmas this year was much less dreadful than I had imagined it would be, in fact, it was almost heartwarming. And events like these are really good for newbies like me cause I get to interact with people from different departments, whom I don’t normally see on a daily basis. All part of trying to settle in. I mean, coming here was also meant to be a social exercise for me. Yep, I set myself the task of learning how to socialize and rub shoulders with other people over the course of my stay here. Not that I DON”T know how to do it, but that normally I quite abhor it, and couldn’t care less. But I realize that if I was going to survive in the US, or actually anywhere in the business world, I’d better learn to get comfortable with it, even if I didn’t particularly enjoy it. Sigh… what to do? 这个世界是很现实的. Just yesterday at Guest Cocktails, Zafer, our housekeeping manager said to a guest, to get anywhere, to rise in rank, it’s not about what you know, but who you know. Hmm…
But enough of that, it’s Christmas! Time of festivity and merry-making! Come come!
Always start with the food, great spread as usual
+ open grill, cooking for you on the spot. You betcha BBQ lobster was on the menu!
And of course, fine food goes wonderfully with live music.
Here’s Zafer, our housekeeping manager — Turkish, and so very very entertaining. Zey, who’s the assistant spa manager is his wife, she’s great too! My fave couple on this island definitely. Both have really helped in making me feel welcome.
The parlez-francais bunch — girl on left, Cynthia, is also my roommate. Guy in white is Frederic — second in charge
GM posing for what was supposedly a candid shot, I notice he does that quite a lot…
More party people…
…and merry makers.
This table was starting to lose it… Haha, and that lady in the lime green top, that’s my boss, aka. spa manager, Tara! As you can see, she’s really cool. She means business, but also very understanding. Got lots to learn from her.
And finally, yep, see, the table with everyone’s presents on it! In fact, found out that not just us, but every staff member on the island actually gets a Christmas present. Aww… that’s pretty nice isn’t it? Must commend for effort lah.
And that concludes my X’mas 2006 report. Sigh… finally tomolo my off day. Happiness. When you work 6 days/week, you REALLY relish your one off day. I wonder what I’ll get up to? Well, check back in to find out. And thanks everyone who’s sent me nice sweet emails: Joerg, Amy, Chie, Ken, Belli, Ade, Satoko, Wini, Tommy, Jo, laoba and mama, really means a lot.