Memo to the organizers, participants, and attendees of work-related wacky fun parties: YOU ARE DUMB.
Before I get to the meat of this, I think I should probably address the burning question of whether Terri Carlin still qualifies as VERY DUMB despite having dropped her lawsuit, claiming to have 'made her point'. The answer is, unsurprisingly, YES.
So anyway, these fuckheads in the workplace really need to get over their apparent disappointment at not being picked for the school play. Onstage OR backstage.
I mean, that's the nicest possible motivation I can think of for people wanting to spend time and energy turning a conference room into a "tropical paradice", which traditionally means one potted palm in the corner, one pineapple ring in the Hawaiian Punch, three managers you've never met before in grass skirts and leis, and someone's battered Don Ho gag gift CD playing wanly on an underpowered, tinny boom box.
I guess, somehow, I'd wrongly assumed that after two decades of cable TV and one decade of the Internet, that the rest of you would have also come to the conclusion that seeing a coworker in a cowboy hat or a supervisor in a sombrero is actually very fucking annoying.
But you all just eat that up, don't you. The themed raffles, the singalongs, the costumes, the dreaded interpretations of ethnic food by middle class, middle aged midwesterners. Can't get enough of it. Love it so much you make sure to take pictures and cover bulletin boards with 'em.
You love them so much, in fact, that like some kind of head-shaving, purple-sneaker-wearing castration cult, you cannot imagine that people would not want to join in. That someone might look at the soul-destroying potential of the whole sordid affair and decide that maybe, just maybe, a free plate full of Triscuits, celery sticks, and cocktail weiners in a sea of KC Masterpiece ain't worth the trouble.
But, you know. At least I'm not bitter.
It is not my fault that your work and home life is so lacking that you need to prance around in a hat to feel like you're "cutting loose". But since you all universally refuse to back the fuck off, I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you out as DUMB.