Annual Pain

My company's annual dinner was held on VDay eve. Initially it was slated for VDay, but that was scrapped after many objections from the employees. Duh. I did not want to attend it this year (many colleagues argue that since the company never gives out any bonus, might as well go eat and drink on the company's account), but seeing that the venue was One World Hotel rather than the usual Tropicana Tai Thong, I decided to go regardless of the stupid dress code. Some draconian genius decided to ban sports shoes and jeans, making the dinner a little stuffier. Had to arrive at the venue before 7:00pm to register. Failing to do so would mean no lucky draw for you! Upon arrival at the banquet hall, I was shocked to see so many 'colleagues'. Hardly knew 5% of 'em. Kinda scary really to see such a concentration of staff. Ugh. The registration went by alphabet which made my queue very short. Pitied all the Lees and Chans. Hahahaha. By registering, one gets a $20 and a lucky draw number. At each seat was some printed materials. Handouts for my Chairman's speech. Gawd. Undecipherable drivel. Was grateful that his speech was only eight minutes long instead of the allocated twenty.

Nearly all of the service staff were Bangladeshis. The waiter at my side wore a very tight vest over his shirt. Two sizes too small? His tummy was bursting comically out of the bottom, like a herniated big pao. Drank some wine with the mediocre food. During the lou sang, we all wished for some lucky draw prizes. The sharksfin soup was green (entah pandan ke green tea) and cold. The entertainment for the night was several national wushu exponents, one of 'em being the girl who unabashedly asked for real estate after bringing home a gold in the Asian Games. Ho-hum. In between was a talented lounge singer, but most of the time, her voice was drowned out by my company's trademark vulgarity-- everyone was busy yum seng-ing. Haha. I did not win anything from the lucky draw, but I did manage to get a surpise gift during registration-- a 1TB Western Digital external harddisk! More space for porn!!! One hated colleague won the grand prize of a 42" Phillips LED TV. We moaned and groaned. Better luck next year!