"Team Building" At Work

So, I apologize for not having blogged in a while, I have been busy at work, and busy playing PS3, and then busy being a groomsman at a wedding this weekend. But, it's still been over 2 weeks since my last blog and I feel like I have disappointed my loyal reader (intentionally singular).

Last night was a rather interesting experience - the CEO of my company is in CVG for the week, so we went out to dinner as a company and then after that we decided to hit up a tavern for a while. We wound up staying at the bar until about 10:30, so I didn't get home until about 11, which is about when I am usually headed to bed. It wasn't interesting because I have never been out to a bar past 8 PM, contrary to popular belief. It was interesting because the youngest person out beside me was 40. That's been one of the weirdest parts about this job, I am the youngest in my office by 15 years, the youngest in the entire company by 5, and the only person without kids.

I get along with older people very well - sometimes better than I get along with people my own age. It's just a completely different experience to be at a bar with a bunch of 40+ people when you are typically there with people in the 21-25 range. The other interesting part is trying to balance talking about work with talking about things that are not work. This is especially difficult in our company because the CEO and President were both there, and their lives pretty much revolve around PARTsolutions. Obviously, as the owners, they are going to be extremely involved, and I think that's probably a good thing. Especially as so many other people are watching their companies crash and burn while giving themselves raises, but that's for another time.

The problem is, my life does not revolve around work. I really like my job, but I'm simply not as invested in it as the others might be. So, you have to find that balance between work and other stuff when you're around. If you're not careful, the 5 hours you spend at dinner and "team building" will wind up feeling just like 5 more hours at work. I had that experience a lot in Germany - wake up, get to the office at 8, leave the office at 6, go to dinner to talk about work for 4 more hours, then get back to the hotel so you can go to bed and put in another 14 hours the next day.

Last night we managed to strike a pretty good balance - I got some time to chat mano-a-mano with the CEO about both work and not-work. My only real regret is that I had driven for the night, and since I am not down with drinking and driving, I managed to put down all of 2 beers in the 5 hour time span. I'm not by any means a big drinker, but when the President is buying...

I apologize for the incoherence of this post - I am distracted with www.teamhamsterhat.com right now.