Last week, our CEO announced that the company didn’t have enough money to do a real holiday party, so instead, we would all go out to lunch together this week.  Our office manager proceeded to send an email telling us where we would be going for lunch, and asking everyone to reply only with their preference of date – Tuesday or Wednesday.  He was very precise in his instructions.  “Please reply back to me only with preferred date.”  Granted, he could have meant, “Send your reply only to me, do not reply to everyone on this email chain.”  Whatever his meaning, it didn’t matter anyway.  The average office worker doesn’t have the self-control to only do what the email says, especially when a restaurant is involved.  A minor argument ensued.

One guy (a transplant from China that now works with us in the US) was particularly disappointed at the lunch plans.  He emailed back to everyone with this:

If we really have to eat Indian buffet, I am not a big fan of it.

My little suggestion is that we should try the [ABC of India]

In 123 4^th St

At least it has a better rating than [XYZ of India] in the yelp.com

We also have one woman in the office that is from India.  To disgruntled guy, she immediately retorted:

Hi All,

I know, which the better place to eat Indian food as I am from India myself. Don’t go by the rating on Yelp. I have eaten at [ABC of India] can say that It’s worst I ever had.

[XYZ of India], was previously “Bombay Something or Other” food was good then, not sure how it is now. Anything other than [ABC of India] would be good choice.

It’s very clear this woman is from India.  You’d never guess anything else, so why she had to assert that she was from India escapes me.  In the end, though, we did go to the original restaurant proposed by Office Manager and endorsed by Indian Woman.

When it came time to go, though, none of us really wanted to go.  That’s the thing about holiday parties – you don’t really feel like going, but if the company didn’t plan something, everyone would be pissed off.  So, we went.  It took an inordinate amount of time to figure out how people were going to group up into cars to share rides, but we eventually got there and dove into the Indian Buffet.  The CEO decided to sit at my table, which meant our conversation was initially a little stiff.  Another guy at the table who I really enjoy working with, the Indian guy who always says “long back” when he means “a long time ago,” decided to tell us a few stories of his arrival to the U.S. from India.  Pretty soon I was in stitches.  The stories were funny on their own, but this guy is funny and his ability to laugh at himself is wonderful.  More soon…